FACEBOOK users beware: advertisers are watching your page and they know what you need.
Relationship status single? Dating agency ads pop up on your Facebook page.
Update your status to engaged and the spruiking is suddenly about wedding gowns, weight loss and planning hens’ nights.
Married? Then you must be thinking about babies, credit cards and mortgages.
Australia’s six million Facebook users are being targeted by businesses, which pay tens of thousands of dollars a month for access to personal information.
The advertising strategies are so refined businesses can target their products according to sex, age, location, relationship status, job title, workplace or university.
Even subjects such as favourite music or pastimes can be drilled into for the purposes of marketing.
Advertisers respond to a Facebook page update in the blink of an eye.
The Sunday Telegraph witnessed one user change their status from single to engaged last week.
Shannan Human, 30, of Dee Why, said ads on her profile page changed drastically when she changed such identifying details as her relationship status.
“Since I’ve changed my status to married I keep getting all this baby stuff, and I don’t want to have a baby,” she said.
“And when I changed to engaged I used to get stacks of wedding gown ads and weight-loss ads.
“I find it a bit of a pest, to be honest. I use Facebook primarily as a social networking site to keep in touch with my friends and family.
“I feel like it’s an invasion of my privacy if I don’t want my stuff sold to a third party – I’m there to socialise with friends, not to make money for other people.”
Ben Bevins, 30, became engaged to his fiance Lauren in December and noticed the ads for wedding suits and rings straightaway.
“It was actually a good break from all the muscle-building ads and ‘single women in your area’ ads,” he said, laughing.
Read more at news.com.au
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Fiona, while I love your blog I think this post is a little misleading.
Most advertisers using Facebook do not have direct access to anyone’s profile information. Meaning, in most cases a business cannot see individual profiles beyond the profiles that an administrator (not the business) is ‘Friends’ with.
Ads on Facebook are created by the sorting of information–you tell Facebook who you want your ad to reach. For example, you can select demographic information that includes education, keywords that someone may list in interests or job titles, specific location, etc. Facebook’s algorithm then sorts this automatically…without businesses being able to see who is and is not receiving the ad beyond an estimated reach.
An organization with a Fan Page will tell you that they can see basic demographic information of fans, but beyond age, location, gender, etc. they do not have access to any profiles (beyond the personal friends of the administrator).
Big brother here is NOT the advertisers, it’s Facebook.
Thanks for your comments. I agree that the responsibility for ad placement rests with Facebook. I understand from the media coverage that some Facebook participants have launched a petition in protest to the advertising. The marketer in me says, well, they need to cover the costs of running Facebook, which I imagine to be significant. But the model fails to impress users of the site. No surprises there. On the whole, the online audience is bored to death with PPC style ads. So if you look at the Skyrock model – you can advertise, engage your social media audience and make a profit. Facebook needs to get creative. In the Skyrock case study, I wrote about an advertising campaign on behalf of the French army that was run through the site. It was the replica “reality TV” model. “Actors” were recruited via the site, shows were broadcasted via the site. Engagement was high, entertainment value was high and it achieved what the advertiser wanted (which was more army recruits). The lesson in this is that it is possible for advertisers to use social media to achieve their objective – but how they use it will ultimately determine whether it succeeds or fails. And from that point of view, the advertisers need to take responsibility too.
Isn’t it the same as advertisers targeting housewives during the day, junk food during kids’ viewing times and men’s products on sport radio? If not a little smarter?
Hi Melanie, you know on the whole people are sick to death of ads. The sooner that advertisers realize that what used to work doesn’t work now, the better off they will be. It comes as no surprise to me that Facebook users find the advertising an invasion of their privacy. (I might add that I feel for Facebook insomuch as it needs to make a profit.) But as I replied in an earlier comment, if you want to advertise, get creative. There are websites out there that are advertising in such a way as to attract their audience, to create engagement and achieve what the advertisers are looking for. As an aside, and as a parent, I’m very glad to hear talk of a banning of junk food ads targeting kids. You know, for years my daughter thought McDonalds was a toy store…
I do agree that advertising needs an injection of creativity. The stereotyping really gets to me (if I see one more wife making a fool of her other half…) and junk food advertising is another issue altogether. But I’m not sure why you have singled out Facebook for their targeting methods.
Hi Melanie, thanks for commenting. I haven’t particularly singled out Facebook – although this post relates to Facebook because it is topical at the moment. Facebook is the world’s largest social media site of its type at the moment – so here is a great example of a bunch of young entrepreneurs that have done a great job in attracting an enormous community. If you’re the leader, which Facebook is, why not lead by example? Why not show that you have both the brains to create something special that people want to be part of as well the creativity to monetize it in such a way that positively resonates with your audience?
Hi Fiona.
I like your post and your perspective on this subject. I agree with you that advertising needs to become more creative and engaging. The unfortunate part is that no matter how creative marketers get, people are just plain tired of interruption marketing. Facebook has only skimmed the surface of what is to come in regard to scanning profiles to target ads. In the future, I imagine we will see much more in depth software that will utilize key words and preferences by internet users to target consumers with specific products. We need to understand that as traditional media begins to go by the wayside, new advertising methods will be adopted. If we don’t like it, we ignore it, as it always has been. The frustration will begin to stem from the specifics, not the advertising. Until consumers pay for their right to use platforms such as Facebook, there is not much reason to complain.
Thanks for the post! Interesting discussion.
Christine