Usable Clicks

Good Advertising is Content Part 2: Digg Content Ads

While brand teams are working harder to make their advertising valuable content for their potential consumers, social media sites are working to turn their social media content into valuable advertising.  Sites like Digg that harvest user generated content have historically found advertising challenging because the unpredictable nature of the user contributions; Digg’s new ad format Digg Content Ads is solving for this, though, by letting brands curate historical articles into a topical banner ad that is a win for everyone involved.

Digg Content Ads are the the type of ad option that the sites has needed since it’s inception.  Great content is submitted by Digg users every day, but the open environment is scary for too many advertisers.  Now advertisers can hand-pick a set of articles that they are comfortable with, that draw the interest of readers who might be interested in their product, and that readers have shown interest in.  Digg readers then get a focused set of content stories around a relevant topic that are already built into the Digg experience.  And Digg gets a way to monetize previously unwanted user generated content.

UPDATE: A great example of the new Digg ad is live for the new Warner Bros. movie Where The Wild Things Are