CBS Expands Facebook Presence with Amazing Race Page

Network to Target Ads on Social-Networking Site to Fans of Reality Show

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 11/7/2007 11:31:00 AM

CBS is adding an Amazing Race page to social-networking site Facebook via Facebook Ads, a new marketing initiative that lets companies market their goods and services virally by targeting users whose interests dovetail with their potential customers and viewers.

For example, CBS will try to reach people who say they like to travel or hike, or target users from the same hometown as one of the contestants.

The Amazing Race page will include maps, trivia, a travel log and a virtual competition with past Race winners. Users will also be offered a chance to win a trip for two anywhere in the world as an incentive to visit the page.

Facebook claims some 52 million active users.

While social-networking sites began as a way for college students and other kids to have their own world on the Internet, marketers have increasingly entered the space to sell and promote to them -- a move that has some media activists concerned.