facebook advertising "It's disruptive and it doesn't work"

"Noone wants to be advertised to through facebook, it's a place to connect and share with my friends & family, why would I want a brand in that space? It's disruptive and it doesn't work."

Advertising - is a form of communication intended to persuade an audience (viewers, readers or listeners) to take some action.

Disruption - is the (usually deliberate or intended) interruption of normal work or practice.

Advertising has always been disruptive. It is primarily designed to interrupt you from your normal everyday activities and pursuade you to take some action. The constructs of traditional mass media (print, TV, radio) have always facilitated this model of advertising, the advert or message is always pre-packaged, aimed and broadcast at a pre-determined group of consumers, mostly via generic fields such as age, sex and location. It interrupts these consumers whilst they are watching TV, reading the newspaper, sitting at a bus stop or listening to the radio. It's forced, it's a push of content towards consumers. Whether they like it or not, they're still going to be fed the message.

Along comes something like facebook. It's a place to connect, share, interact and keep up to date with things happening in your world. It's also a place where you can become connected to non living entities like brands, common interest groups or companies.

YOU decide to be connected to these things.

If you have an affinity with a brand, you fan them. You are then connected with them. You have given that brand explicit permission to have access into your social graph, you are effectively welcoming that brands message into your social world, because you find it relevant to you.

If the brand is smart, they will understand and respect your social space, grateful for the personal access you have granted them and send you information that interests you, is relevant to you and can help improve your life in a helpful, meaningful way.

Understand that this approach is still, very much, advertising. The brand still needs to sell products and make money. It still needs to pursuade an audience to take action.

The thing that doesn't need to apply to advertising anymore, the part that is irrelevant now, is disruption.