The privacy issues of social media marketing

[jrineakter]

Marketers are eager to get started: targeting audiences via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Google. Corporate lawyers are still hesitant. After all, the use of social media for marketing affects privacy and telecom legislation and the general terms and conditions of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Google must be taken into account. In this blog we explain the privacy bottlenecks of social media marketing.


Technology is ahead of legislation
There are no specific rules for the use of social media for marketing as there are for telemarketing, e-mail marketing and the use of cookies. When using Facebook or Instagram Custom germany telegram number list Audiences , Google Customer Match or Twitter Tailored Audiences , you will have to interpret and apply these existing privacy and telecom rules. One thing is certain: “ The rules on personal data apply to them ”, according to the European Commissioner for Justice .

Facebook Customer Audiences

Inform and offer the option to unsubscribe
It is beyond dispute that you must inform the consumer on the basis of the privacy law (the Personal Data Protection Act) about the data you collect and for what purposes. The consumer must also be able to object to this. Transparency (informing) and choice (the option to unsubscribe) are the two most important principles of our privacy law .

You should preferably inform this when obtaining the consumer data and more generally in the privacy statement. Below you will see a consideration from the privacy statement of FNV Horeca, which uses Facebook Custom Audiences and informs its members about this as follows and offers an unsubscribe option:

FNV Horeca also uses the email address of its members for Custom Audience targeting via Facebook. FNV Horeca creates a Custom Audience by uploading the email addresses of its members in an advertising tool. This group can then be linked to a specific Facebook campaign: only these Facebook users will see the campaign. For more information about Custom Audience targeting, see (…).

If you (…) do not want to be part of a Custom Audience advertising tool, you can indicate this at any time via the following email address: [email protected] .

Targeting a specific audience on social media
Facebook, Twitter, and recently also Instagram and Google, offer the possibility to advertise on Targeting and Privacya custom or tailored audience and to reach so-called look-a-like audiences derived from that . This is usually done by uploading coded email addresses, but can also be done with telephone numbers or Facebook and Twitter IDs of customers or prospects. Simply put, it is possible to advertise within social media specifically to customers or a specific target group.

The corporate lawyer asks himself whether permission is also required for sharing this data and/or for unsolicited personal approach to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google users. Is this so?

Using email address for social media targeting
You may use a customer's email address for marketing purposes, provided that this was made known to the customer when obtaining the email address and that he can also unsubscribe easily and free of charge. With regard to non-customers, you always need prior permission ( opt-in ) if you want to use the email address for marketing purposes.

Tips & tricks

If you intend to use the customer's email address for custom audience targeting via social media, inform the customer of this when registering their email address. The customer must also be able to object to this, which in practice means that you create your own 'right to object list' for social media. Before uploading your email database, deduplicate the customers who have objected.
If you also want to use the email addresses of non-customers for personal approach via social media, make sure that the consent text of the obtained opt-in for the email address also includes this use of the email address.