Isn't all that evil, but entirely genius. Evil genius?
We all hear Google say: "Don't be evil" but everything they do seems kinda evil when you look at it through a lens. And for some reason, Facebook
always comes out the bad guy.
Well, I used a new option on Facebook and I just have to say, it completely shattered my opinion on data mining.
I am familiar with data mining and advertising and media in general, but it was until just recently I took advantage of Facebook ads. As a business
owner, and an advertiser I have to say what Facebook offers is unparalleled.
You can decide on who see's your ads, "Age, location, race" Which eliminates a ton of nonspecific people that you don't want to pay money to advertise
to.
Let's say you are a Hispanic band, that sings in Latin, and heck, maybe it's jazz even. So a latin Jazz band who only really attracts Latinos from
ages 35-60, and you are a local band that doesn't do gigs outside of a 50 mile radius, well, with a few well placed options, you can make sure you are
only advertising to people in that demographic. More than that, you can advertise to people who know your "friends" on there, but only people who are
not already connected to your band. To sweeten the deal, in doing this you are also only advertising to people who "Liked" Latin Jazz bands similar to
yours. You are essentially only advertising to people who
would be your kind of followers.
For anyone paying hard earned money for advertising, they know how useful, how wanted, how delightful something like this is. There is nothing worse
than doing a big media campaign, dumping a huge portion of your marketing budget into it, only to learn you got 0 ROI back and you probably weren't
even hitting the right audience.
That is big.
So in a nutshell, Facebook ain't that evil. And as the old sayings go, "Follow the money" and "money talks", etc. This is it right here. No grand
conspiracy. Show me the money Jerry, "It's right here, in Facebook."
This kind of advertising is a goldmine.
I would literally spend thousands on something like this because I've spent thousands on something where I had no idea on my demographics.
edit on 19-7-2013 by boncho because: (no reason given)