- #SXSW: R.I.P Content Management System
(6 comments) - 5 Things to Consider when Integrating your Content Management System and Portal
(6 comments) - Is Microsoft's New Windows Phone 7 Smartphone Competition for iPhone?
- Installing SharePoint 2010 on Windows 7
(5 comments) - April 12 is the New Release Date for Visual Studio 2010
- CMS Review: Oracle Universal Content Management (UCM)
(3 comments) - How Document Management Has Evolved in SharePoint 2010
(3 comments)
Get the NewsletterAre Facebook Engagement Ads Selling Your Data?
Facebook has been offering advertising space now for some time, but it hasn’t had the overall effect that the social network powerhouse is looking for. For the last year Facebook has supposedly been working on a new style of Engagement Ads. They bring social and viral to advertising in a whole new way. Some are concerned though that the ads will bring the potential for private data to be sold.
Facebook is rumored to have plans to begin implementing new engagement based ads they previewed at the World Economic Forum in Davos. And although these ads are nothing new, they do have a new approach according to sources.
Facebook’s new advertising set up is said to be largely poll based and will collect various data from users and funnel it to appropriate persons. There are also reports that Facebook is attempting to update statuses or “walls” when you interact with an ad or poll so that it adds a viral aspect to the advertising, even if it is only in-house.
The “new” ads are set to be polls placed on the first page you go to when you go to Facebook. They are designed to gather information in a fun and interactive way. Businesses will be able to direct specific questions to the public and gather direct responses to that question.
Companies and market analysts can then take that information and apply it to demographics, regions, and start discovering what people want and where. For polls like this to be really effective analysts will also need access to age, location, sex, marital status and potentially more; which is where the problem comes in.
Rumor or Well-kept Secret?
It is being called a “sentiment engine”, a new set of engagement ads and an attempt to sell your information. But according to Facebook, their poll-driven set of ads is nothing new nor is the system they are built with. There even seems to be some debate as to the use of the data collected by them as well and whether or not the rumors floating are true.
All sides of the argument have merit. Advertisers and marketers are looking for new and exciting ways to engage the public, the public is concerned about personal data being sold and Facebook is trying to stay up during a down economy.
The problem surrounding all of it is concrete word from Facebook that rumors are true. They reportedly told ReadWriteWeb.com that there have been no changes to existing engagement ads or polls on Facebook and that the system shown at Davos was not new at all.
Right, wrong, or simply untrue may not be relevant, though. In a troubled economy where retailers are scrambling to avoid bankruptcy, banks are closing their doors around the world, and even Microsoft is laying off Facebook needs to do something because simple traffic numbers may not be enough in the end.
Was this article useful?
Email It
Stumble It
Add RSS3 Reader Comments
Leave a Response
Processing...
Job Openings View all
| Post a job
| 
RSS
- Web Designer at BuzzFeed
- Sales Engineer at Vibes Media
- Sr. Ruby on Rails Developer at ChallengePost
- Internet Marketing Analytic Optimization at eBay
- Web Content Director at Bodybuilding.com
- New Media Manager (Social Media) at Citrix Online
- Web Graphic Artist at Cross Commerce Media
- Copywriter at Laserfiche
Featured Events View all
| Add event
| RSS
- Apr 21, 2010 – Drupalcon San Francisco 2010
- Apr 22, 2010 – AIIM International Expo 2010
- May 5, 2010 – CMS Expo 2010 (Evanston)
- May 6, 2010 – J Boye Philadelphia 2010
- May 20, 2010 – Gilbane Conference San Francisco
Unfortunately, none of us in Facebook's communications team was contacted before CMS Wire wrote this story, and it contains significant factual errors and misleading assertions that I want to be sure to clarify. Earlier this week, there were reports, originating from an article in the UK’s 'The Daily Telegraph' newspaper, which suggest that Facebook is doing all sorts of things that it is not doing. Let me explain what announcements and initiatives Facebook has actually undertaken:
At this years’ World Economic Forum, Facebook ran a series of polls during the many panel sessions to provide the Davos audience with real-time insight into the opinions of people outside of the conference. These polls were conducted on Facebook using internal tools. We were very pleased with the reception these polls received at Davos, whose audience is comprised of many world and business leaders. It is important to note that the polls that we ran at the World Economic Forum were not part of a commercially available product for advertisers and should not be confused with Facebook’s Engagement Ads.
Facebook’s Engagement Ads have been available since September. Early last week we separately announced that we were testing a new type of Engagement Ad, which enables advertisers to pose a question within the ad itself. Engagement Ads were not used to run the polls seen at the Davos conference.
Finally, I want to clarify that Facebook has, for many years, allowed the targeting of advertising in a non-personally identifiable way, based on profile attributes. For example, an advertiser could target an ad to male users over 30 years of age who list snowboarding among their interests. However, the advertiser does not receive any data about individual users, and only knows that their ad was shown to a certain number of users who fit the category. Further, Facebook is not selling any users’ information for market research purposes. Nothing has changed in our approach, and Facebook is committed, as always, to connecting users in a trusted environment.
Matt Hicks
Corporate Communications, Facebook
Advertising and marketing on social networks is a great opportunity to create brand awareness and acquire customers.
Annalise
http://www.ezanga.com
www.hoponthis.com
@Matt:
Certainly appreciate the updated information. Didn't intend to mislead, only present the information we had. Thank you for clarifying.
One thing I am curious about...you mention, "Early last week we separately announced that we were testing a new type of Engagement Ad, which enables advertisers to pose a question within the ad itself."
What information will be available to the advertiser about the people responding to the question in the ad if any? Or will they simply be able to target the ad as always on Facebook and receive answer results only?