Advertising in the Social Media

Hey there everyone! I know I haven't put a post up in a god-awful long time but today is the day I break that hiatus.

Everyone is familiar with the social media. It has been around for years, though it has changed faces as the years have gone by. My first encounter with it was when it was in the form of Myspace though many others will remember having a LiveJournal or Xanga. Whatever the starting point, it has come to a head with Facebook and Twitter being the two most popular social media outlets. And as we know, when something becomes popular, advertisers will do ANYTHING to jump into it and use it for marketing.

Facebook has been by far the most successful platform for marketing in the social media forum. People can become fans of different products, advertisements are placed strategically on your homepage based on your likes and dislikes, and you are able to interact with the companies directly through comments. Though this is a good thing for companies, I don't like how much it pries into your life. What I mean is, this form of advertising is basically the equivalent of you meeting up with some friends and having 30 to 40 salesmen walking up to your group and trying to push products on you. Though you can ignore them, it's really quite annoying to have products shoved in your face when you don't want them there.

Twitter isn't so bad in that companies don't interfere with you directly unless you decide to follow their tweets. To get you to follow them though, they use bait such as getting info on new products before they hit stores or special offers you can only get through being a follower on Twitter.

Marketers attempt to hook us, the consumers, in by strategically placing messages that allow us to be familiarized with their products and, in many cases, loyal to the products by making us believe they are the best. In many cases, we are affected on a completely unconscious level. Here's a video showing (sort of) how they accomplish this (and how susceptible they are as well):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyQjr1YL0zg

I myself am completely fed up with the marketing invasion in the media in general let alone the social media. I understand that advertisers need to get the message out about their products but here's the real question I pose to you, reader:When does advertising become invasion of privacy?