Yesterday, while web-surfing on Facebook, I received a personalized ad 2 seconds after my profile status update. Though the ad was not directly related, it was a highly intelligent selection out of a million other possibilities. This content-personalization technology is creating extraordinary opportunity for small businesses.
Facebook is an immensely powerful marketing tool with both highly capable push and pull functions. More specifically, it achieves every marketer’s dream – automatic market segmentation and targeting. This is an extremely efficient way for small businesses to reach its target markets because of:
Low Cost – Since all the market information is readily available, small business does not incur costs for market research to determine target market.
Effectiveness – Brand position will be effectively delivered because ads are only shown to people with higher likelihood of taking interest. In effect, brands more effectively develop relationships with potential customers since the ads presented are relevant to their needs.
Levelled Playing Field – The intelligent ad-filtering process decreases threat of competition with the playing field of Facebook being levelled – brands, big or small, will have to go through the same system only to be seen by the people who would be interested.
Connectivity – There is an tremendous sense of immediacy in ads displaying seconds after user online activity. This is crucial for retention because it encourages impulse interest. I admit. I clicked on the ad because I was immediately intrigued by what was presented to me. In addition, Facebook’s ‘like’ function promotes a strong network effect in which one can be instantly influenced by peers’ ‘likes.’
However, from the perspective of the receivers who cannot espace this frenzy, an issue of security arises. Will web-users always be fond of the carefully-personalized ads? Or will some be concerned about external bodies utilizing private information to achieve unjustified goals?
Speaking for myself, although I thought the ad showing up seconds after my update was pretty cool, I couldn’t help but to feel a bit watched…
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