Facebook somehow manages to stay in the news, doesn’t it? We’ll debate about these headlines being flattering or not later on. But we’ve got to give it to them. For buzzing around for some reason or the other. And now Netflix threw at us the Social Dilemma as well, which may have ruffled more than a few feathers at Zuckerberg’s side of the world. But still. Kept the buzz going. And adding to the whispers (or primetime news debates maybe?) are a number of updates by the social media giant with respect to advertisements on its platform.
Ads now have a limit
Facebook has now decided to cap the number of ads on its platform. By spend size. Banking on the fact that more ads (volume) doesn’t translate into better results. When an ad shows up, the algorithms line up leanings.These insights reveal that most ads are stuck in the learning phase and the more you increase the number of ads, each version of the ad is shown less. Waste of resources right? The ads will be restricted based on the size of the pages. And mind you, Facebook does warn you against creating a second page to push out more ads. For many reasons, one being one page will compete against the second.
Political advertising included
Responding to long standing concerns about tech giants across the globe going ‘neutral’ over political advertising, irrespective of what they may suggest, Facebook has made announcements. Ads that seek to delegitimize the results of the election,encourage voters to not vote or use unlawful means to vote and so on, won’t make their way to Facebook. For those who missed out on this, Twitter in a way led the way on this one.
Add all the text you’d like
Later last month, Facebook also removed the 20 percent text rule it had levied on advertisement images. Earlier, such Facebook Ad images weren’t allowed to hold more than 20 percent text. Basically, to reduce the noise on the platform as well making advertising more subtle, instead of blaring and in your face. While Facebook still expects advertisers and users to abide by guidelines with respect to the content in such Ad images, the tech giant will now only advise its users in reducing text content in ad images. Not disallow them from being published.
Similarly, Facebook also announced it would hand over control to advertisers with respect to deciding where they’d want their content to occur and on which pages. On Facebook. This means advertisers could withhold their content from pages dealing with say politics or religion, to give examples.
While Facebook has claimed that this would enhance the user experience as well business’ effort to better market their product and survive, these also raise privacy concerns. In the bargain for individualised advertising will data privacy and security take a beating?
Though the tech company affirmatively claims otherwise, it definitely is food for the ever-anxious mind.
0 Comments