Tweet

No Way to Treat “Friends” Facebook Nation gets its Magna Carta

Written by: Len Stein

Article Overview: The granting of Facebook nation’s Magna Carta by King Zuckerberg, is the result of a popular revolt that nearly instantaneously spread globally among its 175 million netizens with significant impact on public relations professionals

No Way to Treat “Friends” Facebook Nation gets its Magna Carta

“Reacting to an online swell of suspicion about changes to Facebook’s terms of service the company’s chief executive (24 year-old Mark Zuckerberg) moved to reassure users on Monday (Feb. 16) that the users, not the Web site, ‘own and control their information.’” Brian Stetler, The New York Times

This historic move, in effect a granting of Facebook nation’s Magna Carta by King Zuckerberg, is the result of a popular revolt that nearly instantaneously spread globally among its 175 million netizens and tsunami-like throughout all media channels, forcing the company to reverse its revised “terms,” which appeared to give it perpetual ownership of members’ contributions to the service, within just three days of issuance.

In case you missed the brouhaha, on February 6, the company quietly changed its terms of service, to say that users were now granting "Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense)" to do whatever it wanted with anything they posted. When the Consumerist blog offered a pithy, however, inaccurate, summary of the terms, "We Can Do Anything We Want With Your Content. Forever," the revolution was ignited.

On the Barricades
Clearly embarrassed, Chris Kelly, Facebook’s chief privacy officer (the title itself a horribly malignant anachronism in these days when he might more auspiciously be dubbed “Chief of Transparency, which, however, would surely require a 180- degree change of mindset) characterized the event as a misunderstanding that resulted from a clumsy attempt by the company to simplify its user contract.

Further, in a capitulation message to members, the Palo Alto, Calif., based company, said it would collaborate with members (read netizens) to create a more easily understandable document. In reversing course, Facebook recognized that it might find that, collectively, its users can help it write a clearer, simpler contract, just as Wikipedia's collective editors have produced some of the Web's most frequently cited documents.

Beyond Conversation – Collaboration Web 3.0
And what is the great lesson for communicators, both of the corporate and of the PR stripe, of this latest tempest on the Internet? We now find ourselves living in an era of instant conversation, of the instant constituency, of immediate citizen action. Any misstep will provoke an immediate reaction, which can lay low a company, brand or institution, seemingly within days if not hours.

As PR professionals we now have the responsibility of actively engaging clients and their constituencies in the brand building process. We must take a hands-on, town hall approach to soliciting comment and collaboration from key publics or risk raising their wrath faster than we can imagine.

So welcome to the age of consumer collaboration, of a more democratic approach to building community, online and off, where brands must seek our approval if they hope to win our support in the form of our purchasing power.

Related Articles
  Promote Clarity Get on One Page
  How to Make Friends on Facebook
  The Best Business Marketing Tool
  Annoying Facebook Apps
  How to get the world to respond to you – A Facebook Lesson

Article Tags: anachronism, barricades, brouhaha, capitulation, chief privacy officer, chris kelly, clumsy attempt, consumerist, degree change, facebook, magna carta, media channels, mindset, misunderstanding, netizens, new york times, stetler, sublicense, wikipedia, worldwide license



Related Forum Posts
Re: Facebook -- personal vs. business? - [quote="DaveGilbert":p04ea6ji]Facebook use to be a good resource however they have clouded the sites usefulness by allowing too many games on there, these days it is more of a gamers forum than a social site or a business venue[/quote:p04ea6ji] Dave, I think it may depend on who your Facebook Friends are. I have plenty of friends who seem to game...but they don't post it on their profile (or at least it doesn't appear in my newsfeed). However they do generate useful business discussions on Facebook that I participate in. Not advertising or even as formal as a blog (which are already quite informal, in my opinion, compared to articles for instance), but business mixed with the personal discussion that I, as a solopreneur, find useful. [quote="Mal Tindle":p04ea6ji]If I could go back to Facebook and register separately I would do it but as you say I don't think that is possible.[/quote:p04ea6ji] Mal, You *can* create a fan page for your business, separately from your personal profile. I know many folks who have both and direct business folks to their page, myself included. They also have had success driving traffic to their fan page with Facebook Page Ads; and from there driving fans to their blog, etc. No formal study, just my anecdotal observations...
Re: pitching - Friendliness is closely related to the concept of "permission marketing" as articulated by Seth Godin. The subtitle of his book says it all: "Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers." The old method was "interruption marketing" where you suddenly get an ad in your face whether you want it or not...
Re: Social media question - Facebook is where I get all my traffic. Facebook is great, because you can create fan pages and your customers come to you. Twitter is good, but I just don't see the same results. I think Facebook is the most popular and it's easier for people to find what they're looking for.
Re: Facebook Advertising? - Facebook has more than 700 million active users and half of them log in on a daily basis. Through Facebook advertising, you can be sure to reach any particular segment. Conventional advertising models are expensive and difficult to reach a narrow target. Facebook advertising is one option that can get you results and target specific user groups. You may be the local beauty parlor, restaurant or a Fortune 500 organization, but eBizUniverse will show how to build your brand equity through Facebook advertising. Consider these ideal scenarios: You own a restaurant and wish to target those who are recently engaged to be married for their catering business. All you need to do is to find the women with the relationship status of “engaged” on Facebook and you have your desired segment with Facebook Ads. (See Sample Ads Below) There is a birthday special that your restaurant is offering and the Facebook Ads would be displayed only to those whose birthdays are in the offing. An event is being organized and you wish to target local college graduates, who are single and 25-35 years old. They are on Facebook and you can reach them with Facebook Ads.
Re: Are you going to use Facebook Timeline? - Hi apu, I Recently used Facebook Timelines, actually it seems like a Facebook blog which makes profile page more attractive but i don't think it will help in internet marketing because it also slow the speed of Facebook Page. Share your Experience!


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

THE “SECRET RECIPES” OF LEADERSHIP

BUILDING A HIGH PERFORMING TEAM

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.