Facebook to Use Direct Mail to Identify Political Advertising Buyers

Mar 29, 2018 | News

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In a twist to the tale of social media communication replacing traditional means of communication, such as mailers and catalogues, Facebook has made an announcement that it plans to use direct mail in the form of postcards to verify the identities of anyone launching political advertising via the popular social media network.

Identity confirmation using direct mail postcards is not new and Google already uses this method to verify owners of businesses who use Google to list their businesses and become visible on the internet. The way it works is that the Google postcard is mailed to the registered mailing address of the business being listed, along with a confirmation code. The business owner then enters the code on the site to confirm that he/she is the owner of the business, and claims the Google listing.

Using direct mail to verify identities

In the case of Facebook, the postcard will contain a similar code that will be used to identify the advertiser and verify whether the person is in the United States. The successful confirmation will enable that person to launch a campaign on Facebook and issue ads mentioning candidates who run for federal office. The move comes on the heels of a discovery that accounts based in Russia spent around $100,000 buying Facebook ads during the presidential elections.

Many are of the opinion that Facebook is making efforts to capture large amounts of data of people who want to take part in an election campaign. It’s also interesting to note that the new compliance laws will not extend to Facebook users launching issues based awareness campaigns. However, many such debates that take place on the social media channel are actually about tricky issues that have been tearing America apart, such as gun laws, total migration, racial tensions, etc.

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The rise of the machines

New machine learning technologies have been put in place by the social media giant to detect spamming, sharing of fake news, posts being used as ‘clickbait’ and domain spoofs. While the social media company has not confirmed an official launch date for the postcard verification exercise, it could well be in place before the mid- term elections in November. According to a recent survey conducted in the US, 68% of all surveyed members of the electorate ranked direct mail within their top three choices for political communication, in terms of credibility. The same survey also found out that millennials (those born in the late 1990s and early 2000s) had a whopping 76% of respondents who said that they were likely to actually read their direct mail.

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With the popularity of direct mail still firmly in place, bakergoodchild offers a highly professional service at very reasonable prices. Call us on 0800 612 1972 or contact us online in order to speak to a member our staff who can discuss the needs of your business and propose efficient and innovative solutions for you.

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