Moving Past Facebook
The basic idea of social media is to connect people together, whether it be with old friends, family, or just to meet people with similar interests. Something to think about is, how should users of these platforms respond when they are doing just about everything but connecting you with what you care about? You sign up, add said people, like those said groups, and at the end of the day you don’t even end up seeing half of what you intended on. As the tier begins to unfold, that is just a minute flaw in the social platform of Facebook.
As time has progressed from the beginning of Facebook, an incredibly rocky trail has unveiled. Scrutiny seems to have always followed Facebook, and the laundry list of issues and scandals certainly do not help their image. Over the course of this year, we have witnessed their biggest downfall to date, the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. A majority of everyday user’s information was accessible to the public due to a flaw in security that was exposed via a third party app, which in turn greatly decreased the feeling of security in an abundance of users, and put a major dent in Facebooks’ reputation. Well that sure was one way for your Mama to find out how you really are, huh? Since then they have pledged to have a more locked down system in terms of their users security, but how can we be so sure when it has already happened.
For both brands and casual users, it is time to evaluate the role Facebook plays in our daily lives. Most people wake up and roll over and check their Facebook before even getting out of bed. Fast forward 12 hours and what are they doing before they fall asleep? You guessed it, on Facebook. There are numerous reasons to leave the platform, and that goes far beyond the fake news and data breaches we have so graciously...and unsafely endured. Although very few, there are still benefits to the platform for casual users and for brands It is almost a necessary evil at this time. While alternative social networks may not have everything Facebook offers, that is not necessarily a bad thing. In some cases, less is more. I bet you’ve heard that phrase before.
The largest social network known to man tried providing it all, instead of focusing on what made the platform so attractive in the first place. I’d rather be able to see what my grandma is up to now a days without having to fight through countless ads and pointless additives. Food for thought, have you ever been in deep conversation with someone and suddenly you’re seeing ads of that specific (and sometimes even completely irrelevant and out there) subject of the conversation you were just having? Yeah? Yikes. These occurrences have not panned out so well for them time and time again. While they have consistently endured blow after blow and have managed bounce back, a time will come where enough is enough and you they wont even be able to bounce back. Remember MySpace? It’s the beginning of the end of Facebook. Mark will see you soon, Tom!
Facebook’s Follies
Mistakes in life are inevitable, it is an unavoidable aspect in life. Facebook is in the unique position of doing something that has never been done at their scale before, nothing on this social platform has ever been as enormous as Facebook. Naturally, this facilitates much more room for error. Someone has to make the mistakes and lay the groundwork for other similar companies to build a basis off of, and although Facebook should not be entirely held accountable for some of the events that they have undergone. Someone has to be. There are some liabilities they should be holding that they are not necessarily held responsible to, it cant be Facebooks fault that your side chick stumbles upon your page and sees your profile picture of you and your wife...again, yikes. With that some will say Facebook ruined my life!!! Nope, you ruined your own life there, buddy.
The biggest folly so far has been the data breach involving Cambridge Analytica from earlier this year. Cambridge Analytica had been collecting personal information of 87 million users dating back as far as 2014. So if you’re thinking of that number, there is a good chance that they had data on you, or someone you know. It is speculated that the data was being collected in an effort to influence voters on behalf of politicians. Why do politicians care what color you painted your nails? Green for Hilary? Blue for trump?
A third party app was used by Cambridge Analytica to complete surveys for academic use, but the design of Facebook allowed them to also access personal information of those using the app and those within the network of the users of the survey, thus exposing you to millions of strangers.
This situation created a mass public outcry against the social giant. It has been pretty common face that anything posted online should be considered accessible to anyone and everyone, but what about data you were made to believe would be private? Personal messages, browsing history, demographic information, and even stuff you swore was deleted, was all determined to have been accessible by this third party. Are you uncomfortable now?
Realistically, data breaches happen fairly consistently (does anyone remember all of the credit card information leaked from Target a few years ago?). Given the massive size of Facebook, something to this affect was bound to happen at some point, but it also came out that Facebook knew about the data leak for a period of time prior to it becoming public knowledge. Now that makes you think, was this really a scandal or was this something they were aware about and allowed to happen for some time to get into the public spotlight some more. Although it brought bad attention, the sheltered as a child adult now is seeing news of Facebook everywhere and suddenly wants in and makes an account. Thus only adding to the monstrosity of a social platform that Facebook has become.
This is where the fault lies with Facebook. Facebook and their affiliated apps have over 2 billion users worldwide. That is more data than you can count, and sure a lot more data than money that anyone would ever see in their lifetime. Pulling your data from the site shows that just about everything you have ever done within the platform, or using the platform with a third party app, is stored. Your every click and key stroke is known, and remembered. Knowing the massive amount of information they store, a reaction to the leak should have been disclosed immediately and action should have been taken much more quickly than it did. While Mark Zuckerburg stated they had been working on sealing up the holes since they discovered the leak of information, nothing was truly done to remedy the situation until it became public knowledge. With the procrastination of releasing this information while they sealed the holes, it only gave Cambridge Analytica that much more access to all your information.
