FACEBOOK™ isn’t “spamming” you….I am

FACEBOOK™ isn’t “spamming” you.

Like any good instructor, it’s my goal to teach you how to navigate Facebook™ the right way, so let’s start with the basics:

It’s not my intention to correct in a way to make anyone feel less than intelligent, but to educate and improve your experience on Facebook™ – so please don’t take this the wrong way when I say “FACEBOOK™ isn’t spamming you” first and foremost. Spam is unsolicited emails, and so far there isn’t a term being used to describe being flooded with advertising on your news feed, I get that. You feel like you’re reliving your inbox nightmare, and the term kind of fits, doesn’t it?

I am the one flooding your news feed with ads.

Yes. Me. Personally ….let me explain.

I am a Facebook™ marketer, and it’s my JOB to flood your news feed with ads. My clients pay for it. It’s what I do and I am just one of the thousands of marketers doing it. Great for my clients, maybe not so great for you if you’re seeing ads for things you have no interest in – I get it and I want to make sure that only relevant ads are in front of people like you, the 2 billion users who log in every day. It’s better for me and for you, actually better for everyone involved.

FACEBOOK™ wants you to have a great experience! It’s their mission.

Mark Z wants to make everyone happy, honestly, but how does he serve advertisers and users without becoming the BAD guy? How do you build a platform and make everyone happy?

All users want their own experience, to see their friends and family and not anything that will disturb their sensibilities, but the truth is: you create your own reality on Facebook™. You are literally in total control of what you see based on your interaction, but before I go into that, let’s talk about how the platform works and why you see ads in the first place.

The platform is free, because of people like me.

The people who write the code, maintain the servers and handle everything so that we can share our favorite pics and recipes? They are some hard workers and deserve a paycheck. The servers that the platform lives on? They cost money to maintain and even keep turned on and cool. Did you know that they are kept in environmentally controlled rooms with halon systems installed? Do you know how important it is to keep those servers cool? Heat is a killer for computers, especially high powered ones. Facebook has bills to pay, salaries and benefits, the list is the same for any business.

That’s where we step in: the marketers. We pay for advertising and that helps keep Facebook™ going. Our clients are trying to reach you to sell you goods and services by being where you hang out, the strategy used by marketers since time began.

We are living Comfort Eagle

We are building a culture. We are making it bigger.
We are widening the corridors and adding more lanes…
To resist it is useless
It is useless to resist it

We target you based on your interests and behavior. You decide what you see. You have the power here, all of it. We have identified where you hang out and we are speaking your language.

It’s all about putting relevant content out to the interested parties but how do we target you?

Simple. You tell us what you’re interested in by your daily activity. If you read or react to a post about dogs, it tells us that you are interested. If you engage a post about dogs by commenting, it solidifies what the algorithm knows about you and if you share, it’s a lock. You’ve told the algorithm that you, dear reader, are more than interested in dogs.

When I go into the ads manager, I can target everyone who likes dogs. Why? Because you’ve been marked with this interest and it’s only logical that I put an ad for dog toys in your feed, right? You are my buyer persona, my ideal customer, you like dogs and I’ve got some fantastic dog toys that you’re just going to LOVE!

You’ve told the algorithm that you like dogs, so when I ask it to target people who like dogs, it obliges. Faithfully and without hesitation.

How to HACK your news feed

It doesn’t matter if you’re not interested in dogs, really. Let’s say that you shared a post about dogs because you’re against Man’s Best Friend and want to stand on your social media soap box and bash an article about our lovable fur babies. The algorithm doesn’t know that, it just knows that you shared that post. To your horror, now you see a lot of posts about dogs now, don’t you?

Engagement is engagement, so the algo sees it, good or bad and puts you in the bucket marked “Loves Dogs” whether you are for or against them because the algorithm can’t tell if you’re talking about your love for dogs or the fact that you dislike them. It’s not that advanced.

Right about now, someone is thinking “It should understand that I don’t like dogs and not show me posts about dogs” but in order to do that, it has to read and decipher the words in your posts doesn’t it? If you’re not using language tagged as hate speech or a threat to society, that isn’t apparent. There isn’t someone sitting in a room at the headquarters reading every one of your thoughts typed into the post box.

In a nutshell, if you are reacting, commenting or sharing something you are not interested in, you’ve hacked your own news feed and told the algorithm you’re interested.

I know, I know: you’re sharing that horrible post because you want to bring awareness to a topic teeming with social injustice because you’re doing your part and spreading the word. You’re WOKE, right?

WRONG. You’re spreading around that you LIKE topics related to that monstrosity. The algorithm now thinks you want to see more so your news feed turned into something you don’t recognize. Where are the cute pics of your cousin’s baby and the recipes you love? They got pushed down because your latest and greatest interest is that social injustice, the love is gone. Guess what? You’ve created your own reality. YOU are responsible for the shit show NOT FACEBOOK™.

I DON’T WANT YOU TO SEE MY ADS

I spend very little time in my news feed, I’m going to be completely honest here. Not because I have polluted it with things I don’t want to see, but because I work here and my time is spent behind the curtain and I simply don’t have the desire to waste time on social media of any kind unless it’s related to research.

I’m a marketer. I research your pain points. I go where you hang out and I speak your language. That’s what great marketing is all about.

You’re here on Facebook™ and I flood your feed with ads, IF you’ve let the algorithm know you’re interested. I don’t want to waste my advertising budget putting something in front of someone who is NOT interested, that’s just throwing Benjamins into the toilet, isn’t it? If my advertising is not something you are interested in, please change your interests so that I can go on with my day. Please.

There’s a post going around about how to edit your interests, and I am going to share the instructions here. ON ONE CONDITION:

Please be more careful with your engagement, I beg you.

Edit your interests and ad preferences, then you keep your engagement clean. No problem, right? Right! As a result, the whole thing then starts all over again.

I know it’s temping to share that political view that you don’t agree with, I mean, how else is all of your friends going to know that you don’t support <insert politician or political topic here> if you don’t share it? How is anyone going to know how you really feel?

Give them a call on the phone and stop messing with my campaign results, mmmm kaayyy?

As promised, here is everything you need to know about editing your interests and ad preferences. Stop the insanity and flood your feed with feel good posts and delicious recipes.

Click here to learn how to change your interests and ad preferences.

By the way, are you seeing the posts about your political affiliation and how Facebook™ categorized you? I’m explaining it all in my next post. Like and then follow me on Facebook™ and choose to see my posts firsts so you don’t miss the series. This is how I’ll stay in your news feed and you can go out and choose see first on any page you want to keep up with because just LIKING just ain’t cutting it these days …but that’s yet another post coming soon.