Let’s face it; we all know that the real game behind Facebook is that it’s one big platform for advertisements. To further prove this idea, over three quarters of Facebook’s profit comes from advertising alone. Advertising is what keeps the company running and expanding. Facebook has recently learned that users hitting the “like” button do not necessarily translate to users buying something. Facebook has learned that they need to start looking into big data archiving to turn advertising into more money for advertisers.
Likes doesn’t mean profit
Not too long ago General Motors pulled their ads from Facebook because they were not seeing any increase in sales. They felt they were dumping a fortune into advertising on the social media network and saw no improvements in the sales of their cars and trucks. Facebook is beginning to get worried that other big advertisers are going to pull out too if they don’t come up with a Plan B. How does Facebook entice their close to 1 billion users to start spending money on the products and services being advertised on their network?
Is the backup plan right?
Facebook has had a plan to start using big data but it has proven to be a very challenging task considering the large amounts of information that has been collected. Facebook’s intention is to be able to examine each and every action users make on their network into a statistic. From these statistics data analyzers feel they can observe and predict the behaviors of users and as a result personalize advertisements for individual users. Further, after observing the heaps of data, analyzers are concluding that the world is much smaller than it appears. In other words, recent data collection shows that everyone in the world is separated by less than 5 people. Crazy thought, right?
Big vs. small
Well since the world is smaller than we think, analyzers are saying that social media is bringing people closer together. Through continued data analysis we should get inside information on how societies are organized, how we are connected to one another, and how ideas spread. Advertisers should in turn be able to use this information to reach consumers that will not only hit “like” but also buy.
Big data archiving is a new and exciting way to analyze and look into the behaviors of a specific group of people. Once Facebook is able to analyze the massive amounts of data they have collected, they will be able to bring in even more advertisers.
Jillian Johnson is a professional content writer with an interest in the internet and technology. Follow her @MissWritey.