Last year I was perusing TED Talks and came across one entitled The Online Filter Bubble by Eli Pariser. Essentially Pariser's insight was that online personalization through the systematic filtering of information is having the unintended negative side effect of isolating individual users in information bubbles, or as Pariser calls them "filter bubbles". The bubbles are created as algorithms decide what information we can and can't see when surfing the Internet. Since they are based on an individual's use history, they select information based on what they algorithm thinks you want to see, not necessarily what you should be exposed to. Pariser lists several negative implications that these filter bubbles could potentially have on society, however I started to think about the implications these bubbles have for marketers.
For example, how can marketers penetrate these filter bubbles and reach potential new customers? If online consumers are stuck in their own online information bubbles, how will they be exposed to new products? Marketers need to look for ways to break into the bubbles by looking for things that are already included in individuals' online bubbles and find ways to make their product relevant enough that it isn't discarded by the filtering algorithm as being irrelevant information. One way to do this would be to purchase keywords that may be related to something to else that is relevant to your target audiences' information bubbles. For example, if you are trying to market a new brand of soda to people who like Coke, in addition to purchasing keywords directly related to your product you might also want to buy keywords related to Coke. This way if someone who has a history of interacting with Coke online is searching for Coke, your soda's ad may come up where it may not have otherwise.
Check out Pariser's TED Talk here: http://www.thefilterbubble.com/ted-talk
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