Facebook Explores With Comment Ads- Click here http://bit.ly/kxk9vr for full article

Facebook Explores With Comment Ads- Click here http://bit.ly/kxk9vr for full article

Facebook has announced a new ad service called Comments. It's called Comments because it mimics the conversations users can have on their walls, even though the conversation is actually started by a company.

Here's how it works. First, the brand poses a question through the service. The question then appears as a traditional Facebook display ad on the right side of the screen. When a user clicks on the link, they are directed to answer the question. If they do so, then the question and their response to it will appear on their news feed. The user's Facebook friends can then add to the conversation.

Several major corporations have already signed up for the service. Hallmark plans to ask consumers, "How do you make summertime a special occasion?" Allstate will ask multiple questions as part of its ongoing "Mayhem" ad campaign, including “What’s the worst thing your kid’s ever done in the car?” The unit will initially be available only to premium Facebook advertising accounts, and will not be accessible from the "a la carte" advertising options.

Comments is the eighth ad service available on Facebook. Others include Like, Event, Sampling, Application, and Video Comment. However, it's the first Facebook ad program designed by an ad agency. Specifically, it was designed by Leo Burnett, the Chicago-based agency responsible for many famous advertising characters such as Tony the Tiger and for Canon's latest Photo 5 campaign.

"Unlike in other advertising, we're not telling people how to think about the brand," said Leo Burnett's chief innovation officer, Mark Renshaw. "We're just asking them to participate in the conversation." The service represents an interesting new branding strategy. Instead of paying large amounts of money to ad agencies and multimedia specialists to help guess what image consumers will respond to, participating companies are encouraging consumers to paint their company's brand with images from their own lives.

This announcement Facebook's innovative advertising service comes in the same week that semi-rival Twitter announced it would include sponsored messages in user's timelines. It's also the same week that Google announced Google+, its competitor to Facebook. The social media market is certainly heating up.