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I keep reading all this angst over how Facebook is mining details of users' personal lives. The social networking site is supposedly studying its zillions of 'bookers with cyber-microscopes, all the better to target us with smart-bomb niche marketing.
Well, I have proof that Facebook doesn't really know me after all.
An ad just popped up on my profile page from a company offering discounts in Fort Lauderdale. They got it half right: I do live in Fort Lauderdale, and I do love a bargain. But I'm way too lazy to click on a link, download an ad, and run upstairs to my printer to print out some lame discount. So, that's a big strike out, advertiser who is paying Facebook to market to me.
But here's even more evidence that Facebook doesn't get me,. Guess what the ad was touting. Pole-dancing lessons. As in, Let's pretend to be a stripper. Hello? Don't you have my date of birth, Facebook? Do you really think a 56-year-old woman wants to swing around a stripper's pole wearing scantly nothing? Plus, have you not seen my marital status? My husband of 21 years would probably bust a gut laughing if I ever put a pole in our bedroom. Either that, or he'd pull a muscle indulging his own fantasy of being a fireman.
So, I'm going to put off worrying about Facebook being an all-knowing Wizard of Marketing until I get some proof they REALLY know how to target me. When I see ads popping up promoting ibuprofen and hair coloring, AARP and retirement communities ... well, then I'll know that Facebook REALLY gets me.
