With Facebook’s Beacon ad targeting debacle a distant memory for most, Tim Kendall, Facebook’s director of monetization, tried a soft sell on publishers and marketers at Borrell Associates’ Local Online Advertising Conference.

The social net is bent on growth—it just reached 400 million users—and Kendall’s message is that small local advertisers should follow suit. Local marketers, who generally strive for a more personal relationship to their customers, should feel an obvious affinity for Facebook. The social net’s message is that it sees advertisers and users fairly equally: they’re all part of the same ecosystem. Plus, there’s the way Facebook features like status updates and fan pages blend concepts of personal and professional marketing messages. “From the beginning, we weren’t going to do an ad product in the traditional interruptive way,” Kendall said. “We were going to make them in the same way we’ve used other features. We can create ads that are indistinguishable from content.”

Beta reseller program, where Facebook will launch a reseller program with two or three marketers. Facebook will work with them on marketing and training in how to use the program.

During the Q&A, an audience member asked about the social net’s approach to the classifieds business. Facebook is currently working with Oodle. Kendall: “Classifieds will exist on Facebook, but we won’t build it ourselves. If Oodle or others want to build a classifieds app, we’re in favor of that. But that will be the extent of our involvement.”

{/exp:get_graph} {/exp:tweet_quote}