Facebook Microtargeted Advertising User Privacy Essay

Memorandum

Introduction

This memo intends to draw your attention to microtargeted advertising. It is important to emphasize that microtargeted advertising is good for business, and it is in line with Facebook’s values. Facebook can leverage and benefit from micro targeting advertising, as it will attract more customers or companies that seek to advertise their products. This type of advertising is topnotch since it allows advertisers to find and reach their target market. Microtargeting advertising is a big opportunity for Facebook to capitalize on so that it can improve its financial position (Faizullabhoy & Korolova, 2018). Facebook is a social media platform that has about 1.5 billion users, thus making microtargeting advertising suitable for Facebook.

One of the core values of Facebook is to protect Facebook users’ personal information. Microtargeted advertising is in line with this value. Microtargeted advertising does not necessarily target to collect personal information from Facebook users. It only seeks to reach suitable people who might be interested in the advert. Essentially, Facebook is one of the big players among technology giants such as Google that provide data-mining service, which is aimed at influencing consumer or voter behavior (Papakyriakopoulos, Hegelich, Shahrezaye, & Serrano, 2018). From a business perspective, microtargeted advertising attracts very many businesses and advertisers. This is beneficial to Facebook financially. It is a culture of Facebook to attract business and transform Facebook into an interactive social platform, which is more than just an interaction platform but also associated with business transactions. Microtargeting advertising plays a significant role in promoting interaction between businesses and consumers.

Facebook is geared to promote the wellbeing of its users by exposing them to various products and services offered by different companies. To achieve this, microtargeting advertising plays a role in enhancing businesses through targeted advertising. This form of advertising is in line with Facebook’s values because it connects consumers with advertisers. Businesses have been transformed to another level, easing business transactions between consumers and businesses. Microtargeted advertising also creates convenience for Facebook users. This is a big advantage reaped from this advertising because creating convenience for Facebook users is the greatest value for Facebook (Papakyriakopoulos et al., 2018). Convenience has been created by microtargeting advertising by making products readily available and accessible by Facebook users. For instance, an individual may find it hard to get or access a specific product. But, with the help of adverts posted on Facebook through microtargeting advertising, he or she receives the products quickly. Fundamentally, businesses on Facebook have been enhanced by Facebook’s ability to guarantee to reach to be specific and appropriate consumers. Facebook provides an accessible and usable self-service advertising system that attracts various advertisers for microtargeting advertising.

Since Facebook is now more focused on engaging in businesses, microtargeting marketing is suitable for it. To create convenience for both consumers and the companies, microtargeting marketing helps in understanding the audiences’ behavior (Kruikemeier, Sezgin, & Boerman, 2016). For instance, microtargeting advertising has supported in promoting the education sector. Suppose a blog post on education is uploaded and promoting it just to people who have accessed articles in the past that are related to the same topic and are among the highest rank in the time spent on the website, thus making micro-targeting sensible.

It is Facebook’s culture to align advertised products to suit consumers’ tastes. As per Facebook, its advertising products are capable of tracking the conversion of advertised products to actual purchases. Facebook has confidence that adverts are targeted towards specific people with appropriate interests, which provides convenience and a better experience to the advertisers and Facebook users. Though the online-offline measure functionality is functional only for retail purposes and not politics. Even though in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandals, it removed politics in its microtargeting advertising. From a political perspective, microtargeting advertising tends to arouse ethical issues (Ribeiro et al., 2019). Microtargeting advertising that promotes politics tends to take advantage of targeted promotions to acquire Facebook users’ personal information, which can be used in manipulating political elections. Due to this technicality, it is essential to refrain from allowing politics to utilize microtargeting advertising. Facebook has proven that it can be mighty in inspiring action within politics. Some research has been done and has shown Facebook as the capability of impacting political behavior through microtargeting advertising. A particular research undertaken in 2010 reported that over 61 million Facebook users identified that the Facebook message notifying people of the Election Day to trigger 340,000 more people to turn up and vote (Ribeiro et al., 2019). This shows that Facebook is a very powerful tool for microtargeting advertising, which is a big opportunity for revolutionizing world affairs and relations. In fact, in the 2012 Election Day, Facebook promoted articles regarding politics.

It is possible that microtargeting advertising will be a revolutionary tool that will transform the world. Facebook microtargeting advertising is so powerful that it may control the world someday (Faizullabhoy & Korolova, 2018). Facebook microtargeting advertising significantly influences its users’ behavior which is helpful in public education advertisement. In critical advertisements such as public education on adaptations and mitigation of climate change. This system helps in influencing people’s behaviour to take action, which is vital in efforts climate change actions.

Conclusion

To sum it all, microtargeting advertising is a big opportunity for Facebook to capitalize on so that it can improve its financial position. Microtargeting advertising has more benefit to Facebook. Focusing on microtargeting advertising will attract more businesses, and this will increase profits for Facebook. Microtargeting advertising will make Facebook outstanding from other competitors such as Google and Twitter. As a result, it will give a competitive advantage to Facebook. Facebook has confidence that adverts are targeted towards specific people with appropriate interests, which provides convenience and a better experience to the advertisers and Facebook users. Essentially, businesses on Facebook have been enhanced by Facebook’s ability to guarantee to reach to be specific and appropriate consumers. Facebook provides an accessible and usable self-service advertising system that attracts various advertisers for microtargeting advertising. Microtargeting advertising plays a significant role in promoting interaction between businesses and consumers. It is vital for Facebook to remain opportunistic and optimistic by capitalizing on microtargeting advertising.