Social media marketers, like TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter are supported by advertising (it’s over 90% of their revenue).  That means they need to monitor and analyze your discussions, posts, videos on their platforms and also monitor activity on the internet that occurs outside their platforms (including activities like shopping, messaging, streaming) to provide data to advertisers to more effectively target you for ads.  Is it worth it?  Would you rather have your online activity under constant surveillance and get free access to social media, or would you prefer to pay a monthly subscription (let’s say $5 a month) to use social media without ads and constant surveillance?  Why?

Also, imagine you work for a marketing agency that provides treatment for persons with migraine headaches.  Is it OK to use social media monitoring to identify persons having discussions about their migraine headaches to target ads to them, or should that information about health conditions be considered private and confidential?  What would you do as a marketing professional who is presented with the challenge of reaching persons who suffer from migraine headaches?

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