I don’t have much personal information in my profile, so I’m targeted mainly as a woman of a certain age. And what we’re mainly interested in, apparently, is getting rid of our wrinkles, using all sorts of different products and services. (Or perhaps there are just lots of different ads for the same product or service — I’m careful not to click on these which I know would only encourage Facebook to show me more of them!)

Even though I understand why I am getting these ads, which I consider to be completely irrelevant by the way, I find do find it quite depressing. Imagine having a jerky neighbor who calls out “Hello, Pruneface!” every he sees you — that’s how I feel about these Facebook ads.

I have managed to improve my ads somewhat by taking the time to click on the little thumbs-down icon under the wrinkle-cure ads (and also the weight-loss ads, the colon-cleansing ads, etc.) You get to choose a reason for rejecting the ad : Misleading, Offensive, Irrelevant, etc. I decided to use Irrelevant as the best way to change the way I’m being targeted. I also started using the thumbs-up to show my approval of ads that I consider to be slightly relevant to me, or at least not insulting, hoping to use good ads to drive out the bad ones. Marking the ads has helped somewhat.

While I was thinking about the targeting, I experimented a bit with how people set up these ads. Anyone can set these up, or go through the first few steps just to see how this works. Here’s a screenshot of the first step where you create the ads by entering a link, an image and some text, and here’s a screenshot of the second step where you enter the demographic information including keywords that will pick up all sorts of information from profiles.

And now Facebook has a new advertising strategy — “Social Ads” based on the actions taken by your friends, like downloading a Facebook App or becoming a fan of a Facebook Page for an organization, celebrity or business. For example, the ad at the right tells me that one of my friends is a fan of Neil Gaiman and gives me a link to become one, too. The phrase One friend is a fan is a link that will show me which friend is a fan.

Some ads go a step further than this, and use the profile picture of your friend right on the ad. I don’t want to post an example of this from my Facebook account, but you can see an example of this in this article from Wired’s Epicenter blog:
Facebook Ads Make You the Star — And You May Not Know It

Is there anything wrong with this? After all, everyone who does Facebook knows, or should know, that everything they do in Facebook may be broadcast to all their friends through the Newsfeed. But that still seems a little different than having your face appear on an ad on your friends’ Facebook profiles, perhaps next to text that sounds an awful lot like a recommendation. In the example on the Epicenter blog, for example, the add notes that the friend had added the application Movie Clique, and the text next to the friend’s profile picture reads “One month free trial : Try Blockbuster Total Access free for one month, no due dates or late fees on online rentals.”

But even with all this targeting, Facebook hasn’t been able to make much money on their advertising program, and businesses haven’t seen much return from their Facebook ads. It will be interesting to watch how all of this develops this year. I like John Battelle’s prediction about Facebook: “Facebook will do something entirely shocking and unpredictable. I am not certain what, but it won’t have a ‘status quo’ year.” Is there even such a thing as a status quo year in the tech field? And will 2009 be a status quo year for any business?

Links

• Facebook Advertising — Here’s where you can see information aimed at advertisers, and experiment with targeting options.
• Advertisers Face Hurdles on Social Networking Sites
  “Web advertising experts see a myriad of difficulties in making brand advertising work on social networking sites.”
  New York Times article by Randall Stross, December 14, 2008
• Facebook Ads Make You the Star — And You May Not Know It
  “Have you used Facebook to give a shout-out to businesses you like? Best make sure your profile picture catches your best side, because you might be an unwitting star in those businesses’ next Facebook ad campaigns.”
  By Megan McCarthy, Wired, January 2, 2008
• Facebook Ads Target You Where It Hurts
  “Maybe it’s my age, my sex or the fact that it knew I was engaged, but the site decided I was a gal who needed to drop a few pounds. And it wasn’t shy about its tactics.”
  Washington Post article by Rachel Beckman, September 3, 2008
• Adblock Plus — Using Firefox with Adblock Plus turned on may be the best way to deal with Facebook ads.