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NYTimes.com Joins Facebook Ad System, Creates Profile Page

The New York Times Company today announced it has joined the new Facebook Ads system, which allows users to learn about New York Times, Boston Globe and the Times Company’s Regional Media Group content through word-of-mouth referrals from their friends.

The NYTimes.com’s Facebook page (www.facebook.com/nytimes) goes live today and will allow users to interact and affiliate with The Times in the same way they interact with other user profiles. Users can sign on to the page as a fan and enjoy a variety of New York Times features such as top news, most emailed articles, video and The New York Times News Quiz.  They can then share information about The Times with their friends and can recommend an article or a video, for example.

The Boston.com page also goes live today as does one of the Times Company’s Regional Media Group pages (Gatorsports.com/facebook).

Facebook announced today its new ad plan, which includes - in part - allowing brands to create their own Facebook pages. The branded pages are free, but companies can also buy banner ads that appear under feed items, with links to their profiles.

Brands have long attempted to build their own profile pages on Facebook, with no success getting past identity moderators.

“We expect our business profile page on Facebook and the ‘Beacon’ opt-in feature to position our content as top of mind among new and existing readers alike,” says Vivian Schiller, senior vp and general manager of NYTimes.com.

NYTimes.com is also using the Beacon opt-in feature in the hopes of bringing Times content to top-of-mind among new and existing readers. Beacon enables users to decide if they want to share their activities from other sites back to Facebook for distribution to their friends.

Beacon gives Facebook members, for example, the option to share their ratings of travel venues featured on NYTimes.com with their Facebook friends.