Marketing after Facebook

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Apr 27, 2018 / by
Marketing after Facebook

In what seems like a carousel of screw-ups, Facebook may be facing the one screw-up that will end it all. Facebook, after a massive breach in user privacy involving Cambridge Analytics, could be in store for some massive regulations on how it shares users’ data with advertisers on a global scale.

Most advertisers, despite the foreseeable change, are simply monitoring the situation, with no company outwardly spurning Facebook. But with Zuckerberg, as of the time of writing, having to appear before the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee to testify as to what exactly happened involving the leaking and illegal use of millions of people’s information the future of Facebook is looking uncertain.

Leaving the morality aside of a major company leaking personal information of millions of people to another business, let’s explore what an imploding Facebook may look like and what you can do to adapt and survive.

If Facebook is regulated on both sides of the pond, what does that look like? Not quite death, but not quite life either. Facebook lives on a cycle of selling user data to companies for targeted ads, and regulations on how that data can or cannot be used will have big ramifications. Right now, as of writing, it is too early to see how regulation will harm your company and apps, but a smart move would be to take a long hard look at 1) what kind of user data you’ve acquired from Facebook 2) what are you doing with to create targeted ads. Facebook has essentially no competitors in what it does on such a personal level, and, as a marketer, you need to evaluate the whats and whys of using Facebook and if (IF) Facebook becomes suddenly useless. Figure out how to get your ad across without the reliance on personal data.

Magnifying glassSpeaking of useless, if an ad circulates but nobody is around to see it, was it ever created? With #deletefacebook trending and stock shares reaching a new low, many people are now leaving Facebook. Less people means less data and less data means less eyes to see your very clever targeted ads. Even though the share prices of Google have also tanked (not in any way that will harm the company mind), Google is a healthy advertising alternative with a much less invasive collection of data.

Matt Brittin, president of EMEA business and operations for Google, noted the difference between the intent data Google sells to advertisers and the more people based data of its rivals. Distinct from social, Google “neither knows nor cares who you are actually,” Brittin explained. “What we know is that someone in Kings Cross, London, is searching for running shoes.”

“When it comes to Google, the advertising value is created because of our ability to connect intent to an answer that is commercially valuable,” Brittin said. “We don’t have social graph data on you, but we do make it possible for companies to combine their data, like CRM, with those [search] patterns.”

Google has also announced it will be supporting publishers who want to show only ads that are not personalized by consumer data to help companies comply with the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which will go into effect in Europe May 25th. Under the GDPR, Google will be revising how you create ads, collects data, and evaluate said data on third party sites and apps. How freeing or limiting this is to you has yet to be seen, but this couldn’t have happened at a better time to warm themselves to not only the public but ad creators as well. It may be too early to see where the possible death or defanging of Facebook may leave us, but adaptation is key to survival, and those of us who make it our businesses online have proven we can do that very well. Even if it means we may have to start making ads like we used to, without targeting or personal data harvesting.

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