Is Social Networking Too Big To Fail? Can
You Really Afford to Quit Facebook?
You Really Afford to Quit Facebook?
decided that May 31, 2010 was going to be a day designated as QuitFacebookDay.com. The site states: "If you agree that Facebook doesn't respect you, your personal data, or the future of the web, you may want to join us." A counter indicated that some 33,607 folks are committed Facebook quitters.
Long before Facebook catapulted into its now dominant position in the social networking world, MySpace and other social networking sites had been pioneering this fertile new marketing ground.
Facebook was founded in 2004. By August 2008 it claimed 100 million users. According to the company, it now has more than 400 million active users (nearing 500 million), 50% of whom log on in any given day. The average user creates 70 pieces of content each month and more than 25 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) are shared each month.
It was Facebook's introduction of new open network features with automatic access by third-party apps (which you have to manually go in and shut off) which set off a firestorm of criticism over privacy issues. Many outraged folks threatened to delete their accounts and some actually did, including some high-profile
web industry people. Some people have proposed the creation of an interoperable social networking protocol as an ideal alternative to Facebook www.readwriteweb.com/archives/more_web_industry_leaders_quit_facebook_call_for_o.php).
What really amounted to a media stunt to get publicity for their own venture was a misguided notion that you might want to have something private out in a very public arena. The whole point of social networking from an economic perspective is to generate new leads.
You may disagree with that notion, but why else would businesses spend millions to reach target audiences on social networks? Just like search engines, there are the easy ways to generate leads (Pay Per Click and any of the paid advertising alternatives) and then there are the hard ways through "Natural" or "Organic"
search engine ranking. We have been saying for a while that there is a parallel evolution going on in the Social Networking world that tracks quite consistently with the search engine models. Why do you think Google is taking such an aggressive stance towards Facebook?
It is because they represent a threat to the core business model and just as with Google, you will achieve better results in Facebook with "Natural" or "Organic" listings than through paid search results.
To be blunt, you are either going to participate in the social networking arena for pleasure or business. You might think your social cause is neither, but it's totally business. It's all about reaching your target audience and influencing them (sell them) that your position should be supported.
Our approach to social networking is a traditional capitalist perspective, so our belief is that once you know what your objectives are you can design your strategic plan to take advantage of the medium.
As far as off-site factors like social networking websites impacting your search engine ranking and the use of social media to positively impact ranking, we are actually contrarian to how most experts will tell you to
handle social networks. We really don't care how many followers you have on Twitter or how many friends on Facebook.
Take Dell as an example. Dell has 1.5 million followers on Twitter. Do you think they're really engaging those followers in any kind of meaningful social dialogue? They are radically focused on pushing their message, one-way...out into the system. If someone likes the special deal being offered in a particular tweet, the
user is linked to their ecommerce site to take advantage of that special offer.
We are focused on this media as a one-way distribution channel and it's purely a way to distribute your message the way you want to the most number of distribution points. The objective is to drive people to your website and to use your social media marketing to improve your base website ranking (locally or globally).
What that means is that you're never actually going to be establishing a dialogue with anyone in Germany on Bebo (or Orkut in Brazil), but your Bebo and Orkut accounts will point both people and search engines back to your core website. Whether a potential client in Germany sees you on Bebo shouldn't actually matter (that would be a bonus), but what does matter is that search engine spiders find your backlink on Bebo
and Orkut and give your base website an added ranking score when your "localized" website is ranked.
Someone in Germany wanting to "Start a business in Singapore" should see your website in the Top 10 returns on whatever search engine they use if that happens to be your target keyword.
In late May, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would roll out a new, much simpler way
for users to control their privacy settings. With one control, users would be able to determine who they want to share all of the content on their profile with-though more granular controls would let users specify who
could see individual updates. Users will also be able to easily turn off access to their profile info by third-party apps and websites. Here's an explanation of the changes www.facebook.com/privacy/explanation.php), and if you want to see what its current policy is (since it changes frequently), go to www.facebook.com/policy.php.
All of this, of course, implies that you actually care about privacy as if everything you've ever posted isn't already permanently etched into cyberspace. As I tell my kids, this is not like the saying, "what happens in
Vegas, stays in Vegas", but more aptly is reflected by, "what happens on the Internet, stays on the Internet."
The reality is, if there is something you don't want the world to read about you, don't post it anywhere on the Internet because it will remain there FOREVER! If you doubt the reality to this, just check out the Internet
Archive Wayback Machine at http://www.archive.org/ and you will see the modern day version of the Great
Library of Alexandria which now contains in excess of 150 BILLION archived web pages.
And that's just what is publicly published and doesn't include the kind of technology seen in the Wil Smith movie "Enemy of the State" which gave a glimpse into the technology called "Carnivore." If you think Facebook has an issue with their privacy policy, you clearly haven't looked into what our very own government is up to these days under the auspices of the Patriot Act. Funny that the "change" Obama
promised didn't include repealing this unconstitutional violation of our right to privacy, but in fact made it premanent. The vote to extend HR 3199 was a YES Vote by Obama to adopt a conference report
that extends the authority of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to conduct "roving wiretaps" and access certain business records through December 31, 2009, and makes the remaining 14 provisions of the Patriot Act permanent.
Looking Ahead
So here is my summarizing question, "Is it possible that social networks like Facebook are too big to fail?" There is some speculation that successful ventures like Facebook will become mostly tools for business
(public and private). Useful for social media marketing services, while individuals concerned about privacy retreat to some other less public network? Will sites like Facebook really be just about social media broadcasting, personal endorsements, and influence?
To show the broad appeal of social networking sites, even the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) recently jumped into the social media craze. On May 20, 2010, the PTO unveiled its official Facebook page, www.facebook.com/USPTO.gov. The PTO intends to engage the public and the intellectual property community directly and provide real-time updates including press releases, information on upcoming events, and posts from the PTO's Director's Forum blog. The PTO's Facebook page allows Facebook users to provide comments, discuss, and offer feedback to the PTO directly on a wide range of issues and initiatives. The new Facebook page, however, does not replace the PTO's website, www.USPTO.gov, as the official source of information but, rather, provides a new channel for the public to connect with the agency.
ABOUT WWW.WORLDCLASSID.COM
WorldClass is an automated social media agency made up of social media engineers. We provide automated social media marketing and new online social media marketing. We are next generation search engine optimization known as social media optimization, using automated social media broadcasting to provide online social media public relations.
Contact Information:
- Lead Brand Manager
- WorldClass Brand Management
- 1155 Camino del Mar, Suite 521
- Del Mar, California 92014
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(+01) 760.445.3315
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