Facebook has introduced a new a unit that will expand in size if friends “like” the brand it is associated with.
This format will be a sponsored message that will promote a specific product, but based on the recommendation of friends, will grow in size. The purpose of the ad “growing” is specifically based on the idea that people tend to like what their friends like, and would be more likely to click on an advertisement (and thus make more money to Facebook) than ads that don’t have as many recommendations.
This comes on the heel of several other marketing changes being made to Facebook, some which have been heavily criticized as possibly breaking the current effective model. For example, people have pointed out that the newsfeed and ticker could actually hurt advertisers by taking attention away from advertising to the moving feed of updates.
