Facebook's privacy woes & more!
Thursday, 20 May 2010 14:39
administrator
Facebook has been under massive amounts of fire lately. Some of it is more than fair due to their lack of respect of personal privacy. On one side, you have the debate that "If you don't want your information out there, you shouldn't put it on the internet", and the other side of the coin is " I do want to share my content, but only with certain people." which seems to be the main two arguments.
With Facebook's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg constantly under fire lately for a candid conversation he had concerning privacy, his thoughts about early adapters of Facebook at Harvard, the senate going after the service, an alleged unauthorized login from Mr. Zuckerberg himself into Facebook accounts, privacy advocacy groups going after him, and even calls to leave the service all together, what direction is the popular social network headed? Right now, it's clear that the userbase of Facebook is too large for it to fail at the moment. But with the growing uproar, will they continue to make unpopular decisions. And what will you do on a personal level?
The Social Media Editor for the Augusta Chronicle, Sarah Day Owen, put it perfect:
Simply put, it's not going anywhere though. People will still login, share thoughts, pictures, etc. And businesses will continue to flock to the service to interact with current and future clients. Small businesses won't be affected really other than the masses (which still make up for the minority) that are leaving Facebook right? Think again.
From a small business perspective, there was a heavy blow dished out to the development capabilities of custom facebook fan pages (Don't know if we'll ever get used to "Like" pages). The Facebook development blog posted this today"
Not good. Not only have we developed pages like this in the past, but there are a number of developers, small businesses, etc that were doing just this very thing to garner a larger fan base. The standard Facebook wall doesn't allow for custom coding using the Facebook markup language (which allows you to insert custom coding into Facebook). Utilizing landing tabs were key for most Facebook marketers that didn't have it in their budget to utilize Facebook ads.
Will this increase revenue for Facebook, undoubtably. I think this will force the hand of a lot of smaller businesses with less than 10k fans to use Facebooks ads as a way to circumvent this. Which is exactly what Facebook wants.
Engagement
Strategic planning will have to happen on the business front. If the custom tabs are going away for the 10k and under crowd, their websites will have to take over to drive that traffic to their fan pages. Which can bode well for a business. One could say that development time could be brought down with Facebook's many tools with their Plugin repository. But we've noticed a ton of business owners are missing a massive component in their thoughts on social media. Engagement.
If your fan page lacks engagement and that human touch, your efforts will be in vain. You have to be able to retain that fan base. Standard banner/billboard type of advertising, while still effective, simply does not cut it any more in the modern age of instant updates. You can not expect to talk at someone and expect them to consider that engagement. Roll up your sleeves and get real with your fan base. They'll thank you for it (and so will your bottom line).
If you would like assistance with being human, consider contacting us today! We are here to provide your business with strategies on how to engage your clients through social networking. We also develop social media strategies & ways to integrate the various networks into your current website.
You should also follow us on Twitter: @evinceunlimited, or find us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/evinceunlimited.
With Facebook's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg constantly under fire lately for a candid conversation he had concerning privacy, his thoughts about early adapters of Facebook at Harvard, the senate going after the service, an alleged unauthorized login from Mr. Zuckerberg himself into Facebook accounts, privacy advocacy groups going after him, and even calls to leave the service all together, what direction is the popular social network headed? Right now, it's clear that the userbase of Facebook is too large for it to fail at the moment. But with the growing uproar, will they continue to make unpopular decisions. And what will you do on a personal level?
The Social Media Editor for the Augusta Chronicle, Sarah Day Owen, put it perfect:
"Facebook has drastically changed its privacy policy since its inception. The problem is that the site has built its network with the expectation of privacy, but the automatic opt-in for new features and unclear communication about what's public and private on the new platform is a bad move."
What we find sad (and ultimately making the administration/management of the company a bit on the untrustworthy side) is the fact that, when it was created, it was done out of a drunken run in with a girlfriend, and Mr. Zuckerberg was found to not care (and still doesn't apparently) about users privacy.Simply put, it's not going anywhere though. People will still login, share thoughts, pictures, etc. And businesses will continue to flock to the service to interact with current and future clients. Small businesses won't be affected really other than the masses (which still make up for the minority) that are leaving Facebook right? Think again.
From a small business perspective, there was a heavy blow dished out to the development capabilities of custom facebook fan pages (Don't know if we'll ever get used to "Like" pages). The Facebook development blog posted this today"
"Hello all,
We apologize for not messaging this earlier. Facebook recently made a change requiring that Pages be authenticated before enabling the ability to set a landing tab beyond Wall or Info. To be eligible for authentication, a Page must have greater than 10k fans or the Page admin must work with their ads account manager. If you are already working with an account representative, please contact that representative to begin the authentication process. If you do not work with an account representative, you can use this contact form to inquire about working with an account representative.
Also, for advertisers who don’t have a representative or 10k fans, and want to run ads and land users on a specific tab, you can still do so with standard Facebook ads by making their Destination URL as the URL incl. your tab. Unfortunately, this currently will not work with “Fan” ads.
Thanks,
Matt Trainer"
Not good. Not only have we developed pages like this in the past, but there are a number of developers, small businesses, etc that were doing just this very thing to garner a larger fan base. The standard Facebook wall doesn't allow for custom coding using the Facebook markup language (which allows you to insert custom coding into Facebook). Utilizing landing tabs were key for most Facebook marketers that didn't have it in their budget to utilize Facebook ads.Will this increase revenue for Facebook, undoubtably. I think this will force the hand of a lot of smaller businesses with less than 10k fans to use Facebooks ads as a way to circumvent this. Which is exactly what Facebook wants.
Engagement
Strategic planning will have to happen on the business front. If the custom tabs are going away for the 10k and under crowd, their websites will have to take over to drive that traffic to their fan pages. Which can bode well for a business. One could say that development time could be brought down with Facebook's many tools with their Plugin repository. But we've noticed a ton of business owners are missing a massive component in their thoughts on social media. Engagement.
If your fan page lacks engagement and that human touch, your efforts will be in vain. You have to be able to retain that fan base. Standard banner/billboard type of advertising, while still effective, simply does not cut it any more in the modern age of instant updates. You can not expect to talk at someone and expect them to consider that engagement. Roll up your sleeves and get real with your fan base. They'll thank you for it (and so will your bottom line).
If you would like assistance with being human, consider contacting us today! We are here to provide your business with strategies on how to engage your clients through social networking. We also develop social media strategies & ways to integrate the various networks into your current website.
You should also follow us on Twitter: @evinceunlimited, or find us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/evinceunlimited.
