Facebook – Converge

How Tinder, Airbnb, TripAdvisor, and Bumble could leak even more Facebook Data than Trump’s Consulting Firm Cambridge Analytica

“The data analytics firm that helped Donald Trump get elected president” was suspended from accessing Facebook’s Ads platform this weekend. The penalty was not because their data was stolen from Facebook, but because they “paid to acquire the personal information through an outside researcher“. In 2015, a Cambridge University researcher used features of Facebook’s platform to get 270,000 users to surrender the data of 50 million total users, simply by quietly asking for permission to access the information of their “friends”. The only reason this data violated their terms of service was that the data was illicitly transferred from the researcher to Cambridge Analytica (unrelated to the university).

It is true that Facebook no longer allows apps to request that you hand over the likes, photos, and location of your friends, but a relevant current question is this: In 2018, are there Facebook-connected apps that could leak even more personal data than Cambridge Analytica acquired? That answer seems to be a resounding yes. While the permissions are tightened, the growth of mobile apps and social sign-in have grown as well.

Here are 4 popular apps (and there are certainly many more) that need to be very clear with users how their data is being protected and how it will be used in the future:

1. Tinder – 100+ million users at risk

This online-dating juggernaut understandable asks you to login with Facebook to establish your identity, and uses your friends , photos, and “likes” to match you with potential interests. If you grants these permissions even once, any of these apps can collect all of this data, forever, until you disconnect the app. Tinder is owned by media conglomerate IAC, which gives it ample temptation to use this user data to sell ad targeting similar to Trump and Cambridge Analytica.

2. Airbnb – 90+ million users at risk

Travel bookings site Airbnb also uses social logins to help establish your identity to keep you safe. They ask for access to your photos to help you share details of your trips, and likely use your interests to try and help you find lodging. Airbnb has no obvious reasons to misuse this data, but they clearly have access to a lot, and if they were hacked, or acquired by a more diversified company, that story could change.

3. TripAdvisor – 70+ million users at risk

This travel review mainstay also asks for permanent access to your likes and photos. Similar to Tinder, they are owned by Liberty Media, which owns everything from Sports teams to SiriusXM Radio to 1/3 of LiveNation/Ticketmaster. This is a tremendous amount of data to protect against external threats as well as internal temptations to monetize this data for advertisers.

4. Bumble – 27 million users at risk

A rising star in the online dating space, Bumble has the same reasonable reasons to ask for “likes” and photos as Tinder, and the same challenges. Bumble is majority-owned by Badoo & their owner, “secretive Russian entrepreneur Andrey Andreev“. Considering the ongoing concerns about Russia’s interest in using social media data to target ads and influence elections, this site’s rapidly growing dataset is interesting, especially since it sits further away from the reach of U.S. regulation.

Now What?

This is a challenging situation. We all want our apps to be easy to use, and to have access to details of our lives that improve the app experience. Most of us don’t even mind if some personal data is used to show us ads we like instead of ads we don’t like.

A few next steps that could help this situation:

Apps using these permissions should make their intentions abundantly clear. Will this data be used for anything other than directly serving user needs within the app? Should the platforms even allow that? Could they prevent it with certainty?
Facebook and similar sites should consider adopting less permanent access, where users who haven’t visited the site recently are not still subjects of data harvesting
Less “friendly” permissions processes. It’s extremely easy right now to give an app nearly-permanent access to every picture or interest you ever post to Facebook. Now that image recognition is cheap and easy, this is data is too revealing to be granted trivially.

For Media Inquiries about Facebook Advertising Strategy around the U.S. Presidential Election and other Advanced Digital Marketing Tactics and Measurement, please contact Rob Kischuk at 404.663.9945, rob@convergehq.com, or @rkischuk / @GetConverge

As a Marketing Reporting Automation and Analytics company, Converge is committed to responsible and ethical data collection practices that protect the privacy of individuals and the data policies of the data sources we connect to.

