For this blog I have chosen to look at the all mighty Facebook as my social media platform of choice. I have been an active member of Facebook for well over 10 years now and I feel I have a very good idea of how Facebook works and how it has changed over the years. There are many different Facebook marketing implications that I find myself interacting with on a daily basis. From full blown advertisements to ads that are embedded in videos. It seems on all social media sites, ads are just a given at this point. As I age I begin to see things for more than just face value. As I do find ads to be rather annoying sometimes. I also have the adverse feelings to them when I realize how much they can help smaller businesses get noticed on a much larger scale. I use Facebook on almost a daily basis. Most of the time its just to kill time and I am not going on to the site with an intended purpose. So, for this reason I am more open to clicking on ads an “window shopping”. In doing so I can sometimes come across brands I would have never even had the opportunity to find if it wasn’t for the ads coming across my news feed. This sometimes makes me find myself cruising a site through an advertisement where I have actually made purchases from. Even though this is very rare for me to do, I still do it occasionally.
To talk about a specific example of when I have responded to a particular marketing implication was just last fall. It was the beginning of hunting season here in Maine and I was in search of a new jacket. My current Jacket was great but, way too hot for early season hunting. I wanted to find something lighter and more breathable for those 60 degree days where sitting in layers is just too uncomfortable. While scrolling across Facebook it seemed the Facebooks gods have been listening because the perfect jacket was sitting there in my news feed via an advertisement. This is an example of the site using their AI learning algorithm to see what you’re most interested in. I then purchased the jacket I had found through an ad originally and was extremely satisfied with my purchase.
This is not the first time something like this has happened either. I love to “window shop” as I mentioned. Using these ads as a medium to find new brands and products I hadn’t previously seen or heard of is very convenient for me. It allows me to passively find the things I am looking for. This is something I actually really like about these types of ads because as I mentioned before its a great way to find a lesser known brand that has great high quality products. If it wasn’t for these types of ads I would never of had the chance to find these companies and give their products a chance.
Hayden's Blog 