• by Blake Nelson , Op-Ed Contributor, September 2, 2016

Last week Facebook confirmed what most of us have already assumed to be true: Facebook knows you better than you know yourself. From purchase behavior to location data to user interests, no piece of data is too small. In fact, the platform leverages as many as 98 personal data points to determine who you are and what to put in your feed.

Publishers large and small ­have bemoaned this as yet another example of Facebook playing the part of the manipulative big brother. But is Facebook’s data collection even a bad thing?

For all the complaints thrown at the social media giant, Facebook’s privacy and targeting policies appear to be compliant and above board. More importantly, the targeting appears to benefit and align with user preferences. Facebook’s ability to customize its experience to user preferences is what has helped make it the world's dominant social-media platform.

The company's flair for balancing the user and business side of the house has proven so successful its competitors have sought to replicate Facebook features into their own platforms. While this announcement may come as a revelation to some, Facebook’s most recent move reinforces the platform’s desire to seek a balance between the end user experience and its business model.

At the end of the day this is good news for everyone.   

Facebook’s hyper-personalized ads are what users prefer. People don’t hate ads, they just hate ads and experiences that aren’t relevant to them. There’s a reason why I mute a TV commercial, but then click on the ad in my feed or email. A recent survey conducted by the folks at MarketingSherpa seems to agree.

In its study, they found that only 8% of users have said they don’t want to see any advertising at all. But users do seem to care how they receive and see ads. For example, of that same group, 20% have said they rely on social media to discover and learn about new products. This includes advertising.

Facebook understands this, which is one of the reasons why it has consistently found ways to block ad servers on their platform.  It is also why it strives to make their content more relevant and how they place ads more transparently to their users. Facebook even updated their ad preferences page and created a new education portal for users to better understand how and why they see certain types of ads in their feed.

Facebook wants you to know you’re being advertised to, and it wants you to make sure your ads are relevant.

By pulling back the curtain of its targeting capabilities, Facebook is confirming that every ad and piece of content in the user’s feed is there for a reason. People want to see advertising that is relevant to them. The Groupon post for the bar down the street? The helpful little carousel collection of couches your girlfriend sent you links to last week?

Each and every one has been selected based on that users preferences interests, life stage and buying pattern. The brands that understand this will challenge themselves to create ads and content that fits within this model.

Brands that don’t will just get filtered out. Which is just what Facebook and their users want.