Facebook: Marketing's Greedy, Petulant Child
My congratulations to Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg and his staff on its 10th birthday. As a consumer, I enjoy the social networking site as a connection portal to my friends and family. For that it is invaluable.
However, as a marketer who has been there since Facebook business pages began, I really hope that the next 10 years of Facebook becomes more business-centric.
When Facebook created business pages, it was an amazing connection tool — like a cool club that fans of your brand could hang out in and communicate with your company and each other. I watched many friendships form as a result of Facebook. It was a joy as a marketer to behold how brands and fans connected.
That said, Facebook over the last few years has become like a greedy, petulant child.
It's not satisfied to allow businesses, which spent considerable time, energy and money to build their Facebook "fan clubs," to be able to communicate with those hard-won fans. It had to go and make it about money. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for making money, but let's face it, we now have to shell out cash just to reach our own fans.
My birthday wish to Facebook is for it to allow marketers to reconnect and re-engage with their fans. Ratchet down the greed. If I were a futurist, I'd say that in the coming 10 years Facebook will be supplanted by other social networks, hopefully ones that are more commerce friendly. Or maybe figure a way for us marketers to successfully engage our fans, rather than helping us disengage.
Well, that's my two cents. Disagree? Let me know by posting a comment below.
- People:
- Mark Zuckerberg
Jim Gilbert has had a storied career in direct and digital marketing resulting in a burning desire to tell stories that educate, inform, and inspire marketers to new heights of success.
After years of marketing consulting, Jim decided it was time to “put his money where his mouth was" and build his own e-commerce company, Premo Natural Products, with its flagship product, Premo Guard Bed Bug & Mite Sprays. Premo in its second year is poised to eclipse 100 percent growth.
Jim has been writing for Target Marketing Group since 2006, first on the pages of Catalog Success Magazine, then as the first blogger for its online division. Jim continues to write for Total Retail.
Along the way, Jim has led the Florida Direct Marketing Association as their Marketing Chair and then three-term President, been an Adjunct Professor of Direct and Digital marketing for Miami International University, and created a lecture series, “The 9 Immutable Laws of Social Media Marketing,” which he has presented across the country at conferences and universities.
