Putting data results into action

Last week, we talked about why people use data. Specifically, why advertisers use data. We discovered, from Frederic Klanke, that there are five main reasons why data is important.

The five reasons are:

·      Data is the truth

·      Data improves things

·      Data predicts the future

·      Data breeds innovation

·      Data is your competitive advantage

Advertisers use data because it helps them create a campaign or just a regular ad that is targeting the right audience of which would not only save costs but would also increase efficiency. 

On this post, we will be talking about how Facebook is utilizing big data. Why Facebook? I chose Facebook because it has such a huge impact in today’s society. One of the reasons for this is because in today’s world, we have great technology that allows users to not only use Facebook to connect with family and friends but to also receive ads, news, etc.

According to the article called “How Facebook is Using Big Data – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”, “Facebook stores enormous amounts of user data, making it a massive data wonderland. It is estimated that there will be more than 169 million Facebook users in the United States alone by 2018. Facebook is the fifth most valuable public company in the world, with a market value of approximately $321 billion.” Facebook users give it tons of information which creates lots data. “Every 60 seconds, 136,000 photos are uploaded, 510,000 comments are posted, and 293,000 status updates are posted.” That is almost TOO many data but there are never too many data!

When users feed Facebook data, it knows that people’s likings and preferences are. For example, if you search the brand Nike, ads related to Nike will pop up on your Facebook feed. When this happens, it is called “Topic Data”.

“Topic Data is a Facebook technology that displays to marketers the responses of the audience with regard to brands, events, activities, and subjects.” (Monnappa, 2018)

Social Media is not only a good tool for people to connect with their family and friends, there are also very, very useful for advertisers. It benefits the advertisers as well as the users because users get to see what they are interested in and advertisers can get better at their job. Everybody wins!

By Iman Farid