Are We One Step Closer to Facebook Tagging That Coca-Cola Can in the Background?

Facebook just rolled out an update for page tags where pages can tag other pages in much the same way people do.

Today, we’re adding a new way for people to discover conversations around topics they’ve expressed interest in.

Now, when a Page tags another Page, we may show the post to some of the people who like or follow the tagged Page. For example, this post by the Bleacher Report might be shown in News Feed to people who follow or like Dwight Howard, in addition to people who follow or like the Bleacher Report.

Once again this is how it already works when a friend tags you on Facebook:

This already happens with updates from friends — if a friend tags me in a photo, my friends may see this photo in their News Feed even if they’re not friends with the person who tagged me. When we tested adding this feature for Pages we found that people liked seeing this type of content in their News Feeds and gave these stories high scores in surveys.

I imagine if I owned Facebook I’d make this the first step to something much more powerful. This type of dual targeting has sort of been in place for advertising but it appears this change goes one step further.

Relationship and Affinity to Content

This change takes into account the relationship, affinity and engagement you’ve displayed with things you like to show you relevant content.

Here’s where my mind goes with this…

What if you could find brand logos, brand images, or other products located within Facebook user photos?

You could use that data for better targeting or in a kind of sly way… show people brands and stuff they are already affiliated with. With this “page tagging” already in place you just connect this new photo analysis on top.

So that Coca Cola can or other brand logo/shape that you have in a picture might be auto tagged (maybe even behind the scenes without you knowing).

This Solves One Facebook Advertising Problem

One of the challenges with Facebook serving you ads is you have to “opt-in” by liking. While part of this is a moot point by having the like/share buttons on just about every site in existence– this allows Facebook to somewhat track what you do and then define affinity to brands or ideas based on visits. I should mention I don’t know if that’s true but I think I’ve read that somewhere… I’ll let that stand as internet logic.

But if they could somehow through machine learning figure out that those headphones you’re wearing are from Beats by Dre they wouldn’t have to rely upon your action of “liking” the company or brand. They would know you own those headphones.

I could be completely way out of the park here but that was the first thing that came to me when I saw this update.

Either way page tagging is something you probably want to test with your own page. See if it can enhance your reach.

You can read a little bit about it here.

via Business 2 Community http://ift.tt/1fSvi0C