8 reasons marketers can't trust Facebook

Doug,

As to free... eh... we're arguing semantics here. Truth be told, I don't have difficulty with any part of your article and agree with most, if not all of it.

I think where we differ is on the monopoly aspect. Yes, Facebook has the monopoly... at this time. There was a time that MySpace was the go-to site. And yes, I know we're talking about a much larger site than MySpace ever was.

There's suddenly a lot of interest in Pinterest... because it's driving traffic. There are a ton of complaints over the new algorithms Facebook is using... and just wait until you start hearing the litany of disdain for the new interface they're rolling out.

Facebook could follow the path of any viral contagion... grow, peak out at a certain point, then drop dramatically down.

In any case, I don't think Facebook considers us as anything more than the product. I don't believe they think they owe us anything... no matter their size or monopoly.

But, it's still a well-written article with a lot of good info.

Thanks!

Jay

Jay,

It's important to note that this article was written several months ago and, indeed, Facebook has changed some of the features, technology and conditions.

Doug

Jay,

As I note later in the article, Facebook is not "free" to businesses. There's an expense to providing content, advertising, and promoting your business there. I would agree with you if there were an open marketplace for advertising on Facebook, but Facebook owns the market and you have to play there. As with any company, as soon as they monopolize the market, there's a responsibility I believe they owe back to those people or businesses investing in it.

Thanks!
Doug

I have to ask this as I would anyone complaining about Facebook: what do you expect for free?

You are a cyber-squatter.

Facebook is a tool to be used in your overall marketing plan – but it shouldn't be your only tool. And as any mechanic will tell you, occasionally, tools break. Sadly, this isn't what most businesses adhere to. They've got all of their marketing tied up into one medium and when that medium breaks, they're screwed.

As for the comments on "Non-Existent Customer Service..." you're not a customer. You're not paying for anything, unless you're paying for an ad. And once the ad has run its course, you're no longer a customer.

It comes down to numbers – there are 700 million Facebook users. Even if Facebook achieved perfect Six Sigma, you're still looking at 700 complaints a day. And I doubt they're even close to Six Sigma so imagine the real number being 7000 to 70,000 complaints per day... from non-paying "customers."

This is a pretty alarmist post. I agree that contacting and working directly with Facebook isn't all that easy (if impossible at times). However, the vast, vast majority of businesses seem to operate on the site with no issues whatsoever with accounts being blocked and people being locked out. Our company works with many companies and hundreds of pages and this has never happened (knock on wood).

I also agree that using Facebook probably means that you are going to have to be ready to update applications on a moment's notice when they change their code. It's been that way for a long time, so it has to be part of your process. For the most part, Facebook has gotten better at pre-announcing major changes in advance and giving developers early access to new code.

Your Lesson 5 is the most bothersome one to me. I think you'll find that every social network that you've joined has a line in their TOS that is very similar to this. It's really required so that Facebook (or whoever) can share your content with others. If they don't have this right, then you could conceivably sue them for copyright infringement every time they share your content with your friends on your behalf. Google has the exact same thing in their TOS. As seen in section 11.1 of their TOS: "By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services." The folks at Twitter have the same thing under the "Your Rights" section in their TOS: "By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed)."

Maybe it's a conspiracy. Each of these companies are explicit in their TOS that you retain ownership of the content, which is really the critical piece (and the spirit) of the agreement.

And for Lesson 2, I'm pretty sure you can review tags before they go public. This has been a feature for a number of months now. Under privacy settings, there's a section for "How Tags Work". Turn on "Tag Review" and go then review any tag from a friend (or non-friend) before it's posted.

From Facebook:

"Turn on Tag Review to review tags friends add to your content before they appear on Facebook. When someone who you're not friends with adds a tag to one of your posts you'll always be asked to review it.

Remember: when you approve a tag, the person tagged and their friends can see your post."

Thanks for this Douglas... all news to me.

@Kip

I discussed multi-ownership within the article. It's a good practice but Multiple owners does not protect your Facebook page fully. When Facebook thought the page in question was possibly spam, they disabled ALL of the administrators' independent accounts.

Doug

From a business development perspective wholeheartedly agree that none of us should make or depend on FB as our sole marketing channel but as a part of a much bigger marketing mix. Putting all your eggs in the same basket would be both naive and foolhardy.

Some have said that SM sounds the deathnell for SEO/SEM but that is equally naive and for some of the reasons you highlight.

As a channel I'm not going to tell clients not to invest any effort into FB but to be aware of the implications and consequences again of some of the concerns you raise.

Used judiciously, intelligently and sensibly it is a source of potential customers and revenue.

I believe you are wrong about the Pages issue and a "person" owning it and not a company. The person who creates it simply needs to assign one or two more admins and at that point, any of those admins can delete the other admins (it works, we tried it). So, you don't necessarily have to transfer the rights to the page.

If you are smart, you assign your community manager, someone in legal and someone in HR or from that brand/business unit as admins and make them agree to the corporate social media policy.

