Online advertisers are watching what you’re doing online to see how you feel about advertising.
Advertisers are tracking your movements online in an attempt to add a value to your social media activity. These metrics are databased and studied for a number of factors. The method of getting the information isn’t really new, but the information and method of response is.
Current Advertising Is Wrong
Tony Haile, CEO of Chartbeat, a data analytics company, published an article last year on Time.com, describing how content creators and marketers were wrong about the behaviors of online users. The click started as the original method of measuring web traffic for online advertisers. Clicking also began a two-decade misunderstanding of online usage, simply applying one action to online content. Haile attributes this click action to creating Internet giants like Google, but also spam and adware.
Haile writes that Chartbeat has looked at user behavior and found that 55 percent of users spend less than 15 seconds on a page. Also, one in every three visitors barely reads articles they have clicked on. The myths about online usage from Haile and Chartbeat includes scrolling habits and readability for web sites.
Facebook Banking On Your Emotions
One company benefiting from online data research is Facebook. The social media company has increased its 2015 second quarter advertising revenue by 43 percent, a total of over $3.8 billion. The golden key for Facebook is the “Like” button, which in 2010 began with just data-logging. In 2014, Facebook started using the data from likes to target advertisements to users. While Facebook and advertisers have benefitted from this data, it also took a negative turn.
Facebook currently only has the Like feature available to users. There are no other emotional data for Facebook posts. The only data tracked for advertising is “Like”, seen as favorable content. The user may receive sidebar or newsfeed “sponsored” ads related to the liked content. However, if someone likes a negative post, advertisements related to content of that post may appear. Facebook does not see the negativity of a post’s content. This means ads for relatable content would be displayed as well.
In Sept. 2015, Facebook’s Global Deputy Chief Privacy Officer, Stephen Deadman released in his statement, “We sometimes hear from people that the ads they see aren’t as useful or relevant to them as they could be.” A user could choose to opt-out of Facebook’s advertising within the settings.
Facebook is currently testing more emotional reactions to posts to make available to users. This new data will contour data to be more specific. Deadman continued in his statement, “We are continuing to roll out online interest-based advertising and will now begin including information from pages that use Facebook’s Like button and similar social features, as we announced last year. We hope that the ads people see will continue to become more useful and relevant and that this new control will make it easier for people to have the ads experience they want.”
Web Users Fighting Back
The true test of Facebook and online advertisers is ad-blocking software, such as Blockr, created by Arno Appenzeller. The option to hide Facebook widgets, a limited web-executed app, is the general function of ad blockers.
“The specific point of the like button is that most people know it tracks you even outside of and tailors Facebook ads for you that can be very creepy,” said Appenzeller, in an interview with the Wall Street journal.
Despite the intentions of ad blockers to protect users from annoying ads, smart phones negate their efforts. Ad blockers protect users from web-based ads. Smart phones are another world, using applications for social media, not necessarily web-based.