Facebook gives us what we want–literally
Facebook has embarked on a new way to spread ads among its 1.7 billion users. Groups!
A Facebook group is a unique interface on Facebook that allows a user with particular interests to interact with other users of the same interests. Whether it be games, movies, sports or more, users can find a group that pertains to them. Facebook has realized that, rather than bombard a user’s news feed with ads that may or may not hold any relevance to his/her interests, they can adapt a method of advertising relevant content on Facebook groups. This allows users to view ads that pertain to their own likings while bringing in revenue for the company.
We can analyze this new Facebook marketing technique with the principles of graph theory.
Consider each person in a group as a node and an edge as a representation of a common interest between the two. Naturally, nodes in a group will all have shared edges, since they definitely have a common tie (after all, they are in the same group!) Using this definition of a graph, we’ll have heavily clustered node-groups connected to other clusters by a few ties; these clusters will be distinguishable. For example, a person who likes football will be in the cluster of all nodes in sports groups, but this cluster probably has little to no ties with nodes in a cluster of all nodes in music groups.
Using this method of organization, it is easy to disperse ads to target a certain demographic. A dealership wants to promote their new car? Facebook can advertise it to the automobile/car cluster of their graph. A new videogame has been launched and the company wants people to know about it? Facebook can advertise it directly to the cluster of nodes involved in gaming groups. This method of advertising is advantageous in two ways:
- There is little to no chance the shared ads will receive a negative/unwanted reaction
- Companies will hit their target audiences more often, allowing an increase in revenue
The group method of advertising is still in its early phases of testing, but Facebook is eager to implement it soon.
Source article: http://www.scienceworldreport.com/articles/49505/20161011/facebook-ads-new-advertising-strategy-targets-groups.htm