A problem of transparency and trust
Posted: Sat Dec 07, 2024 9:41 am
Facebook is facing an unprecedented reputational crisis after an investigation revealed the misuse of millions of its users' data for Donald Trump's election campaign. If you are among those who regularly invest in the platform to gain traffic or brand awareness, this should be a turning point to reflect on.
Firstly, this case is a serious blow to the trust that those who are registered on Facebook have placed in the platform by action or omission. And this has consequences yet to be seen for their continuity on the social network , as well as for the quality/veracity of the data they provide on it about themselves.
The possible development of any of these scenarios calls into question any advertiser's investment and marketing strategies on Facebook . It should be remembered that advertising on the platform has been increasing in price following the decline in organic activity through pages, so that it is now more expensive to obtain an impact . If you add to that a possible departure of users, among whom may be those who are of interest to your brand, or a clean-up of their profiles with the removal of data that was previously useful for segmentation, you would pay more for a more uncertain result .
On the other hand, we must not lose sight of the possible regulation that may come after a case of this magnitude. In the European Union, the new GDPR data regulation will come into force in May , drawn up precisely with the aim of giving citizens greater control over the data given to companies of foreign origin, and it seems feasible czech republic email list that the terms may be tightened. The foreseeable consequence would be a loss of advertising effectiveness of the platform , by better shielding the information that users enter and which has historically served to classify themselves before potential advertisers interested in reaching them.
Facebook currently has around five million advertisers , of all sizes, but some of the biggest have already begun to publicly question the platform's role in their strategies in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. ISBA, a group representing around 3,000 advertisers in the UK , is threatening to leave the platform unless there are convincing explanations for what happened and reasonable measures to prevent it from happening again.
This includes Unilever, one of the world's largest advertisers, whose marketing director had already made it clear in February that he was prepared to stop advertising on Facebook or Google if they did not effectively confront the violent or divisive content they host .
In all cases, complaints always point to a lack of transparency, which leads to a breakdown of trust . Companies that market on Facebook do not know how the platform works when it comes to serving the ads they pay for, nor do they understand the changing metrics they are offered to measure their effectiveness. Ultimately, they are also unaware of possible uses of user data for which users have not given their permission .
Firstly, this case is a serious blow to the trust that those who are registered on Facebook have placed in the platform by action or omission. And this has consequences yet to be seen for their continuity on the social network , as well as for the quality/veracity of the data they provide on it about themselves.
The possible development of any of these scenarios calls into question any advertiser's investment and marketing strategies on Facebook . It should be remembered that advertising on the platform has been increasing in price following the decline in organic activity through pages, so that it is now more expensive to obtain an impact . If you add to that a possible departure of users, among whom may be those who are of interest to your brand, or a clean-up of their profiles with the removal of data that was previously useful for segmentation, you would pay more for a more uncertain result .
On the other hand, we must not lose sight of the possible regulation that may come after a case of this magnitude. In the European Union, the new GDPR data regulation will come into force in May , drawn up precisely with the aim of giving citizens greater control over the data given to companies of foreign origin, and it seems feasible czech republic email list that the terms may be tightened. The foreseeable consequence would be a loss of advertising effectiveness of the platform , by better shielding the information that users enter and which has historically served to classify themselves before potential advertisers interested in reaching them.
Facebook currently has around five million advertisers , of all sizes, but some of the biggest have already begun to publicly question the platform's role in their strategies in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. ISBA, a group representing around 3,000 advertisers in the UK , is threatening to leave the platform unless there are convincing explanations for what happened and reasonable measures to prevent it from happening again.
This includes Unilever, one of the world's largest advertisers, whose marketing director had already made it clear in February that he was prepared to stop advertising on Facebook or Google if they did not effectively confront the violent or divisive content they host .
In all cases, complaints always point to a lack of transparency, which leads to a breakdown of trust . Companies that market on Facebook do not know how the platform works when it comes to serving the ads they pay for, nor do they understand the changing metrics they are offered to measure their effectiveness. Ultimately, they are also unaware of possible uses of user data for which users have not given their permission .