Facebook Marketing, Your Privacy, and Unintended Consequences
by Debbi A. Ballard copyright, 2010, Debbi A. Ballard All rights reserved worldwide.
Facebook marketing, your privacy, and unintended consequences are getting a lot of attention these days and for good reason. Marketers are reporting on the benefits of Facebook advertising and using other Facebook tactics to market to their target audiences of prospective customers, affiliates, and networkers in the mlm industry.
A recent report on a Wired magazine website, however, addressed the unintended consequences caused by an “off the record” conversation between a Facebook employee and a reporter for the New York Times.
Nick Bilton, the reporter, ended up tweeting that the employee stated that CEO Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t believe in privacy. Even though his tweet states that the conversation was an “off record chat,” Bilton reportedly said that the employee did give him permission to convey the information as long as he did not give out the employee’s name.
This incident begs the questions…
Be careful when a reporter tells you something is “off the record.” What does that person mean by that? Today it’s best to get it in writing with the details as to what he/she means by “off the record.” It seems like some reporters’ definitions, guidelines and standards, along with those of many bloggers, vary from one project/story to the next. If you have this in writing from the individual with whom you’re speaking, there will be a lesser chance of your trust being violated.
What does the CEO of Facebook really believe about your privacy and why is it so important for you to know?
How does this question about Facebook’s value of critical privacy issues impact your Facebook marketing strategies?
If there is a consumer backlash regarding any social media network due to an intrusion of privacy, could you and/or your firm suffer unintended consequences due to any marketing efforts you’ve engaged in on that network?
To secure more insights…
The report on the wired.com website can be found here.
You can also discover various Facebook marketing strategies used by some networkers and affiliates. Make sure when using any social media strategies you do your best to respect the privacy of others. Learn how each social network views and handles the protection of your information.
I’ll be following up with more information on Facebook marketing, your privacy and unintended consequences that can result.
(Read our disclosure on our mlm consultants’ blog about the fact that some links in our blog posts may contain affiliate links.)
About the Author: MLM Consultant, Expert Witness, Author, Blogger, Speaker and CEO of International Network Liaison Corporation...but more importantly, wife, mother, daughter, aunt, cousin and friend.
Alan Eames | May 13, 2010 | Reply
Hi Debbie,
Thanks for the link to the Wired article. I had already figured that Facebook didn’t really care about privacy, but nice to know that they really don’t. I read an article recently from PC World (I think) that gave 8 privacy options you should optimize on Facebook and did them all. One of them was turning off the personalization feature.
Thanks again,
Alan
Debbi A. Ballard | May 28, 2010 | Reply
Hi, Alan. You’re welcome. Facebook experienced a backlash, that’s for sure. They recently announced changes that give people more security about their privacy but reportedly there are still some issues that need to be explored.