In the past couple of weeks social platforms Twitter and Facebook have both announced a serious push into Europe. First Twitter opened a London office. On 25th November they announced “Twitter plans to have a small number of people on the ground in Europe in 2011. We’re currently researching locations and potential candidates.” Then Facebook last week announced they would also be strengthening their presence “to help agencies and developers create more effective ad campaigns on the social network.”
The moves by the big two is recognition the importance of advertising on these platforms for brands in Europe. Facebook in particular was recently voted the ‘most important developing advertising platform’ in the IPA online media owner’s survey. Facebook currently has over 1 million developers worldwide working on content for the site and with over 550,000 branded applications now live, so this move is not unexpected.
Both players have realised that the European markets have become hugely important advertising markets and the move means that Facebook can now work directly with agencies and brands to develop highly innovative campaigns, hopefully that will mean far more relevant and integrated efforts from brands.
