Let's get Personal: Facebook Ads

I cannot be the only one who has searched something on the Internet, like sunglasses or books, and have found advertisements on the side of my Facebook page pertaining to the same exact product I was looking up. Or scrolling through your news feed to find a tweet or Facebook post about something that only you would like or be interested in.

            Coincidence? I think not.

With the rapidly evolving world of social media and consumer culture, advertisers have become more creative with implementing advertisements into our personal social networking platforms.
Looking at Facebook’s website (Facebook.com/help), advertisements are determined by:

•      Information you share on Facebook (ex: Pages you like)
•  Other information about you from your Facebook account (ex: your age, your gender, your location, the devices you use to access Facebook).
• Information advertisers and our marketing partners share with us that they already have, like your email address.
• Your activity on websites and apps off of Facebook.

The website says that you have the option of managing the ads on your news feed, but users still see the ads that are popped up before they have the change to manage their advertisement settings. 

According to Knowledge@Wharton.com “consumers no longer need to seek marketing and media. Marketing and media come to them” (2015). This puts social media users in a low power position because they do not have control over the ads they see on social media unless they take the time to manage their ads. Due to the fact that these ads are tailored to specific users, they will be more inclined, and interested to look into the product or store that is being advertised to them.

The advertising companies that market their products to social media users have the advantage of learning personal beliefs, values and interests based on the information given on an individual's profile. Author, Throin Klosowski points out that the more information that is given on one's profile the more personalized their advertisements can be ("How Facebook Uses Your Data to Target Ads, Even Offline). It seems as though social media is not only a place for an online community, but online displaying of information that can be used to tailor products and companies that a specific individual would enjoy, or buy from. 

Advertising within modern consumer culture acts as a rhetorical tool to redirect behaviors to correlate with marketer’s beliefs and motives. In Popping Culture, Douglas Kellner states, “advertising is ‘persuasive,’ serving to manipulate consumers into purchasing products be channeling, steering, and directing behavior…by offering commodities as magical solutions to every conceivable problem and as a vehicles to life’s most intense joys” (27). Due to the persuasiveness of advertising, it makes sense that marketer will go to all costs to reach the consumer even it is through personal social networking sites. 

With this in mind, consumers can be aware of the tailored advertisements given to them by the interests expressed on social media, as well as their searching history. It is important to consider that every move on the Internet can be collected and analyzed in a way that will benefit you as a consumer, and persuade you into buying certain products and shopping at specific stores. These ads are unique because they are personally customized, and the layout of these ads are disguised as a normal Facebook posts; not an advertisement. Social media users can see how marketing and advertising companies are able to combine social media's availability for mass communication, but using that platform in a more interpersonal level due to these personalized ads.