Facebook’s Topic Data to Enhance Advertising on the Social Network
Social Media
Information is knowledge and knowledge is power. In Tuesday’s announcement, Facebook said it’s looking forward to empowering advertisers with deeper data on users with the rollout of topic data.
Facebook explains in their announcement post that “marketers want to understand what people think about and the topics related to their business so they can make their products and marketing more relevant to their customers.”
Instead of marketers digging and sifting through online content shared on Facebook feeds to get an idea of what people care about, Facebook is proving that information on a limited scale.
What is Topic Data?
According to Facebook’s post:
“Topic data shows marketers what audiences are saying on Facebook about events, brands, subjects and activities, all in a way that keeps personal information private. Marketers use the information from topic data to make better decisions about how they market on Facebook and other channels, and build product roadmaps.”
Facebook is partnering with social data provider DataSift to roll out the feature. The anonymous goodness won’t be available to everyone, just a “limited number” of DataSift partners for right now in the U.S. and the U.K., and with the information limited to those two countries.
How Does Topic Data Work?
Here’s what Facebook says. DataSift accesses the anonymous and aggregate information gathered through the social network’s pipeline and then organizes it for their partners. They take this information, analyze it, and convert it into “meaningful insights,” which will help marketers with decisions and product development.
Facebook argues that although the same data has been available from third parties for some time, “the sample size is too small to be significant, and determining demographics was nearly impossible.” With the new topic data, marketers have “a holistic and actionable view of their audience for the first time.” While topic data provides guidance for marketers, Facebook noted that the information couldn’t be used to target ads directly.