• Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, November 2, 2011 1:38 PM

As their fears of open, consumer-controlled environments continue to fade, advertisers are embracing social media (read: Facebook) as never before. That doesn’t mean, however, that they’re equally excited to pay for the social presence.

As The Wall Street Journal reports: “The question for Facebook Inc. is how much advertisers are willing to pay for the opportunity.” To illustrate, The Journal uses the centerpiece of Ford's online campaign for the 2012 Focus. A free Facebook page hosted by an orange-colored puppet, the campaign won over a new, younger audience in just a few weeks.

Yet, while the entire multichannel campaign cost Ford an estimated $95 million, it spent just pennies on the dollar for Facebook ads, according to The Journal.

More to the point, “Facebook's estimated market value, now in the neighborhood of $70 billion, is founded on the belief that companies will spend big to advertise on the site,” The Journal reminds us. In other words, if Facebook can’t convince advertisers to spend more of their budgets on the site, investors are in for a big surprise.

Read the whole story at Wall Street Journal »