Brand management and branding as a business are hot topics. Scorching hot. So hot in fact, I could write for months and never review the same material, appeal to the same dendrites in your brain, or irk your emotions to the point of commenting on that particular blog. (I dare you, comment below, it’s exhilarating). Facebook is arguably the biggest “social brand” on the block. (Psst, they did just announce over 500 million users). As the gatekeepers to everything that is our online social identity, Facebook hasn’t exactly thrilled us with its ability to play fair. Facebook accounts deleted without explanation, security settings changed hourly, forced default sharing to the world… the list goes on and on. So as a brand, that makes Facebook the lightening of the social cloud. As a brand manager, Zuckerberg is Thomas Edison flying his kite.
Zuckerberg and Facebook haven’t been the focus of much positive press recently. Lets cover the spectrum. The exclusive Diane Sawyer interview was much ado about nothing, pardon me if I fell asleep. Then there is Paul Ceglia who claims to have a signed contact with Zuckerberg that nets Ceglia with 84 percent ownership of the originally launched thefacebook.com. Facebook released a statement Friday saying that the contract was likely forged. At the Wall Street Journal’s D8 All Things Digital conference, Zuckerberg literally sweat himself off the stage. Zuckerberg awkwardly avoids answering any questions around the rising uncertainty about Facebook’s privacy concerns. The cherry-on-top being the upcoming movie The Social Network, which is about Facebook in its entirety and doesn’t paint Zuckerberg in the greatest of lights.
So let’s recap:
-Boring interview
-Another claim to ownership rights
-Never answering a direct question and looking guilty in the process
-Walking the line of privacy issues in a growingly user-generated internet
-Movie that outs some of your secrets about the owner and his rise to power
I’d say the brand has been handled less than poorly. Outright pathetic would be a better descriptor.
Facebook is in the midst of a fire. The line that it has to walk in order to reach safety is a very, very thin line. Would stepping off that line mean a mass exodus from Facebook? Hardly. When you are adding 8 users per second, well, it’s hard to argue with that math. However the brand could be burned with some significant scares. Privacy concern is going to be the focus of many in the coming year. You can even liken Facebook’s privacy and security changes to the recent circus surrounding Lebron James’ period of free agency. EVERYONE is going to have a solution. EVERYONE is going to have an opinion. EVERYONE is going to place blame. But until all the cards are laid and played, we are all still in the dark.
Has this “Facebook Generation” completely lost it’s privacy compass? Are we creating an internet where privacy is not atop the list of concerns? How does this compare to the information we’ve given Google? Is anything truly private anymore? What will it take for all of this build up to explode, or is the hype nothing more than a dud firework?
The Facebook privacy issue reminds be a lot of the technology scare of Y2K. However unlike Y2K, I don’t think Facebook privacy concerns are a dud firework. There are two many spinning plates for Zuckerberg and Facebook to keep them all spinning. Plates will have to fall, it’s just a matter of which ones.
About Ryan Cox
Brand name says it all. Unique names but easy to remember ones are clicking in the market.
@Devin In regards to what?
The privacy issue won’t explode. It will pop and fizzle and then correct itself. Facebook is too big to go down. Zuckerberg may not be the best brand custodian in the world, but his company keeps growing and he’s got smart adults on his board.
@Kevin You are most likely correct. It’s too big at this point for anything to be but ripples in the Facebook ocean.