users

Why Mark Zuckerberg is right to dismiss Facebook users

March 23, 2009 By Dan Thornton

As a specialist in online communities and social media, it may seem a little strange that I would suggest Mark Zuckerberg is right to ignore the complaints of Facebook users over the recent changes to the social network, but stick with me on this one.

The story so far:

Facebook releases a redesign which shows more of a Friendfeed/Twitter influence. Users react badly and an app is introduced to vote on the new design. The app has over 1 million votes so far, with 94% against the new layout and 600,000 comments – Facebook has over 175 million users for context. (A suitable time to remind everyone of ‘the supermarket effect‘ when it comes to redesigns?)

Then on Friday, Gawker posted details of a memo by Mark Zuckerberg to Facebook employees, supplied by an anonymous tipster. ‘He said something like ‘the most disruptive companies don’t listen to their customers’

Sadly, the memo hasn’t been published anywhere, so like everyone else, I’m going on the third-hand hearsay. Cnet has a reasonable summary of the split between people attacking Facebook/Zuckerberg for his apparent lack of concern about users, and those who are supporting Facebook. So far, though, only Robert Scoble appears to have addressed why Zuckerberg is right to dismiss user concerns in this instance.

So why is Mark Zuckerberg right?

There’s a difference between collaboration and co-creation (which I evangelise), and, as Scoble puts it, ‘letting the customers run our business mode’. Think of every product that has been dulled by focus groups until it fails to ignite any interest from anyone.

Zuckerberg wants to keep Facebook disruptive – which is completely correct if it will avoid the loss of interest associated with the previous big social networks – look at the current state of Friendster and Myspace. Both are still sizeable, but when did either of them ignite any sense of passion or controversy?

Too often, a great idea gets lost in repeated meetings, discussions and trying to meet the expectations of everyone involved – now try applying the views of 175 million people to a business plan.

And it takes strong leadership to lead any project, no matter how democratic in nature – from Wikipedia to Twitter, users contribute, collaborate, create, build-on and influence – but eventually someone has to pick a strategy and run with it.

And the redesign is leading to reports of the benefits for brands and for Facebook advertising.

Meanwhile Scoble points to user data and recommendations leading to businesses. And the fact that people may claim they’re rushing to leave since the redesign, but what people say is often different to what they do, and with such a critical mass, there are a lot of strong ties to break, with no like-for-like alternative really getting any attention.

They just don’t get it:

Part of my reason for posting is an article by Frank Reed over at Marketing Pilgrim, and others like it. We shouldn’t confuse customer service with customers dictating business strategy simply by an immediate backlash – all customer input should be acknowledged, and then a decision has to be made to act on it. It’s the same confusion that portrays Open Source as impossible to make money from, or social media as the only place to bother marketing in.

(And for the record, I don’t like the new design, I’m not going to leave over it, and I probably use Facebook 1-2 times a day for pleasure and 3-4 times a day for work, preferring Twitter and Friendfeed).

Evan Williams talks Twitter at TED

March 1, 2009 By Dan Thornton

I’m a big fan of the TED talks, the conferences which started by covering Technology, Entertainment and Design, and now include a huge range of thought-leaders on a variety of topics. (More about TED here)

Somehow I hadn’t got around to watching the talk by Evan Williams from Twitter until I saw a good article about it by Garr Reynolds at Presentation Zen.

One interesting point is how Evan has followed a couple of hunches to build projects – Blogger and Twitter.

Secondly – Twitter was designed as a broadcast medium – one message went out to many.

But users invented the @reply functionality, the API, the use of hashtags, and started using it to raise awareness around issues, raise money for causes, implement marketing and business use, etc.

It’s a pretty quick presentation at just 8 minutes – and worth watching until the end to see what happens when TED Curator Chris Anderson uses Twitter search to look for mentions of Evan Williams.

Useful study on Social Network Marketing on Facebook and Myspace

October 7, 2008 By Dan Thornton

I’ve finally had a chance to sit down and read Tom Chapman’s study of Social Network Marketing, Engagement Marketing and Brands, which specifically looks at marketing on Facebook and Myspace from the perspectives of both social network users, and brand executives from the likes of innocent drinks and BBC Radio 1.

It’s quite unusual to see a report from someone who isn’t linked to either the network in question, or an agency which may be looking to attract business (Tom is Head of Marketing for an ISP).

It’s effectively split into two parts. The first section is a look at the quantitative findings of surveying Myspace and Facebook users, whilst the second part compiles the in-depth interviews with brand executives.

I won’t quote too much of the study, but it covers topics like the percentage of Myspace and Facebook users who would feel more affinity to a brand that listened to them and communicated with them (65% and 67% respectively). And it goes into detail for both social advertising and brand promotions, as well as finding out how many Myspace and Facebook fans are aware their profile information is used to target them – (56% and 45%). It’s quite surprising, particularly after the uproar within certain circles over Facebook’s Beacon advert system, for example.

And it’s certainly interesting to hear the responses of some executives who use both networks to great effect – for instance, the Chris Moyles fan page with 536774 fans.

As someone who is fairly deeply involved in the subject (It’s my day job, after all), I saw lots that will be useful in supporting my own work and theories, and some correlation between what other brands have found, and what I’ve discovered from Bauer Media’s brands on Facebook and Myspace.

I’ve had the chance to exchange a couple of emails with Tom, and voiced my thoughts that the next stage will be to look at exactly how brand executives are measuring loyalty, engagement and participation, especially with respect to Return on Investment and justifying the time and effort involved. It really is the multi-million dollar question of social media, and it’s getting closer every day – and I think this study goes a long way to reaching that destination.

Anyway, if you’re interested in reading more, the study is at socialnetworkmarketinguk.com.

Great question about data – does Facebook have more than Government?

July 2, 2008 By Dan Thornton

Forrester Senior Analyst Jeremiah Owyang publishes a valuable blog, Web Strategy by Jeremiah, for anyone in the digital space.

It’s a must-read, hence making it into my blogroll. And one of his most recent posts is a classic, in which he compares the amount of data the U.S Government has on Generation Y, and compares it to the data which Facebook has access to.

And although the Government will have access to sources it won’t have publicised, and has ways to access anything if it really tries, the interesting point is that Facebook has accrued all this data by participants self-submitting it. No census, no artificial rewards, no incentive schemes, and no forcing people.

Check out Jeremiah’s insightful thoughts, and make sure you check out the comments which are normally just as informative.

Brilliant new people and user search tool for Twitter

June 24, 2008 By Dan Thornton

I’ve just spotted a great new Twitter search tool to find Twitter people by categories (Found via Mashable).

Twellow has already indexed 300,000 Twitter users into various categories (Including me!), with users replicated across all appropriate categories. For example, I’m the 96th most followed person in Marketing, but I also appear in Management, Advertising (hmmmmm?), News, Geeks and Blogging. All the main categories have appropriate sub-categories to find people more easily (Although there does seem to be Marketing as a category, and also a sub-category of Advertising).

And beyond browsing, you can also use specific search terms, including within specified categories.

Until now, your options were to find people within Twitter, hope to find people via keywords, or use Twitterpacks to find anyone that had manually listed themselves. Suddenly finding other people got a whole lot simpler.