{"id":8182,"date":"2015-02-17T01:17:13","date_gmt":"2015-02-17T06:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dougbittinger.com\/thoughts\/?p=8182"},"modified":"2025-04-21T01:56:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T05:56:39","slug":"social-media-advertising-can-spooky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/social-media-advertising-can-spooky\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Media Advertising Can Be Spooky"},"content":{"rendered":"

I know advertisers team up with social media platforms to track users and target social media advertising to those user’s specific needs.\u00a0 Many have been the times that I’ve searched for something, and for days afterward versions of what I was looking for pop up in on-site ads and in the sidebar of Facebook.<\/p>\n

One time my buddy was telling me in an email how relieved has was that he finally backed over his weird\u00a0 mailbox and destroyed it.\u00a0 He sent me a link to a store page for a box that was very similar.\u00a0 I agreed, I’d be relieved to be rid of it too.\u00a0 In this case I did not search; I used a direct link in an e-mail.\u00a0 Still these Victorian mail boxes kept popping up all over the place.\u00a0 I had to do a couple of searches for things I didn’t care about just to be rid of them!<\/p>\n

Marie puts the annoyance of social media advertising to work for her.\u00a0 When she wants a new pair of shoes or a skirt for work, she does a search and checks her favorite places.\u00a0 If she can’t find what she wants, she stops looking and goes into Facebook.\u00a0 More often than not, there: in the side bar, is just what she wanted.<\/p>\n

But the ad I saw today really got my neck hair up on end:<\/p>\n

\"social<\/a>That is a photograph.\u00a0 Does this advertiser have some utility that stamps a name on a stock photo and serves it up on Facebook?\u00a0 How do they avoid stupid stuff like \u201cLopez, another Celtic legend\u201d?\u00a0 Can it be that it\u2019s hooked into a database that actually makes a good guess at a name\u2019s origin?\u00a0 I had to know…<\/p>\n

I see a lot of sweatshirt ads.\u00a0 Most are stock designs that have something to do with being a writer, or supporting pit bulls, or bear an encouraging bible verse: these things I expect to see because they are broad spectrum interests as well as being things I talk about.\u00a0 A lot of people would buy those.\u00a0 But “Bittinger” shirts?<\/p>\n

I have encountered a few people with my last name who were not (to my knowledge) family members.\u00a0 I once set up a Google Alerts utility to ping me whenever “Douglas Bittinger” showed up somewhere so I could see what people were saying about me and where.\u00a0 I don’t really care all that much, it was just for grins.\u00a0 But I started getting alerts about Douglas Bittinger being arrested (again) for beating his wife.\u00a0 And others for Douglas Bittinger placing well in a marathon.\u00a0 WHAT?<\/p>\n

The runner Douglas turned out to be a State Trooper in Maryland.\u00a0 We’ve connected on Facebook and joke about sharing a name.\u00a0 He’s a nice guy who does good things and adores his wife.\u00a0 The other Douglas Bittinger (aside from me) is a…well…let’s just say I’m happy to NOT be acquainted with him.<\/p>\n

Despite these chance encounters, I’ve never thought the Bittinger name to be especially common.<\/p>\n

So I clicked on the picture to go to the original post.\u00a0 Not much more info there, but in the comments were a zillion people talking about how awesome it is to be part of the Bittinger family? I don\u2019t know ANY of those people!\u00a0 All of a sudden I find that Bittinger has something in common with Smith and Jones!<\/p>\n

At least I don\u2019t have to feel guilty about not ordering the shirt after they went to such trouble.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know advertisers team up with social media platforms to track users and target social media advertising to those user’s specific needs.  Many have been the times that I’ve searched for something, and for days afterward versions of what I was looking for pop up in on-site ads and in the sidebar of Facebook. One … Continue reading “Social Media Advertising Can Be Spooky”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[38,16],"class_list":["post-8182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-communication","tag-promotion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8182"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19936,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8182\/revisions\/19936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}