Facebook Targeted Advertising

As of December, 2014, facebook.com had 1.39 billion active users. That means that almost 20% of everybody in the world has a Facebook account. Facebook was released in 2004 and bypassed Myspace in 2008 as the most popular social media site in the world. As a social media site, Facebook makes most of its revenue from advertisements. Every Facebook user will see multiple ads on the sidebar of their main page, along with advertisements within the news feed that users can share and comment on. The majority of revenue comes from the sponsored ads that firms pay for in order for them to appear on the sidebar.

These sponsored ads appeared on the sidebar of my Facebook profile. For those of you who don't have a Facebook account (approximately 29% of all internet users), Facebook is based off of data that you enter into it to. For example, I attend college, and have the name of the college I attend and the years I attend it entered into my Facebook account. Facebook connects me with other users who attend the college at the same time I do. You can choose what data you want entered on your account, to some degree. For example, if you don't want a picture of yourself appearing on your profile, Facebook won't magically have a photo of you displaying as your profile picture. If you are tagged in a photo, however, it will appear on your Facebook feed. You have the option of un-tagging yourself from a photo so the photo won't be linked to your account, but the photo will still be online. Naturally, there are privacy concerns with using Facebook, mainly that fact that whatever you put on there can be seen by a lot of people. 

Facebook has a wealth of information on each of its users, varying from basic things like names and birthdays to more specific interests. Facebook users have the option of "liking" certain pages, and this information is stored and used to target certain ads to individuals. 

For an interesting look into how ads are targeted to users, check out this blog that was written by someone who uses Facebook advertising. In order to target a Facebook ad towards someone, they must be a part of your audience. Audiences are created by separating potential targets by different demographics. Some demographics include the basics like age, gender and location, while others are targeted at users who liked certain Facebook pages. Facebook also tracks behaviors of individuals online, even when they aren't on Facebook. A user's search history and websites visited are stored using Facebook's third party firms. By using these multiple data sources, Facebook ads can be targeted very accurately.