That this is even news shows you how wrong traders have it. Coke (KO) and Ford (F), we heard today, still like Facebook (FB).
That's right: Coke and Ford, which have been advertising on Facebook, will keep right on advertising with Facebook. This, of course, is a departure from another piece of non-news: In the prelude to Facebook's egg of an Initial Public Offering, General Motors (GM) decided to break advertising ties with the social media giant.
That break-up was greeted with a collective gasp, the same way today's, uh, non-break-up bit of gossip was met in some quarters with sighs of relief.
Here's the deal, though, tracking individual advertising decisions can lead you to the brink of madness in seconds. And it'll never help you make a buck.
Since time immemorial, advertisers, always searching for better, more definable results from all the money they spend getting out word about their product, have always been fickle. When the Internet rolled around, there was fleeting hope that the process of advertising would turn more scientific.
You could track clicks, getting an actual bead on what worked.
It didn't quite work out that way. Then social media rolled around and hope revived -- we'd all be blinded by science.
Well, it hasn't really worked out that way. Advertisers are more or less playing the same finger-in-the-wind-best-wild-guess game that they always have.
And they are still fickle.
That's why, when it comes to Facebook or any other company raking in advertising dollars, don't sweat the small stuff. There might be big and undeniable trends. If, for example, advertisers left in droves: that would be news. But an advertiser leaving here? Staying there? That's just a tool of distraction. Never ever make a buy, or sell, decision based upon such non-news.
Pay no attention to that Ad Man behind the curtain.
Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.
