Saw something that grabbed my attention on my Facebook News Feed. What looked to be a typical like or comment by a friend of mine, actually happened to be an advertisement. Take a look at the following:

On first glance, I thought that this was a post from Budweiser’s page that my friend had liked or commented on. However, upon further review and after looking more closely, I realized that my friend had no direct involvement with this specific post, but had rather only liked the Budweiser Facebook page.

What Facebook is doing, in effect, is making this advertisement seem contextually relevant in my News Feed — and less “Spam”y by tying my friend’s like with the ad. Do a thought experiment and ask yourself what your reaction would be if someone proposed dropping huge banner ads in the middle of a user’s News Feed. Completely preposterous and not feasible, right?!? Well, with this technique, maybe not as outrageous as one might think…