Social Media: Facebook, Tumblr Switch Channels
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Written By Noah Mallin | February 18, 2009 | Share This
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Facebook learned a lesson in both how to and how not to engage with their community over the last few days. By changing their Terms of Service (TOS) quietly in a way that highlights the permanent nature of sharing information and posting items online, they riled up their users and the blogosphere. They have since reverted back to the old TOS and opened up a forum for users suggestions and comments about how their content should be used.
Reprise Media Managing Partner Joshua Stylman shared his take on this in a post for Advertising Age’s Digital Next column. He makes a number of important points there but I want to highlight one line in particular that should be taken to heart by anyone engaging in search and social media marketing (and indeed any online marketing):
“Regardless of your individual perspective, the one certainty is that there has never been a lower barrier to produce and distribute content for others to see. With that emerges a new responsibility for people (and companies as well) to think about their own digital footprint.”
When I spoke to Josh about this he elaborated in a way I found striking – saying (and I’m paraphrasing here) that we operate online as our own media channels now – from a corporate level right on down to the individual.
I am a Camera
What complicates this is that people “tuning” into your channel through a search engine can be presented with programming that isn’t in keeping with an older idea of how media works. The television age conception was of media as a guest in our living rooms. Well, now the living room comes to the guest – and sometimes it ain’t pretty.
Part of this is due to the fact that, as Facebook acknowledged, the “delete” button doesn’t mean “erase from Internet.” That doesn’t exist. Pop it onto Facebook and its liable to be downloaded by someone else and re-uploaded to their page, reside in their message box, used on someone else’s blog – you name it.
The same is true of blog posts and news content about your brand. A popular blog or a major news outlet can carry a lot of weight with search engines and keep an unflattering story on top of search results like a cork bobbing on the ocean for years after it’s first published.
Owning Your Channel
A counter measure is to create your own channel – a company blog, a user forum, a highly interactive website, and pump out interesting content. Just be prepared – opening your channel up so that users can interact and comment on your content is a double-edged sword.
The reality is that having comments and interactions on your channel are good – even if they are sometimes negative. Where this gets tricky is when they become abusive.
The Julia Allison Effect
Julia Allison has been plastered on the cover of Wired and ranted about from every corner of the Internet primarily because she has maximized her channel as a blogger. She exists as a self-promoted object. This naturally creates a great deal of ire amongst some folks who blog about hating her, Twitter about hating her, and have dedicated Tumblr blogs to hating her.
Tumblr took notice of five of these blogs recently and took them down for violating their new terms of service. Their explanation was that they see Tumblr as a community rather than as a collection of blogs. In other words – Tumblr is a channel. That may well be so, though it seems to have come as a surprise to many who thought their Tumblr blogs were their personal platforms.
Tumblr is attempting to create a “safe space” for their users, a notion that is not unusual in places like Facebook where people of many ages and backgrounds interact, but is a bit new on a site that is personal content-creation oriented.
The best recourse for all of this is to grow a thick skin and concentrate on keeping your own channel thriving. Julia.
Revenge of the Visitors
In my whole convoluted visitors and living rooms scenario, I talked about the rise of social media as bringing the living room to the visitor. Most often a search engine is the vehicle for this. However we are right on the cusp of some profound shifts that should put more power in the hands of the vistors and living rooms alike. Vacuum cleaners sadly will be left out.
In part we are seeing this happen slowly on the search engine side with the increasing personalization of search results. This is being slowed somewhat by privacy concerns, but that’s not an issue when people volunteer information that helps to target their results.
A better picture of this can be seen on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. We choose what we receive to an extent based on who are friends are or who we decide to follow. If I hear too much Julia Allison jibber-jabber on Twitter I can unfollow that person (or channel) and I never have to hear it again.
This holds true increasingly when it comes to seeking information as well as receiving it. Is Google the best place for me to search for WordPress tips, or am I better off going to people I’m following on Twitter? After all, I’ve pre-screened them for relevance.
With Facebook and LinkedIn Groups I can do a further level of screening to categorize the information I receive and seek – basing it on interest (whether it be WordPress or M.I.A.) or geography or potentially both (New York M.I.A fans anyone?)
Creating Your Own Channel Collection
In this way, the “safe space” is created by users, not by the platform. There’s no question in my mind that Google and MSN in particular are trying to add the tools into search that will allow users to take more control over what results are served up.
For marketers this opens up new challenges and new opportunities to reach people in an even more targeted way. Official brand sites will want to offer more interaction and relevant content to be included in people’s channel collection. Branded YouTube channels are just the tip of the iceberg in this.
Search advertising may also be targeted even more precisely, with many more variations on copy to reach ever- thinner slices of the market.
Questions or comments? Feel free to leave them here or check out Reprise Media folks on Twitter.
Topics: Advertising: Online, Blogging, ECommerce, Facebook, Google, Publishing, Reprise Media, SEM: Paid Search, Search: Innovations, Search: News, Social Media, Technology, Twitter |
Good to know that Facebook has reverted back to the old TOS. The site has been receiving a lot of flak for choosing to change their TOS. Thanks to consumer advocates.
yeah Facebook needs to take efforts like that slowly. That was a big bombshell they dropped on the community.