Week 13 Part A: Online Advertising - Analysis of the Marketplace

 Reading the article "How the Facebook Algorithm Works in 2022 and How to Make it Work for You" by Christina Newberry, I could learn that it is basically impossible to have your organic ad achieving the mass you expect without using some knowledge on the algorithms and using the "bump" tool. The algorithm works in a way that what you can see is arranged for you based on your interests, or maybe something that you consider controversial, either way, the goal is to keep the users entertained, regardless of the reasons why, what they want is the interactions. 

Looking my Instagram and Facebook I could feel and observe how the ads and the posts are shown to me. On Instagram sometimes when I am watching stories, randomly an ad pops up in my next story - which I usually feel bothered by. I don't believe that there was one single time that the ad just appearing for a few seconds to me was something I enjoyed or click on the link to see the page - like I said, I believe that since I feel that is annoying I just pass it without paying attention. The search icon is the place we can find a lot of ads as well. I noticed that the things that appears are always related to things I search and follow (like skincare and pages of dogs). 

For Facebook I see more ads than Instagram, and they all appear randomly while Im scrolling on my feed. First one that I saw was a dog's company for toys, which like I said, its something that I search and probably holds my attention. 

I see that most all of ads use images to call attention and once you click on it, it redirects you to their website with the product that was advertised on it. 

Compared to other traditional ways to advertise, I see social media as something more effective, specially because half work is done when you decided to buy the product/ service. You have access to more information of it, and usually when it redirects you to their website you can buy online. Different than TV, Newspaper, Radio where you have to go to more steps in order to get it, like for example typing the website you say on TV and navigating on it, or going physically on the store to buy something. Plus, with the algorithm, the ads that are directed to you tend to be focused on your interests, rather than on other channels that are vast to everyone who is watching/listening/reading, regardless of their needs and interest on it. 

I feel that target ads can be good for people that are heavy buyers specially, I personally don't consider myself a consumer that buys by impulse and I try to buy what I need, so I don't know if those ads have the impact on me. But I do see myself thinking that I need a product that some influencers showed on their Instagram and the same content keeps appearing to me. I also think it is a little intrusive of algorithm to have all my "background" online to do their metrics.