Marketing Implications: Facebook

Of all the social media platforms around these days in 2023, the one I personally use the most is Facebook. Every morning I habitually check my phone for notifications, and typically spend too much time mindlessly scrolling the newsfeed laughing at silly memes or getting distracted by cute ads like these:

They always get my attention with sparkly platform shoes, or funky bright colored alternative fashion. I try to resist for awhile, but after been shown the ad so many times I usually crack and look at the website to do a little browsing. Once I actually ended up purchasing from the company YRU from one of these ads because the promotion seemed liked a great deal for how expensive the boots normally are. As for the Shein ads, I'm always attracted to them but become instantly turned off once I see that they are from said brand. Shein is known for being cheap quality and made under poor working conditions in third world countries. I love the styles, but not enough to wait so long for shipping, have them fall apart, and be bad for the environment/people. The fact that Facebook allows them to advertise so much on their platform is morally questionable to me.

You must admit that the style and aesthetics of these ads are definitely niche. I don't see the general public rocking clothes like this on a daily basis, but people like me absolutely love them! And that seems to be the point of social media marketing, to directly target a specific audience with a unique product or service that appeals just to them. Facebook, now known as Meta, is particularly good at using data to accomplish this. They have even been caught up in a few controversies regarding the lengths they will go to acquire and use data, leading to breaches of privacy. For example, they are currently in hot water with the mental health company BetterHelp, which is being sued by the FTC for pushing "its users to hand over sensitive health information so it could turn around and target them with ads, making false promises about privacy along the way (Germain, 2023)." This begs the question, where do we as consumers draw the line on how much information social media companies can collect about us and sell to others? I personally don't mind being shown cute clothes that appeal to me, but I do find it a little weird to have more sensitive information like my mental health used to target me.

Reference

Germain, T. (2023, March 2). FTC Set to Fine BetterHelp $7.8 Million for Sending Facebook Your Mental Health Data. Gizmodo. https://gizmodo.com/betterhelp-ftc-facebook-mental-health-data-fined-1850179686