Do NOT try and set up a personal and business account or you risk getting caught by Facebook and deleted. It clearly states in their policy what you can and can't do.

I would suggest anyone should read the policies, seek guidance from others and know what you are doing before entering unchartered waters.

All true and valid points. I'm surprised you could find three businesses that were generating the entirety of their web traffic, leads, and business through Facebook. I'm finding we are dependent on all varieties of vehicles we have no control over.

With traditional media its the whims and attitude of editors and program managers. With Google it's the constant changes in seo rule. The perception that we as marketers have control over anything is a misnomer. We don't. We have to slice and dice the hot venues for exposure and build relationship with people in a variety of ways. I love Facebook but see it as a tool. As such, its deployed for clients as such. Investing too much in it is perhaps silly indeed. Investing too much in anything is. In the meantime, if building an app that fosters growth of a page so I can direct people I would not have had ready access to onto a platform I control....I'm going to make hay while the sun shines.

Your wake-up call about Facebook is similar to my recent warnings about Google's Monopoly.

It is the collective fault of Internet users that has given Facebook and Google so much power and made it, as Robby Slaughter put it in his comment in this post to where "you can't afford to *not* be on Facebook" [or ranked in Google search or buying Google AdWords ads].

There IS a solution. Every person needs to start using INDEPENDENT alternatives instead of automatically using Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc. because the same elite wealthy few who own the media control them and their media tells you they are best.

Time to grow up, look around, open your eyes and use the matter between your ears for what it was created for: to think critically and discern the truth.

Every blogger needs to educate their readers and every reader should share what they learn with their friends, families and favorite small businesses.

I do not hold out much hope for the masses. If they won't stop shopping at Wal-Mart even though they know how they treat the children and indentured slaves they "own" around the world they aren't going to stop using Google and Facebook. But the minority with a brain can create a better world for ourselves by changing the choices we make.

@Mark

Facebook may be 'free' for consumers to utilize, but there are sacrifices made by consumers in trade for that 'free' account. If you value your privacy, data and content - it's not free.

It's also not 'free' for marketers or companies. There's a cost - even if it's simply just time and effort - in developing a strategy for its clients and deploying it on Facebook. That time could be spent on other efforts that are less risky.

What happens when a third-party application provider finally launches the 'killer app' on Facebook. Will Facebook stand by and watch them collect? Or, since Facebook has rights to all of the application providers work, will they simply reproduce it and put them out of business?

There's some deep, deep gray areas!

Doug

Awesome article - a nice cold splash of reality in the face of this monolithic movement towards relying on still relatively nascent platforms for anything than supplementing the tried and proven marketing methodologies on the web.

Cheers!

i c a twilight zone episode on the horizon...
thx 4 the insight doug.

Doug, I agree these are all frustrations. I'm going to play devil's advocate a bit here though.

Facebook is FREE!

No one is forcing us to use it. Sure, there is a risk reward going on, but this is why marketers should be using Facebook to support their online efforts and not be the end all or majority of their online marketing efforts. I definitely know many people that have too many of their eggs in the Facebook basket.

I'm actually shocked at how many people are surprised or stunned by what you've shared. I think Facebook set out to be about "friends", but in my opinion it would be short-sighted to think that Facebook is an actual friend. They're in it to make money, and marketers are using it FOR FREE to try to make money.

You could make similar arguments against Google as well, but we all accept these frustrations and challenges because the tools work and help us share our messages, etc. Did I mention they are FREE? I'm still a fan (maybe not a friend) ... for now.

Thanks for the post Doug.

@mbj

As the old saying goes, don't put all your eggs in one basket.

It's an interesting position to be in, advising clients about social media usage, knowing that I personally hate Facebook and go out of my way to avoid using it.

I'm glad to see someone bringing these types of issues to light.

A cautionary tale to be sure, Doug. Clearly, brands need to be leveraging Facebook. Using this article as a guide, they can now do so with an eye towards mitigating the risks. Well written!

Doug,
WOW!!! I knew Facebook had privacy issues but never to this extent. This is eye-opening, jaw-dropping.
You would think with all the 'experienced' internet superstars who now work there, some of them would have a sense of basic user rights and common support decency. How disappointing!
Kudos to you for bringing it to light. This is one post that deserves to be re-posted extensively.

Doug, hoping you will keep everyone posted regarding feedback you get from The Facebook, or changes to specific policies you've addressed here. If you did this, I would think you were even more filled with awesomeness.

Stunning. I think I knew, somewhere in the dark recesses of my brain RAM, each of these individual pieces, but, somehow, they had never registered simultaneously. Doug, this is the kind of post that should rock Facebook's world. I will be using this post like a disclaimer for anyone I work with. Well done!!

All I can say is: yikes.

As the expression goes, you can't afford to *not* be on Facebook. But at the same time, you clearly can't afford the risks that Facebook presents through its regime.

Perhaps it's time for some protests on the virtual streets of the kingdom.