Technology and Investment, 2013, 4, 30-44 http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ti.2013.41005 Published Online February 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ti) Structural Holes and Banner-Ad Click-Throughs Starling David Hunter III1*, Ravi Chinta2 1Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA 2Williams College of Business, Xavier University, Cincinnati, USA Email: *
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[email protected] Received September 12, 2012; revised October 17, 2012; accepted October 25, 2012 ABSTRACT This paper examines the impact of social capital on advertising performance in an online social network. Specifically, we show that a widely-employed measure of social capital—network constraint—explains variation in the number of click-throughs received by 5986 banner advertisements appearing on 25 Twitter-related websites. As predicted, banner advertisements receive significantly more clicks when placed on websites that bridge structural holes, i.e. bridge other- wise disconnected segments of the network. Keywords: Online Advertising; Social Network Analysis; Social Capital; Social Networking; Twitter, Social Media; Banner Advertisements; Click-Through 1. Introduction ing?” The idea of taking money to run traditional banner ads Successful advertising models for online social networks on Twitter.com has always been low on our list of in- are proving elusive [1]. Last year Google co-founder Ser- teresting ways to generate revenue. However, facilitating gey Brin expressed some disappointment with the pace connections between businesses and individuals in and performance of his firm’s social network advertising meaningful and relevant ways is compelling. We’re go- efforts. ing to leave the door open for exploration in this area.