The economic value of a social profile

In the last episode of this focus dedicated to social media and the effects on the personal lives of each of us that these tools bring, we have addressed the issue of privacy in detail. We have seen in particular what regulations have been formulated by individual countries or entire unions of states (see the EU) for legitimize and frame people's privacy on the web and on social media themselves. From Facebook to Twitter, via Instagram, LinkedIn and Youtube, all social media have had to reformulate their policies to ensure respect for user privacy. However, we must not let our guard down and think that social networks are safe places. In fact, it is necessary to distinguish between clear violations of one's own data and the economic value of a social profile in the ecosystem of the online market. Emblematic in this regard was the Cambridge Analytica scandal, uncovered by some journalists following the unlawful processing of information and personal preferences of millions of people by the homonymous company on the occasion of the election of President Trump (and not only).

But exactly, are the offenses committed by third-party companies external to the various social media the only danger? Or do we have to keep our guard up ipso facto, precisely because we are users of a service - at least in appearance - free? The more likely answer seems to be the latter. And we are certainly not the ones to support it. Social networks have now revealed their most insidious mechanisms, the subject of study and analysis by "repentant" engineers, emeritus professors, marketing experts and influential personalities. Just watch this video carefully, excerpt from the documentary The social dilemma available on Netflix:

https://youtu.be/Ko2YcD0iYpc

Now it is clearer who is the real product in the age of social media?

If you're not paying, you are the product

If you are not paying, the product is you. In a nutshell, this is the translation of one of the most famous maxims born around the phenomenon of social media. The sentence, pronounced by one of the most authoritative witnesses in the aforementioned documentary, was already in the public domain before the release of The social dilemma, a sign that the time is ripe to affirm an increasingly widespread and tangible awareness. We are all aware that social media "offer" businesses and companies a service. Which, exactly? Again the answer shouldn't be so obscure: the service offered by Facebook is the same as that offered by Snapchat, LinkedIn and the usual suspects, and can be summed up in one word: profiling. Through the profiling of a user, the social media in question ensures very accurately the delivery of the right advertising, at the right time, in the quantity required by the company.

A daydream for any marketer with a modicum of expertise. Indeed, to tell the truth, a daydream for anyone familiar with social media. The reliability of the profiling is no coincidence it went hand in hand with the success of social media: the more secure the system, the easier it is to use even for those who have no experience; the easier it is to use, the more people will invest in advertising. Hence the exponential growth of often false experiments, but also of respectable marketing campaigns, set up by entrepreneurs and professionals who have studied as self-taught and who have managed to juggle with the settings and the creation of suitable ads. Certainly not an easy job as the rhetoric of social media would have it, where everyone is the master of their own actions and fortune. The truth is that most of the campaigns fail from the start because they are badly set up, but here it is also useless to go into detail, we run the risk of going off topic. Instead, let's get back to us, or rather to the use that is made of our data by social networks.

HABITS, FORECASTS, VICES: all in an algorithm

If you have never considered the economic value of your profile on Facebook, Instagram and other social networks, perhaps you have never even realized what happens behind the scenes. First, you must know that as per Google, even for social networks there are very sophisticated algorithms, capable of analyzing billions of pieces of information every minute, 24 hours a day, without interruption. This information perfectly reflects our behaviors. Any examples?

• We comment on a post or take some action (like, dislike, etc.)
• We click on an advertisement
• We follow a person or a company
• Let's do a search within the social media

All these activities shape our habits and are examined by the social media algorithm used. The rest is already written: the company wants to intercept the interest of the public, so it creates ads directing them to the chosen target. The algorithm draws the available data from its database according to the profiling already carried out, and ultimately shows the ads to people with identities that overlap with the one selected by the company. One could argue that all of this is unethical, but one could also cite another famous aphorism: it's the beauty market. The reality is that social networks ask for authorization for profiling already during the registration phase. Except that most users don't even read a single line of the contract – because that's what it is about – that they go to sign. Or, simply, it has no interest in becoming THE product.

In the next episode we will see how the company profile, for a business, can become an asset in the brand communication strategy, but under certain conditions. Don't miss it!