Most of us millennials have used Facebook for a solid chunk of our teenage years in high school, and now well into our present university lives. But somewhere within those weekly status updates, funny cat video shares, new friend requests, “poking” wars, and incessant Candy Crush invitations, Facebook became the largest, most influential and effective market research organization in the world. The line between private and public information has been blurred, if not completely erased, by a social media platform so expansive and so fundamental to how we connect and communicate in society today, that we would feel isolated from our culture without it. Facebook tapped into the fundamental human need for social belonging, and digitized it. And what is the business in which a social media platform like Facebook operates? The business of information sharing.
Anyone with a valid Facebook Ads account can use the Audience Insights tool. This tool allows marketers to pull information like age, gender, location, religion, political views, relationship statuses, number of friends, and more, and use that information for whatever purpose – like, perhaps, conducting a preliminary target market needs assessment before designing a social media campaign. Furthermore, as we explored in class, Audience Insights allows you to monitor “likes,” clicks, conversions, and other analytics to gain a rich understanding of consumer lifestyles, behaviours, personalities, trends, and spending habits.
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