(Methodology: in the case of Bumble and Tinder, since these apps require social login, actual total app downloads were used. In other cases, we used March 2018 actual Monthly Active Users, and assumed at least 2/3 user attrition over the past 90 days)

Why Russia’s Facebook Election Ads Were So Effective

The Washington Post has confirmed that Russian operatives used Facebook Custom Audiences to hyper-efficiently target Ads on Facebook. CNN further confirms that these groups specifically targeted swing states including Wisconsin and Michigan, which President Trump won by less than 1%. Continue reading “Why Russia’s Facebook Election Ads Were So Effective”

Why Is Everyone Talking About Facebook Groups?

We have seen Facebook put an emphasis on Groups this past year and we have seen people navigating and preferring a more private, or 1:1 form of social media. So maybe it’s time for your brand to tap into the power of Groups?

Facebook Groups aren’t just for College Alumni or Neighborhoods; they can be used to boost engagement, interaction and create something extraordinary for your product users.

Below we dig into how a Facebook Group can be used to create community, provide insight and maybe even defeat the dreaded Facebook algorithm we are so tired of fighting. Continue reading “Why Is Everyone Talking About Facebook Groups?”

PR Takes On Facebook

What does your PR strategy look like? Does it involve video, social, events, monitoring the news- a collaboration between them all. Or is there an area you haven’t tackled yet?

Although it can seem overwhelming, Facebook can be a great opportunity for PR. A place to connect with current and potential customers, gain interest (and insight), promote content and keep fans updated. So what are you waiting for?

How can you involve Facebook in your PR strategy?

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1. Access To Data

One of the benefits of so many people connecting and logging into Facebook is the amount of data Facebook can collect on everyone. Facebook knows everything you would ever want to know about your audience, but that doesn’t mean they are just going to hand it over to you. One of the best ways to get to learn about your audience is by creating content and ads on the platform.

When you go through the motions of creating a Facebook AD, you will see just how specific or general your audience can be. From demographics, job titles, interests, liked pages, and even importing your list of emails to create an audience.

But how do this help your PR strategy?

Through the creation of your ad and then the response of your selected audience, you can learn a lot.

Maybe you aren’t getting a response at all? That means you’ve targeted the wrong people.

Maybe you are getting a lot of clicks but no other social engagement such as likes, comments, or shares? That means your target audience is interested in your product, but they aren’t going to be very engaged on Facebook

Maybe you are getting a lot of social engagement, but no one is clicking your ad? That means your audience is active Facebook users, but they aren’t going to leave the site to take a further look at your product.

You can learn some much about your audience by spending a little bit of money on Facebook. And understanding your audience is the first step to any well-run PR campaign.

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2. Find And Connect With Your Audience

There is something for everyone on Facebook. While some demographics appear stronger than others, billions of people are still active on the site, and they have at least 1 billion active users every month. Those facts are pretty hard to compete with.

However, when it comes to building your brand on Facebook you aren’t there to reach everyone, you are there to first and foremost find your audience- and the good news is a lot of them should be on Facebook. Use the research you have already done when creating your customer and apply it Facebook. Their age, gender, income, location, family unit, etc.

Now that you know who your audience is you now have to understand how they use the site.

Are they active?
Do they like, comment, share, promote and brands?
Or are they there just to connect with family and friends?
Or is Facebook the place they come to learn and keep up with what’s going on?

This means you are going to take the time to listen and understand their overall vibe on the website. As exciting as it to start creating content you need to make sure you take time observing too. This will help understand what your audiences expected behavior would be to your content and how you will know if you are creating something that is connecting with them.

Once you know how they are using the social site, you then want to develop your brand’s Page. When creating your Page and coming up with your content strategy, you need to ask:

What is my desired outcome?

And this should be based on the observations you have made about your audiences actions (or inactions) on Facebook.

