The company continually collects all kinds of personal information from users, from the websites they visit to their favorite movies and TV shows. The trick for Facebook is to let advertisers use that information to target their messages without making its users feel their privacy is being violated.
By helping advertisers reach just the right users, Facebook could persuade more companies to exploit its unique platform, said Geoff Klapisch, an advertising professor at Boston University.
“Facebook needs to offer advertisers more targetability,’’ Klapisch said. “That’s what their point of differentiation is. That’s the home run for Facebook.’’
It is clear that advertisers already like Facebook. It delivers more than one-third of the ads that people see on the Web and promises that 65 million users could see a particular ad on a typical day. That’s more than twice the number of viewers that saw the TV commercials on last year’s “American Idol’’ finale.
“The problem isn’t just the role of ads, the problem is the role of ads in social media,’’ said Eric Clemons , an information management professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “They have a dream demographic, but they haven’t figured out how to monetize it.’’
Facebook earned about $4 per user last year, according to the company’s figures; but with more users than Europe has people, the company should be able to do better, Clemons said. A figure that low “suggests that there is a structural problem with using this medium,’’ he said.
That’s not to say Facebook can’t make the medium work for advertisers, Clemons added, by moving toward growing ad revenue, and treading lightly to avoid scaring off users wary of being tracked by marketers.
Privacy has been a problem spot for Facebook. Last year, it settled complaints filed with the Federal Trade Commission over the lack of notification it gave users before changing privacy practices. In its filing Wednesday, Facebook said it takes those matters seriously.
“Our objective is to give users choice over what they share and with whom they share it,’’ the company said.
