Facebook’s latest ad targeting–“Friends of Connections Targeting” [so watch your privacy setttings!]

Facebook is expanding what brands and other marketers can do to target its users.  As InsideFacebook explains, “Facebook has just launched a new way to draw more people to your Facebook Page or application, called “Friends of connections” targeting. Here’s how it works: before today, advertisers could already target any of their “connections,” where connections are defined as:

  1. Fans of any of your Pages
  2. Users of any of your Applications
  3. Members of any of your Groups
  4. Attendees of any of your Events

Now, advertisers can target ads specifically to friends of any of these connections as well. When this option is selected, friends of connections who see the ad will also see a message about which of their friends is connected to the advertiser…This feature should lead to increased conversion on Facebook Ads…this is the first time it has allowed advertisers to specifically target just friends of connections…We also spoke directly to Tim Kendall, Facebook’s director of monetization…In many ways we view Social Ads as less surreptitious than many types of behavioral targeting technologies.”

Author: jeff

Jeff Chester is executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. A former journalist and filmmaker, Jeff's book on U.S. electronic media politics, entitled "Digital Destiny: New Media and the Future of Democracy" was published by The New Press in January 2007. He is now working on a new book about interactive advertising and the public interest.

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