Facebook Wants Us All to Be ‘Here Together’ 

As many people know, Facebook has been in the news lately—and it’s not the type of publicity that has the social media giant hitting the “like” button. For those of you (like myself) who were unsure of what the original issue was, basically news broke that a London-based company called Cambridge Analytica picked up tens of millions of Facebook users profiles without their permission.

The reason why Facebook is now tied up in this issue is safety. Since the site has the same number of daily users as 1,500 times the population of South Dakota (as noted by this South Dakota senator), I would say it is a justified concern. The site has an enormous pull on daily life, and I like many others could be considered to be “addicted” to the site.

After this news broke, individuals started to question whether Facebook had the ability to protect the privacy of its users, or if they were just being used so Facebook could make a quick buck. In early April, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, had a hearing in front of the U.S. Senate Commerce and Judiciary Committees. Now I’m not someone who really cares about all the government and political happenings, but this did scare me a bit. However, Facebook’s public response is what really helped me jump back on the bandwagon.

Using Aspiring Advertising to Keep Facebook Users on Board

On April 24, Facebook launched a television campaign to minimize the bad publicity they had been getting. “Here Together” is a sixty-second advertisement attempting to remind Facebook users that behind the large corporation are people just like you and me. It also comments on the mistakes that they have made on their way to the top.

The ad opens with the line “We came here for the friends”, and walks us through a typical persons daily use of Facebook, finding new friends, posting pictures, videos, and memories, and of course telling everyone happy birthday. I really like this first scene because it connects you to the ad, and to Facebook itself.

The next part of the ad looks into the mistakes that Facebook has made. The narrator states: “But then something happened. We had to deal with spam, clickbait, fake news, and data misuse”. I think anyone and everyone who has ever used Facebook for any amount of time fully understands this line. To me, this also shows that Facebook understands that they have made mistakes, and they know that everyone hates all of those things. It was very smart of them to address these issues head on.

The final and, in my opinion, best part of the advertisement was the line, “And thats going to change.” I think even Facebook realizes that they have gotten too big, too fast. This whole data issue has really opened their eyes to what most users want from a social media platform. They want connections, they want to share life’s biggest moments, but most of all they want to be protected. I want to be able to post pictures of my future children so that my family can all see them without having to be worried about where the images are being used. I would like to believe from this advertisement, Facebook wants us all to be “Here Together”.