| ||||||||||||
PRINT
COMMENT
SUBSCRIBE
RSSFacebook Tuesday unveiled a sweeping new program that allows marketers to conscript members to serve as brand advocates.
Under the program, members can sign up as fans of particular brands. Those brands can then send ads to members' Facebook friends that include the fans' name and photo.
While this scheme doesn't necessarily implicate privacy concerns, it's troubling for other reasons. First, people can sign up as "fans," but that doesn't necessarily mean they actually like the brand. People identify themselves as supporters of all sorts of things online for a variety of reasons -- including simple curiosity about what perks and/or access doing so would bring.
Secondly, it's not clear that members who become brand fans realize that they are going to be harnessed as brand advocates. Yes, consumers are walking ads for many products; when people wear a Nike T-shirt or walk down the street drinking an Evian, they're arguably advertising for those brands. But those people certainly realize that they're walking around with branded logos and the like. On Facebook, they may or may not appreciate that signing up as a fan means their likeness is going to be used in ads.
Another part of Faceboook's plan, the Beacon program, is far more troubling from a privacy point of view. That initiative involves informing people's friends of purchases they've made online. In other words, if one Facebook member buys a DVD of, say, season two of "The Office," and allows that information to be shared with others, the member's Facebook friends will be notified that one of their contacts has purchased that DVD.
Users will be able to opt out of the service, but privacy concerns remain. Simply explaining this type of offering to people who aren't familiar with Web advertising might prove difficult, let alone explaining the opt-out procedure. What's more, even tech-savvy users mistakenly check the wrong boxes online, inadvertently opting in instead of out and vice versa. Additionally, as GigaOm points out, even if people opt out of having their purchase information shared with other members, Facebook might still harness that information for other marketing purposes.
Apart from privacy concerns, it's not clear that Facebook users will tolerate this degree of commercialization. It's one thing for people to talk up a movie, book or particular store to each other. But simply spreading the fact that users have, say, purchased a book, without including whether those people liked it, or even read it, is all but meaningless.
RSS FEEDS
So, to say that Mark should "stick to his niche" as if to say "stay on college campus" is entirely erroneous thinking. The "kids" are bringing the campus to work with them and soon there will be more of them than us. So, in a sense, Mark Z. IS sticking to his niche.
I'd have to say that Mark might want to stick to his niche though. That is assuming that I'm not the odd one out, but I haven't used facebook 4 times in the last three years. Though I do still communicate with the same people on MySpace and via business e-mail.
As for the belief that it's meaningless to point out to people that one person bought something and expect others to buy it. We're still talking about school kids here. Remember the lunch room? It will work and in a big way. People who are flunking out of high school or college because they don't even read will buy a book if the right person bought it.
School is one giant bandwagon.
I hate to be all "the-kids-these-days," but I'm not sure this is going to be an issue for many young, ego-first Facebook users. If they're quite happy to join groups such as "30 Reasons Girls Should Call It a Night"--where they can submit photos of themselves drunk, passed out and oblivious--then the prospect of appearing in an ad (look! I'm famous!) may be extremely attractive.
And I suspect that's what Facebook hopes, too.
LinkedIn and other like services have got to be liking this. Social media will become another leading marketing opportunity but obviously the kinks are still be worked out.
FaceBook - did you do your homework first - the one in charge of this idea shold be fired immediately - will be interesting to see how long before they backpedal on this one.
They are starting to sound like another company who has trouble determining direction perhaps we could call them FaceHoo.
2. What fools there be when they allow themselves to be used in such a way. Freedom in not free and those who forget this and allow themselves to be put in such positions are prostituting themselves. Get off the social networks and talk to your friends.
The Facebook population lives in bubbles and can only be contacted when THEY choose and can easily disappear when the noise grows too loud. I think the only people who will have angst over the new Facebook advertising scheme are the advertisers, who will find that no matter what they do, they will not be able to crack the "cell-phone, iPod, texting" bubble shell this population cocoons themselves in.
If I wanted to push a particular political, social or other cause, I would upload an image of that cause instead of a picture, sign up as a "fan" of as many products as I could, then let the advertisers send out my picture message along with their message.
Wouldn't brands love to find out they've been carrying my political or religious message out to all my FaceBook friends.
Couldn't you see a nice GOP ad accompanied by a "fan's" donkey logo photo?