Have Facebook upset the balance?

Editor’s Note: The Social Media Series is supported by BlueEyed Digital Marketing, and the post is written by  Michael Thomas.

Facebook has become the powerhouse in social networking over the last 8 years. Fundamental to its continued success has been its simplicity, functionality and its development platform. At the F8 development conference (for Facebook developers), the company’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg introduced us to the most fundamental change since it began – the new Timeline and News Feed (click here for more info).

For those of you who’ve yet to experience the new Facebook, this video outlines how to do it – it only takes two minutes, I’ve done it myself.

Facebook has a strange and often conflicting balance to strike between the user and the advertiser. How does Facebook keep the user happy i.e. less noise, without upsetting the value placed on it by advertisers?

Facebook Ads

For those who already use Facebook for ads (i.e. on the right-hand side of the news feed), there is little change. The ads will still appear there, but now with the personalised activity feed on the right, your ad will be lower down the page which means presumably lower click-through potential in the short-term – read on.

Timeline

The aim of the new Facebook Timeline (pictured above) is to enhance the depth of each user’s relationship with the brand. The Timeline means that you can go back to when you began using Facebook – or any time in between. It has become a digital photo album and journal chronicling every part of your life since you started – the good, the bad and the flat-out indifferent.  If you want to find out more about the Timeline click here.

For users, this should enhance the relationship with Facebook, in a climate where Google+ is picking up momentum as a real alternative. Strategically, it seems that Facebook are focusing heavily on retaining its users, whilst potentially upsetting its advertisers – at least in the immediate future.

For brands, it may seem like a myriad of information. Lots of potential advertisers will think Timeline is a negative concept for their brand. However, Facebook will inevitably utilize this information to please its advertisers in the long term- with another simple interface.

Brands which will inevitably be quickest off the start-line are those which make app development a fundamental element which underpins their new Facebook strategy. Could this be the final nail in the coffin for Brand Pages?

News Feed and Brand Pages

The revamped news feed gives the user much more control. One of the fundamental complaints from users was that they were bombarded with ‘noise’ and didn’t have sufficient, easy-to-use filtering mechanisms – similar to the spam and email relationship.

Essentially, now the feed gives the user complete control. If you don’t like someone or a brand, you can completely cut them off – for good. Brand pages have become a core medium for brands to communicate directly with those who’ve liked them.

For users its music to most people’s ears, but for smaller brands, it isn’t. Small and medium sized organizations rarely have enough spare capital to invest in hiring someone with sufficient social media competencies. Thankfully, we can help SME’s with bespoke packages (click here for more info), focusing on strategy, campaigns, app development and day-to-day monitoring and engagement which deliver ROI.

Brands will need to be more compelling and engaging with their content, pulling in their audience – which is no easy feat. Commitment to on-going campaign activity, personal engagement and continual monitoring and reporting has never been so crucial.

With the enhanced Timeline, there must be more in it for advertisers in the future. Facebook are likely to re-address the balance within the coming weeks, but it’s anyone’s guess how they’ll do it – the response from brands has not been especially warm. In the meantime, focus on what your brand should be doing and focus on the user more, because keeping their attention has never been more essential.

What do you think?

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About the Author:  Michael Thomas (@gen_social) is the Social Media Director at BlueEyed Digital Marketing . He is a keen social media enthusiast and specialist at developing brands online. From campaigns to community management and content development, BlueEyed are a team of strategic social media marketers. You can follow them on twitter:@hi_blueeyed.

Post Image via Wikipedia