The Distasteful Side of Social Media Puts Advertisers on Their Guard

Evan Vucci/Associated Press

Advertising on social media is also becoming a bigger piece of many digital advertising budgets.

As social media sites pursue advertising in a bid for new revenue, they are finding that they must simultaneously create a safe space for the advertisers they attract.

With the money, they are discovering, comes responsibility.

Facebook learned that the hard way last week. After failing to get the social network to remove pages glorifying violence against women, feminist activists waged a digital media campaign that highlighted marketers whose ads were found alongside those pages. Nissan and several smaller advertisers temporarily removed their ads from the site.

As public pressure mounted, Facebook acknowledged that its systems to identify and remove such content had not worked effectively and promised to improve those processes. The company began removing the pages in question.

The episode underscored a conundrum for social media sites forged from the philosophy that free speech should thrive on the Internet: will they be able to control content created by their users, so that advertisers are not embarrassed by material beyond their control?

“Certainly advertisers have a singular purpose, they want to reach consumers in a positive way,” said David Reuter, the vice president for corporate communications at Nissan Americas. “It is up to the social companies to create an environment that provides that level of support and safety for the companies.”

Nissan immediately began working with Facebook to find a solution, Mr. Reuter said, and the brand has resumed advertising on the site. Mr. Reuter praised Facebook for acting quickly and said the company “assured us that Nissan will be able to opt out of advertising on any pages that may be deemed offensive.”

Dove, another brand that activists cited for having ads on Facebook pages denigrating women, said in a statement that it was working with Facebook to have such pages removed. “We are also refining our targeting terms in case any further pages like these are created,” said Stacie Bright, global director of marketing communications for Dove, which is owned by Unilever. “Facebook advertising targets people’s interests, not pages, and we do not select the pages our adverts appear on.”

Exactly how advertisers will be able to prevent their brands from appearing on Facebook pages with offensive content is unclear. Sarah Feinberg, director of policy communications at Facebook, declined to offer specifics about how advertisers would be able to better manage where their ads appear but said that Facebook had a policy that “if a page is flagged as controversial, there are not ads on those sites.” The site, she said, does not pre-emptively identify content as controversial until it is reported.

While traditional media companies have provided advertisers with more predictable ad positions â€" during a certain television show, for instance, or in specific pages of a magazine â€" the level of control that marketers have over online display ads is not as precise. Digital ads are often placed using high-speed algorithmic technologies that allow advertisers to aim ads at a certain demographic, say men ages 30 to 40.

“You don’t have any control, quite honestly,” said Audrey Siegel, the president of the media agency TargetCast TCM, part of MDC Partners’ Maxxcom Global Media Group. “You’re never going to know your ad was here or there. It will change every time a user refreshes their browser.”

Robert J. Quigley, a senior lecturer specializing in social media at the University of Texas’s journalism school, said that it only made sense that social media companies would face more pressure from companies as they demanded more ad dollars.

“More and more advertising dollars are moving to nontraditional online forums. That is why there is more pressure to conform: money is behind it,” he said.

Many social media sites are also free for users, so as these companies expand, they must look to advertising for revenue. (Facebook had its initial public offering last year, and there is widespread speculation that Twitter will follow its lead soon, putting additional pressure on these sites to satisfy investors.)

Advertising on social media is also becoming a bigger piece of many digital advertising budgets. According to the research firm eMarketer, revenue from social media advertising in the United States is expected to reach $6.43 billion by 2015, or 12.2 percent of all digital advertising spending. Revenue from Facebook advertising in the United States is expected to reach $3.87 billion, up from $2.75 billion in 2013. Revenue from Twitter advertising in the United States is expected to reach $484 million in 2013 and just over $1 billion by 2015, eMarketer said.

A version of this article appeared in print on June 4, 2013, on page B3 of the New York edition with the headline: The Distasteful Side of Social Media Puts Advertisers on Their Guard.