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Instagram Advertising: Do you know it when you see it?

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Re: Instagram Advertising: Do you know it when you see it?

#13
post #6

Slightly OT, but I deleted my Facebook last year. Ever since, the Instagram ads I see are woefully targeted. I'm a 30 year old man living in New Delhi, India, yet in the past few weeks, I've seen ads for: - A real estate company in Denver, Colarado - Sanitary pads for women - A Dubai property brokerage - BMW Las Vegas I really don't know what's going on with these ads because geographic and gender exclusion would be…

You don't know who you are, it is about time you go buy your BMW in LA and sort out your prop investments in Dubai.

But on a serious note, the notion that any insurance company or even governments give any weight to the "data" from social media and the like makes me uneasy, specially when you realize how off they can be!

Re: Instagram Advertising: Do you know it when you see it?

#15
post #9

I'm in the ultra minority, but I use https://instagram.com on my phone and I've never seen an ad.

I have never seen an Instagram ad on my phone using both the Android and iOS apps. I don't know why, but there are certain accounts that have ads disabled (I'm not the only one [0]). I guess I just got lucky. My alternate accounts all get ads like normal. I don't think I would use Instagram if I got ads like my friends do.

[0] https://www.fastcompany.com/90166955/i-have-a-secret-ad-free...

Re: Instagram Advertising: Do you know it when you see it?

#17
post #9

I'm in the ultra minority, but I use https://instagram.com on my phone and I've never seen an ad.

I have never seen an Instagram ad on my phone using both the Android and iOS apps. I don't know why, but there are certain accounts that have ads disabled (I'm not the only one [0]). I guess I just got lucky. My alternate accounts all get ads like normal. I don't think I would use Instagram if I got ads like my friends do. [0] https://www.fastcompany.com/90166955/i-have-a-secret-ad-free...

huh, how odd. I've never seen ads on Instagram either, and assumed that was the default experience. I guess the A/B control group gods smiled on us.

Re: Instagram Advertising: Do you know it when you see it?

#18
It is getting increasingly difficult to guage what's native advertisment and what's not. It is not just social media or e-commerce websites but the enthusiast blogs, review sites, and YouTube channels doing sutble paid pieces.

The erstwhile online forums driven by volunteers and like-minded individuals are the only last known place remaining that don't seem to have hidden agendas. And I dread their demise.

The eternal october [0][1] of advertising is here. The only way I have managed to escape is firewalling them out of my home network, but that's like isolating myself in a cocoon and leaves a large part of today's internet inaccessible.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

[1] https://googlepress.blogspot.com/2000/10/google-launches-sel...

Re: Instagram Advertising: Do you know it when you see it?

#19
I know shallow, superficial tripe when I see it. Arguably a superset of most advertising, and the majority of advertising that actually sees the light of day, although not a total eclipse of advertising as a category of human activity.

As for Instagram, though. I have never seen anything on Instagram that wasn't something to be casually brushed aside as worthless. A large portion of the world does not see things this way.

I'm old and useless though, so please ignore my opinions.

Re: Instagram Advertising: Do you know it when you see it?

#20
I’m not on Instagram, but I don’t think this issue is really confined to social media. I’ve become quite concerned about is how advertising is drowning out useful information everywhere else as well.

We recently had a baby girl, our first, and this has lead to quite a lot of internet searching. I’ve been completely unable to find anything resembling an authentic answer on google. It’s all commercial content trying to push products rather than give any form of useful information. The government sites, to their credit, work really well, but what happened to the actual people on the internet? People sharing their stories without getting paid to push a product?

In the end we ended up subscribing to a national NGO that does consumer testing and has an excellent decade long track record, but what good is the internet if you can’t find honest information?

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