Facebook, once the industry darling, is now receiving close scrutiny and somewhat negative sentiment. Starting in the weeks leading up to the IPO, continuing with questions about mobile
monetization, and through the recent announcement about the nearly 9% of problem accounts, Facebook seems to be facing a growing bandwagon of ill will.
In late June, Simon Dumenco published an
article about how the law of diminishing returns will impact, in Saul Hansell’s term, “Zuckerberg’s Law.” The idea is simple: Zuckerberg’s Law says that
sharing output -– content -- on Facebook will double in short periods (like Moore’s Law on computing capability and transistors), and that if true, this flood of content will either:
A) Drown out the signal, making it impossible for marketers to be seen or heard, or
B) Far exceed the ability of individuals to consume or keep up with content volume, thus reducing the
utility of, or interest in, the platform.
In other words, marketing messages and videos will be muted, if seen at all.
While that is a possible outcome, I don’t think
that’s where Facebook is headed. Although Facebook has its challenges, Dumenco’s reasoning makes too many assumptions about how people will use this channel in the future.
Back to the Future: The Content Conundrum
Back in the 1980s, as cable TV expanded, everyone thought that a hundred channels was completely unnecessary, and that the
content would all be terrible anyway.
They were wrong because they were basing the assumptions on how people used their TVs at the time. It turns out that the cable world (as well as the
digital channel world) continues to grow and produce higher-quality programming than ever before. In terms of time spent, we watch increasing amounts of both television and digital
video.
I don’t hear any more talk about cable or broadcast TV having too many channels and too much bad content. Those claims have moved to the digital channels, which
include Facebook, YouTube, and other social and video platforms. Which brings me back to Demenco’s assumption that the only change in Facebook will be an increase in content volume. Below
I address some behavioral changes, but either way, I think we can handle digital content just as we have learned on TV. From user-generated video to professionally produced series, onsumers and
technologists will find ways to parse it out, to modify the experience and the discovery, to learn to sort so as to satisfy their interests and needs.
From a marketer’s
perspective, the added volume of content on cable TV allowed brands to evolve beyond traditional sponsorships going back to the future to integrate into content, create it themselves, republish and
curate. These tools abound on both television and in digital channels, and they continue experimentation and change on Facebook.
Content volume on Facebook, in all likelihood, will
evolve as it did on cable and broadcast. There will be less of what people don’t like and more of what they do like. To the extent brands can deliver messages and videos that people
like, and are interested in, they can use that channel to market with their own content. Other brands may simply be using it as an advertising platform.
The
“Law” is Static; People Are Not
Part of the reason we can handle the content on Facebook is that the quality and experience won’t be static. Dumenco writes
about cringe-worthy oversharing, persistent tattletales, etc. Brands already take care, for the most part, to curate the experience and content they provide on Facebook and other channels.
People do the same thing. They create a vision of how they want to be perceived on the channel in just the same ways that brands do. This means that oversharing will be self-monitored and
monitored by your friends (Hey, I’m dumping you if you post one more cat video). Consumers are the curators -- of themselves and their friend’s content. Will we still see
cringe-worthy videos? Yes, but we’ll leach earn to curate those.
The idea that we won’t be able to watch all the videos or read all the posts available on our newsfeed assumes no
changes in the type of content or our behaviors. It also doesn’t recognize that these messages replace other forms of communication such as email, text, chat, phone and other social catch-up
behavior.
This content now can be sorted, and begins to take on higher utility functions.
I know that a single person is not a statistically relevant user pool, and I
freely admit, it’s probably worse if the single person is just me. But, as an individual user, I like Facebook and as a marketer, I like its utility and platform.
Most people
that I know assume everyone is on Facebook -- it’s pretty much a surprise if they’re not. Half of the U.S. population is a member. There are over 550 million unique users each
month, worldwide.
With those statistics, seriously, we’re worried that this isn’t a good advertising or marketing channel?