Are you going to use Facebook to promote content?
To create content (live video, 360, stores)?
Build awareness around your brand?
Connect with influencers and bloggers to partner with?
Advertising?
Promoting sales and contests?

Before you do anything else, you need to understand what your own expectations are for the Page so you can understand if it matches with the content you want to create and the content your audience will respond to.

3. Old Fashion Promotion

Now that you have done you research found your audience and gathered lots of data about them you can create a plan to keep them coming back to your Page.

The good news is Facebook can fill the gaps caused by declining traditional media, such as newspapers and TV or when reporters just won’t pick up their phone. You don’t have to wait for someone to become interested in your story based off of a short pitch, or worry about the decline in newspaper subscriptions! You can create the story yourself and share it on Facebook.

Of course, this won’t mean much unless you have completed the two steps above. Just creating a Facebook Page is not enough to gain traction. Like everything else in PR understanding your audience and having the data to back it up is also important.

Wrap It Up

With access to so much do you ever feel like you a more of a brand communicator than a PR pro? After all, PR isn’t just about handling crisis and chaos, it’s about building and promoting a brand image that is vulnerable to the 24/7 news cycle. And we think Facebook is the perfect place to gain back some of that control.

Looking for some more tips and tricks for Facebook and other social sites? Then download this FREE e-book, 30 Social Tests, here.

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F8: Where We SEE Social Going

From Snapchat calming to be a camera company to Facebook deeming the camera as the first AR tool, social is headed in one obvious direction, sight.

When I think of where social came from, it was often a place you used to share past events. You posted pictures at places you had already been to, maybe announced your baby girl took her first steps and let people know you had moved away. Now, social is in real time. From live video, to the ability publish pictures and stories as your life is happening (and the expectation to do it) combined with everything we just learned from F8- social platforms not only want to be a part of everything you are doing they want to see everything you are doing. Continue reading “F8: Where We SEE Social Going”

30 Social Tests To Run In April

Have you noticed how social platforms are constantly updating and changing and always improving?

Can you say the same about your own social content…

There might be a correlation between your poor social results and the fact that you are not testing anything! And we want to help you with that. We just created a free e-book giving your 30 tests to run on your Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter account and we are challenging you to do on test a day in the month of April.

Below is a peak as to what you will find in the e-book. Continue reading “30 Social Tests To Run In April”

Last Minute Super Bowl Ad & Engagement Ideas That Don’t Cost $5 Million

Here in Atlanta, there isn’t much else anyone is talking about but the Super Bowl happening in just a few short days.

I mean no big deal but we even got Ellen to notice us!

Sadly, I am not the winner of the tickets but I still have good news. You don’t need to spend $5 million dollars on a Super Bowl ad to take advantage of the hundreds of millions of people watching on Sunday.

Really good news since it might be a tad late to participate with an ad but thanks to social and mobile there are still plenty of ways to get your brand in the game.

All three stats below are from a CMO.com article and prove just how accessible the Super Bowl audience is to you. All you have to do is join the conversation!

So let’s talk about how you can do that… Continue reading “Last Minute Super Bowl Ad & Engagement Ideas That Don’t Cost $5 Million”

5 Lies About Social Media Marketing

Can you imagine the world without social media?

Social media has made a very permanent place in our everyday life, marketing strategies, and budgets so it’s essential that we don’t feel led on or have unrealistic expectations of what can happen when we take our marketing efforts to a social platform.

Below are five common traps marketers fall into when using social media. Continue reading “5 Lies About Social Media Marketing”

5 Things Instagram Will Do Before They Turn 7

Instagram turned 6 and to celebrate the CEO of the OG of filtered photos, Kevin Systrom sat down with BuzzFeed News to talk about the range of changes that have happened to the Instagram product.

We decided to read between the lines and take some guesses about what this could mean for Instagram’s future. Check out our 5 predictions below…

Continue reading “5 Things Instagram Will Do Before They Turn 7”