Nobody Interested in Socialism…According to Facebook
Did you know the no one is interested in socialism in America? Certainly, there is a segment of America that believe this, but it is clearly untrue. There are politicians currently running for president calling themselves socialist…albeit democratic socialists. However, according to Facebook, no one is interested in socialism.
I have been maintaining a Facebook profile for some time now. I have had numerous reasons, but one of the most important for me was the ability to market my books. I started back in 2011 and though I built a page which almost grew to have two thousand followers, I did not sell but one or two books via this methodology. Nonetheless, I did learn some things about how to target an audience.
I hung in on Facebook because the first book had sparked the next book, Libertarian-Socialism: American Style. I created a new page, which I did not really promote much, but allowed it to grow organically. I dabbled with targeting ads from the page just to keep my knowledge fresh. I also promoted other things unrelated to politics to learn more about ads on Facebook. It was clear back then that when Libertarian-Socialism: American Style was completed, Facebook would be useful to promote the next book through interest targeting.
A month or so ago, I finally called Libertarian-Socialism: American Style done. Time to promote it. Unfortunately, there was one more hoop to jump through now. The Russian meddling scandal in social media from the 2016 election had changed Facebook’s advertising policies as it related to political ideas….or so I was told by Facebook. I went through the process of identifying myself as an American with my passport to Facebook so that I could advertise in this arena. Though so far each ad is disapproved and then approved upon appeal and me pointing out that they have a copy of my passport. Nonetheless, I have started to market the book on Facebook.
I started by targeting the libertarians. I have actually been a registered Libertarian for a good chunk of my adult life. I still believe quite a bit, frankly, so I started with this audience. I have to say it did not go all that well. I had been worried that the book’s cover might be more of a problem with the Left than the term “socialism” would cause with the Right. After all, Americans do love their Social Security.
The number of comments I received confirmed that Facebook targeting of Libertarianism was successful. However, the content of the comments indicated that I might have more of a problem than I thought using the term “socialism” in the title. I just figured I needed to work on that ad a bit and then I would resend to the Right side audience.
Before I hit the libertarians again, I figured I should get a pulse on how bad the backlash would be from the socialists given the cover’s iconography. I was hopeful I might get a better reception based upon my personal interactions with socialists. As a group, they tended to be more open-minded, so I was a little bit excited when I got my ad ready. Surely, I will get a less hostile reception with this audience.
I went to Facebook’s ad user interface and lo and behold, nobody is interested in Socialism??? I had expected a fairly large number and here I essentially got zero. I could not believe it. I tried a number of different iterations but was only shown the Socialist political parties of foreign countries as targets. I went back and typed in Libertarian and Libertarianism and got the expected hits in the search, but NOTHING FOR SOCIALISM!
I started to get annoyed. It would not be the first time that my political opinions caused me to run afoul of the marketing arm of Big Tech. Way back in aught-four Google labeled my site, anyonebutbushin2004.com as a hate site. Was this another instance of Big Tech censorship blockading me? I typed in capitalism — BINGO — Now I was really annoyed as according to Facebook there are lots of capitalists, but NO SOCIALISTS.
How is this possible I thought? Are there really no socialists in America? Has the term become so radioactive that nobody dares suggest they are interested in socialism? I thought to myself that this might actually be possible, especially after the verbal shellacking I took advertising the book to the libertarian audience.
I had an epiphany, Bernie Sanders had received millions upon millions of votes in 2016. He had recently received many millions of donations when he announced his candidacy. Surely, if I type in Democratic Socialism or Democratic Socialist I was going to get an audience that I could target. However, not one of Bernie Sanders supporters is interested in Democratic Socialism or there just are not any Bernie Sanders supporters on Facebook OR….
Dunno…draw your own conclusions.
Oh yes and, take a peek at the book too
