{"id":25410,"date":"2017-06-28T19:27:17","date_gmt":"2017-06-29T01:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/?p=25410"},"modified":"2017-06-28T19:30:57","modified_gmt":"2017-06-29T01:30:57","slug":"facebook-knows-want-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/facebook-knows-want-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook Knows What You Want for Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FacebookFacebook knows better than Santa<\/a> what everyone in your house wants for Christmas<\/a> \u2013 and they are going to make sure you will know what\u2019s on their wish list. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a whole new world of creepy advertising. And you made it all possible. <\/p>\n

When you signed up for Facebook you granted the world\u2019s most prolific website entry into nearly every corner of your life. <\/p>\n

They know who you are, where you work, when you were born, where you went to high school and even who your favorite sports teams are. <\/p>\n

They know every one of your friends. They can connect you to nearly all of your family. They can likely figure out who you ex is, who you voted for, and where your last and next vacation will be. <\/p>\n

Facebook knows your likes and dislikes. They know the movies you watch, the songs you listen to, the websites you frequent online, and even the kind of pizza you like to order. <\/p>\n

Facebook follows you not only on Facebook \u2013 they follow you wherever you go online. (In fact, they know you’re reading this right now).<\/p>\n

So don\u2019t think for a second they don\u2019t know what you want for Christmas<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Expand those scary thoughts to everyone who lives in your house (or who will be visiting your house for Christmas<\/a> \u2013 yes, they know that, too). <\/p>\n

Now, if you were Facebook, what would you do with all that information? <\/p>\n

Well, you would make money \u2013 huge, massive, ginormous, and obscene amounts of money. <\/p>\n

Coming to your Facebook \u2013 and your Amazon and your Netflix and your Walmart and your-whatever-place online where you spend money \u2013 are ads that target you more intimately than ever before. <\/p>\n

Here is how it works: Let\u2019s say you and your significant other live in a home with, oh, two teenage dependents \u2013 a boy we\u2019ll call Junior and a girl we\u2019ll name Missy.<\/p>\n

You are a busy person without much time for Facebook. You check it maybe once a day, likely at night before you go to bed \u2013 if you check it at all. You might look at it on your desktop before shutting down your work email for the day, or maybe you\u2019ll check it out on your Kindle when you\u2019re on the throne. (Admit it, you do it \u2013 lots of people do, gross as it is). <\/p>\n

Junior and Missy are all about their phones. And they are power users. Not so much with Facebook but on Instagram (which is owned by Facebook) and on Snapchat they are ever present. Ask them to call in a pizza on that phone and they will protest. And shut down the wifi with these two kids of yours and the world comes to an absolute end. From morning to night they are on their phones without ceasing. Believe it. <\/p>\n

Your significant other is a social media junkie too. He or she pursues interests, reads the news, does the bank and spends the money \u2013 all mostly on a device. <\/p>\n

This very real scenario is Facebook\u2019s playground. All that activity online via whatever kind of device gives them access to you and everything you know and love<\/a> and hate and admire and want to make happy for Christmas<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say Junior is a big Cubs fan. <\/p>\n

When they won the World Series last October Junior couldn\u2019t stop talking about it. He changed his profile picture to the Cubs logo, talked it up for weeks with his friends and follows the Cubs via his personal settings for the MLB app he\u2019s got on his phone. <\/p>\n

Somewhere along the line he tells a friend or clicks on an ad or likes an article about a Sony PS4. <\/p>\n

Suddenly you \u2013 Santa<\/a> Claus \u2013 begin to see ads for Sony\u2019s PS4\u2026and MLB 2017\u2026oh, and Cubs hats and Cubs tickets and Cubs jerseys, etc. <\/p>\n

But you and Junior don\u2019t talk much. He shows up at the dinner table \u2013 when you\u2019re at the dinner table \u2013 with his ever present phone. He seems distracted to you. It is hard for you, the doting parent, to get inside his head and, well, find out what he wants under the tree. <\/p>\n

But you\u2019re his friend on Facebook. <\/p>\n

And Facebook has got your back. Between now and Christmas<\/a>, you\u2019re going to see everything Facebook can sell that matches what Junior likes. Ditto for Missy and for your
\nSignificant Other. <\/p>\n

Don\u2019t have time to make a list? No worries \u2013 just take a serious gander at your Facebook ads. <\/p>\n

If they creep you out and give you the sense you\u2019re being stalked there is a good reason for that. You are!<\/p>\n

Yup, Junior is going to find out about your secret Christmas<\/a> wish for that new Justin Timberlake album. <\/p>\n

And Junior is going to say, \u201cWhat\u2019s up with all these JT ads on Facebook\u201d and when he does, you\u2019re going to \u201clike\u201d it. <\/p>\n

And somewhere in a dark office in Silicone Valley a Facebook marketer is high-fiving himself \u2013 as he sends a new ad to your Significant Other, with the headline that says, \u201cHey, did you know that XXX REALLY, REALLY likes Justin Timberlake?\u201d<\/p>\n

And he\/she is going to laugh. <\/p>\n

She was going to get you socks. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facebook knows better than Santa what everyone in your house wants for Christmas \u2013 and they are going to make sure you will know what\u2019s on their wish list. It\u2019s a whole new world of creepy advertising. And you made it all possible. When you signed up for Facebook you granted the world\u2019s most prolific […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":25411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","iawp_total_views":5,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,27,112,76],"tags":[643,644],"class_list":["post-25410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christmas-news","category-christmas-online","category-christmas-shopping","category-christmas-trends","tag-facebook","tag-shopping-online"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}