Creating a Facebook ad is like playing the game Apples to Apples. Precise Interest targeting lets you define your ideal audience by what they are interested in, using terms people have shared in their Facebook profiles. These may be drawn from their listed interests, activities, education and job titles, pages they like or groups to which they belong.
Recently, Facebook has added a feature when you input precise interests – it’s called, “Suggested Likes & Interests.” These are relative terms that are automatically generated to use at your discretion. For instance, you would assume that if you type in the term “popcorn,” suggested likes and interests would include, “Caramel Corn,” “Movie theater snacks,” “Kettle Corn” and so on…Well, guess again. I was creating an ad for our client, Kernel Season’s Popcorn Seasoning (RSVP to their upcoming event, “The World’s Largest Virtual Popcorn Party” on January 19th) and take a look at the suggested likes and interests that Facebook recommended:
Apparently, RAPE and POPCORN go hand in hand…I refreshed several times and got the same result…
A few days later, I was creating another ad for my client, Lotus Blossom Consulting (an infertility consultant) looking to target people talking about pregnancy via Facebook.
Apparently this is the context in which people discuss pregnancy on Facebook – there must be someone out there posting status updates like this (FYI THIS IS NOT ME, THIS IS AN EXAMPLE), “During my adolescence, alcohol intoxication lead to sexual intercourse for money, in essence, prostitution. This resulted in an unwanted pregnancy, so I had an abortion because the thought of childbirth scares me.”My current goal is to find a post on Facebook that connects popcorn to rape…
