Facebook's Targeted Pages
Just a little something I wanted to share with you. The other day while writing the bi-monthly Facebook status update, something pretty cool/creepy happened. As soon as I posted the update, the suggested pages on the right sidebar updated themselves. Have a look:
I’m not sure if Sponsored Ads work in the same way (I haven’t noticed it if they do), but, this may have a far more subliminal effect than we realise. By suggesting pages about things I have actually written about, I’m far more likely to passively ‘like’ that page - which coincidentally I did, because I bloody love Reggae.
But, by liking these pages, Facebook has further catalogued and categorised us. So, as well as pages we have actively gone to ‘like’ (to show how cool we are to friends), Facebook is able to keep track of changing or evolving preferences.
How does this affect us? Well, as many of you conducting Facebook Ad campaigns will know, we will most likely see ads relevant to me as I have been targeted based on the pages I like. By increasing ‘likes’ on pages as in the example above, Facebook is increasingly able to segment its users for advertisers and therefore able to target ads at a far more accurate rate than anyone else in the industry.
Whether this increased level of targeting will increase or decrease price of ads, I’ve yet to work out. On one hand, increased accuracy of targeting could mean greater conversion for us, allowing them to charge more for each ad placement for the privilege. On the other, increasingly niche ad placements are traditionally cheaper due to the potentially smaller audience.
Well, that turned out to be a little more insightful than I originally thought...
It started with a tweet…
We’ve all been talking about how Twitter can help our organisations increase dialogue with our audience. I thought I’d share a real example of how it can be done – really well.
A bit of background – I’ve been looking to add a Wifi tethering bundle to my phone contract for a while now, but having been in to an Orange store and calling their helpline, I couldn’t get a straight answer for how much it would cost (ranging from £10 a month to completely free).
I came across @OrangeHelpers twitter account and thought I’d see how it fared. I’ll let the tweets do the talking…
All I had to do was DM them my phone number to start the process.
...and a thank you never hurts!
The Perils of Your Tea and Coffee Accompaniments
A recent survey (conclusions found here and here) revealed a startling fact - custard creams are the most dangerous biscuit in the UK today.
Two things. Firstly, we had no idea biscuits posed a threat to personal safety, and secondly, that the humble custard cream was the primary offender.
Some facts for your consideration…
“three per cent had poked themselves in the eye with a biscuit”
“seven per cent were bitten by a pet or ‘other wild animal’ trying to get their biscuit.”
“One man ended up stuck in wet concrete after wading in to pick up a stray biscuit.”
Some may consider these as unrelated incidents, but we at beautiful world think this is simply not the case.
We spotted several holes in this survey and it seems that there is a distinct difference between injury incurred directly by the biscuit, and injuries incurred from user error. However the injury occurred though, it comes down to one simple factor; demographics.
For the sake of avoiding stereotyping and sounding like a snob, I’m not saying another word. Don’t get me wrong, I love a jammy dodger, but…
My advice?
If you look at the ‘Scale of biscuit danger’ graph below, it is clear that some biscuits are more dangerous than others.
If you can’t be trusted with a hard biscuit, are the kind of person who uses scissors with rounded ends or got rid of your bike stablisers later than other children, choose a Chocolate Finger or Jaffa cake and avoid a potential injury.
More Later
Ash
Ashley Clarke
