The Data War: The future of data use in Digital Marketing
Nowadays, when the image of the media world is changing daily, the behavior of media users in our society, as well as business operations, is changing in parallel with it. Marketing and data collection via social media is gaining more and more importance, and more and more resources are being invested in such processes. In the future, a new period of personalized media for the user is coming, and the constant increase in the share of digital advertising in the transmission of marketing messages is especially evident.
Social media is taking on a new form, and users are increasingly being shown personalized content that interests them and on which they spend most of their screen time. This kind of algorithm monitors the behavior of users on social media and accordingly they unconsciously form the content that is shown to them. Given that nowadays social media contains a large database of users, digital advertising becomes a much more profitable way of advertising because, unlike the traditional way of advertising, companies now have to decide to whom exactly their ads will be shown. In the future, the penetration of media content on the population will increase if the current trend continues, which means that advertisers will have even more data, which makes it easier to target the users, but will such a way of advertising harm our society or contribute to its development?
Data collection trends through social networks
Information about the state of the market is often gathered through observation or is generated based on feelings. Although it is important and commendable to assess the situation on the market based on feelings, very often it happens that we misjudge the situation on the market and our beliefs lead us in a completely wrong direction. This way of informing about the market is often impossible when dealing with companies with a large target audience. Depending on the scope of observation, it is impossible to assess the behavior of all consumers. Therefore, the necessary activity through which I can get information about the market is market research. There are various ways in which a company can research the market in order to reduce business risk, nowadays research through social media is used more and more often. Social media is a rich source of data, as shown by research from 2021, which found that there are 4.66 billion active Internet users in the world, which is 59.5% of the total world population, and Facebook alone has 59,000 data points about each of its users.
Using social media as a research tool has many advantages, and the most important advantage is that this research method allows us to access all data at any time and anywhere. Other advantages and disadvantages of this type of market research would be:
Data can be collected much faster. Many social media users access them daily, allowing us to quickly get feedback about our consumers. Also, it is a cheaper way of research and we can save on research costs. We can create a market research survey and post it on a profile that has millions of users. In that case, you should have a profile with a large number of followers, which in this case can be a disadvantage if we do not have a large base of followers because if we do not have a sufficient number of respondents, we cannot expect the accuracy of the research results.
2021 has created a unique user base with special wishes and needs — and trends on social networks are trying to follow it. As people have adapted to the virtual way of living, technology has advanced in various aspects, accordingly, users are trying to bring about social changes. Any marketing strategy must be recognized and adapted to these forces in a timely manner because if they are not adapted, they will not survive.
On average, according to the latest research, users of social networks spend more than two hours a day on them. New trends that appear create a great challenge for companies, because to keep up with trends, marketers must constantly keep an eye on the latest trends that can affect their business and develop by them and adapt to them.
Misuse of data in digital marketing
Although it sounds like a not-so-common outcome of using data because in fact, all the data that the user leaves are data that he agrees to be used, it still happens very often and can be a form of violence on the Internet. Which includes, for example, threats to user privacy. Threats to the privacy of social media users relate to the collection of information or digital records about users, such as, recognizing the user’s face, revealing data using photos, connecting data and photos of users, and finally, the inability to completely delete profiles from the social media database.
The greater the amount of data stored on the user profile, the greater the possibility of its misuse. Social media users must choose carefully what information about themselves to post and when. It is essential to make the data inaccessible to other users with whom we do not have direct interaction and to make our data available for use depending on the amount of trust we have towards someone and something. However, nowadays the user can no longer have too much influence on the use of their data, today companies like Facebook record all information about their users, including private messages, and based on the form profiles of people depending on their attitudes, beliefs, and behavior on the Internet.
The future of data use in digital
Social media targeting helps advertisers reach their target audience on various social media platforms by sending personalized and relevant marketing information and suggestions. The moment we find out who our perfect user is and where we can find it on the social network, targeting becomes easier and makes the desired advertising and audience gathering much more effective. Advertising on social networks is inevitable if your goal is to reach a new target audience as quickly and efficiently as possible. The appearance of new and various algorithms makes it a necessary process, which leads to the fact that the classic marketing reach of the target audience is increasingly difficult to implement, achieve and thus compete with it.
To describe the process more easily, targeting the desired audience through the channel of social networks is the ability to display ads and posts to the desired specific group of people. This way of targeting a potential audience by displaying personalized ads is available through digital channels such as Facebook, Instagram, and others. Advertisers personalize and use it to target their paid forms of advertising based on aspects such as demographics, interests, or even consumer behaviors. Although it is quite a successful way of positioning the target audience, thanks to new algorithms we can be more specific by combining different factors in order to narrow down the target audience and precisely target the people to whom we want our ad to be displayed.
Classical forms of advertising such as television, posters, newspapers, leaflets, and others are presented to a wide, quite often immeasurable and possibly uninterested audience. Uninterested because only some people who see our ad are part of our target audience. This is why the data found on social networks is becoming an increasingly better tool for targeting a specific group of consumers. The data that social networks can offer marketers are gaining more and more value, and in the future, it could be used as the only way to send marketing messages.
How not to use user data for the purpose of achieving goals
The Cambridge Analytica Scandal: How Facebook’s Data was Misused
Cambridge Analytica was a British consulting company with its headquarters in London and offices in New York and Washington, and engaged in data analysis and consulting on strategic communication in political campaigns. It came to the fore during its scandal with the personal data of Facebook users, due to which it eventually closed down in 2018, but closely related companies are still operating. The company used data on user behavior in order to market information in a targeted manner and thereby influence the choice in political elections.
According to some data, in just a few years, Cambridge Analytica was engaged in dozens of political campaigns, which caused a trend in this way of collecting potential voters, and the most significant were the campaigns of the then-candidate, and now one of the former presidents of the United States of America, Donald Trump and Leave.EU, a campaign that advocated the exit of Great Britain from the European Union.
The story continues in 2013 when the personal data belonging to millions of Facebook users was collected by the British consulting company Cambridge Analytica mainly to be used for political advertising. They collected data by creating an application for the “This is Your Digital Life” database, which consisted of survey questions for creating psychological profiles of users and also collected personal data of Facebook friends of users who filled out surveys. The application has collected data from almost 87 million Facebook profiles and claims to have 5,000 pieces of information about each user.
The Cambridge Analytica scandal is a prime example of how personal data can be misused for political gain.
The problem with this scandal is that Facebook’s data policies allowed for this kind of data collection and misuse to occur. The platform’s data collection and sharing practices were not transparent, and users were not adequately informed or protected.
The effect of this scandal was far-reaching. Not only were the personal data of millions of Facebook users compromised, but the integrity of the democratic process was called into question. The use of data to influence voter opinion and behavior undermines the principles of fair and free elections.
The solution to this problem is two-fold. First, Facebook must be held accountable for its data policies and practices. The platform must be transparent about how user data is collected, shared, and used. Additionally, stronger privacy protections must be put in place to ensure that personal data is not misused in the future. Second, individuals must take responsibility for their own data privacy. This means being cautious about the information we share online and being vigilant about protecting our personal data.
The Cambridge Analytica scandal serves as a stark reminder of the power and importance of personal data. It is essential that we take steps to protect our data and hold companies like Facebook accountable for their actions. Taking a proactive approach to data privacy can help ensure that our personal information is not misused for political gain or any other nefarious purposes.
“We were so in love with the gift of this connectivity that nobody bothered to read the terms and conditions.” The Great Hack — Documentary 2019
