If you’re a regular user of Facebook, you’ve probably noticed that there’s been an increasing emphasis on automatically identifying people and objects. In an effort to make the social media platform more secure, Facebook now analyzes every photo for content. More specifically, 40,000 images per second .
For a long time now, marketers have been able to easily analyze whether you have children, a pet dog or are (a little) addicted to coffee #guilty. Facebook then uses this information to show you relevant ads. Many consumers – according to American developer Adam Geitgey – do not realize what important data they are unconsciously sharing with companies such as Facebook, Google and Apple. That is why Geitgey has created a plugin that shows you how smart Facebook's image recognition system is.
image recognition technology
As you can see in the example above, image recognition technology allows marketers to analyze your photos on a whole new level and create more targeted ads.
Marketers can advertise in an increasingly targeted manner
Besides objects, the image recognition software also recognizes logos in a certain photo. And that this technology is very powerful, I would like to explain to you with the following example.
Imagine . The weekend has arrived, the sun is shining and together with a few friends you decide to have a nice picnic in the park. Under the motto #theinstagoodlife you take beautiful pictures that you share with the world via Instagram. The weekend was absolutely amazing and on Sunday evening you secretly feel a little bit sad that it is already over.
It's Wednesday now and you're hard at work, of course. You're scrolling through your Facebook feed and your eyes fall on an advertisement for iced tea. Hey, what a coincidence! This is your favorite drink. You brought it to the picnic last Sunday and drank it with gusto!
Coincidence or not?
Is this really a coincidence? Well, not quite. In your Instagram post of the picnic, you can clearly see the logo of the brand of the iced tea. Thanks to this photo, you have let this company know that you drink this drink and that is why you now see the ad in your Facebook feed. So based on YOUR Instagram posts, companies, and yes, even big companies like Coca Cola, can see what you are interested in and then show you relevant ads. #cleverpeople
Find the right social influencers with one click of a button
Facebook is not the only party that uses image recognition technology to collect information. It is also used for influencer marketing and influencer marketing is hotter than HOT! Barbara Kuiper recently wrote an article about micro-influencers, in which she clearly explains why it is a smart idea to get started with influencer marketing. After all, influencers have their own little gang that supports them through thick and thin.
But how do you, as a marketer, ensure that you find the right influencers relatively quickly with whom you can set up a successful campaign?
Are you scrolling through lists of influencers example of whatsapp number in philippines or keywords hoping to find a good match between an influencer and your marketing strategy? Influencer marketing platform Dovetale developed a simple but powerful search method that uses image recognition technology. Sounds interesting…
The tool works almost the same as the reverse search option on Google where you upload a photo to then get more information about the content of the photo. With the Dovetale tool you can upload a photo and set different criteria, so that you then get to see photos of influencers that match your search criteria. This way, marketers can quickly and easily see which influencers match the image they want to radiate. And we know in no time which trends we should pay attention to!
Thanks to Instagram photos, spotting trends is a piece of cake
We now know that you can use image recognition technology for targeted Facebook ads and for finding the right influencer. But I have another really cool example that shows exactly how powerful this software is.
Recently, researchers at Cornell University tasked an artificial intelligence program with analyzing images for global clothing trends. Using Instagram photos, location data, and a computer, the AI was able to quickly identify several trends.
Between 2013 and 2016, researchers collected 100 million (!!!) Instagram photos from 44 different cities around the world. What did this research look like.