When questioned about the need to store such large amounts of data, Zuckerburg stated it was only used as a way to target relevant ads to users but the amount of data stored seems grossly excessive for just targeting relevant ads to users. With all the sex and drugs trafficking that has been swarming the world, this makes an easy outlet for the offenders to get your information and where abouts.
Overall, the Cambridge Analytica data leak is moreso unacceptable due to a few different reasons. Facebook has a large involvement in technology, more than just a social media platform, so security would be something they would own entirely, and should essentially be the most important aspect in their development. Lack of transparency and accountability after initially hearing about the leak is also unacceptable. This is something that should have been known STAT, there is no logical reasoning as to why users should not have been informed of their invasion of privacy immediately. And finally, the need for the massive amounts of data they store on users and the fairly unreadable privacy policy is the truly unacceptable portions of the scandal. There is no reason why Facebook should have to know things such as religion, location, or even political views. Those are just the basics of information stored on you. That blow up doll you searched to order? Yeah, that was stored too.
Algorithms and Poor User Experience
Outside of the massive leak, there are several other issues with the user experience of the platform in general. These include things such as hyper targeting of ads, “fake news,” and other algorithm choices Facebook portrays.
A social network should be just that, social. Up until recently, Facebook’s algorithm for what content you see on your newsfeed and when you see it was anything but social. Take a survey to see what Golden Girl you’d be. Make a poll on that color underwear you should wear. Buy this leaf blower. Facebook put preference to paying advertisers and complex algorithms in place of a chronological experience like most people expect. The intent of Facebook was not to sell the world to the world, it was to create a simply form of communication between mutual parties.
General user created content was pushed through this algorithm and preference was given to content with more engagement, whether that be positive or negative. Often times you would find a status posted that incited some form of drama, usually in the form of trolling or relationship troubles, and the algorithm would force this to the top of your feed all day, simply due to engagement on the post. You can only see so much in one day of what Sarah’s boyfriend did before you see your mothers engagement announcement that you were unaware of...major yikes.
Ultimately this lead to people seeing less things they care about, like a friends status update or news from a local business they enjoy, and more drama and paid content. This also allowed for the rise of ‘fake news” on the platform. We have all seen the posts of a babysitter “giving birth” to the 9 month old baby she was watching, or the mortician that was busted with several thousand penises in his home that he would clip off and take away. Is that necessary? Is this what we need to be seeing? I’d rather see the Amber alert of the little girl from the town over. Or the news that Flint, Michigan has clean water again. We need relevance.
While certainly not the only site to have issues with fake news, these, certain aspects of the platform allow for this type of media to gain exposure. Shocking headlines typically gain more exposure and have a higher click rate, and after the user is dissatisfied, they comment to either confirm false news, or make general observations about whatever is being told. Which then turns to increase of engagement due to these tactics push it higher up people’s feeds and increases the likelihood of content going viral and becoming the first seen thing on your news feed.
Algorithms on the platform affect other services they provide as well. Memories allow users to look back at posts from prior years, using the massive database they keep to show you all of your prior content. As a younger adult, I’d rather not see the kind of teenager I. was 10 years ago. Why does my “hehehe xD” have to still be haunting me. Every once in a while, they push this service to users in the form of pre made videos or slide shows. What if that was a traumatic point in your life and these are things you have, until now, forgotten about and now its like a wave taking you under again. Why should you have to see your post from 5 years ago about your argument with your significant other, and how much you hate them. Only for them to no longer be a part of this earth. Now don’t get me wrong, sometimes its nice to be able to look back and see how you’ve changed, but that may not ring true to everyone. Facebook has since added filters to filter out specific dates or people from the past, but repressed memories are a real thing and in turn brings grave discomfort or remorse to some users.
But some content does not necessarily fit itself to be lended to the hands of algorithms. A recent incident occurred where a man received a video curated by Facebook that he was encouraged to share.The video used memories from earlier this year, in which a mans mother passed away. Facebook encouraged the man to share a video college in which a picture of his mothers headstone was displayed with cartoon characters dancing over it. Hello. No one wants to see funny cartoon characters dancing on their mothers headstone. It is highly disrespectful and heartbreaking for those involved. His best memories wasn’t his mother dying, but maybe becoming a father or uncle. Alas, the headstone with dancing characters on it was released.
And this is not the first case of something like this occurring.
This, while well intentioned, is absolutely horrifying. Features like this should have some type of filtering and intelligence to it prior to mass launching a service like this. What if it was someone’s younger child on their mothers phone trying to get ahold of their cousins and it was their fathers headstone, that they were too young to even understand and from what they knew, their daddy was just on a long vacation?
Again, relying on artificial intelligence has caused irreparable damage to a user.
Overall, Facebook has suffered through many problems over the years. While some may not be to the entire blame of the platform, I believe it can be said that they have done more harm than good at this point. There are some benefits to the platform still...but the rope is wearing thin.
What Facebook can still offer
There are a few benefits to putting some time into Facebook still. There is no denying that Facebook is still the most widely used social network. And Facebook may be able to work well for your particular brand, and your audience may primarily just live their lives on this specific platform. It has the potential all to benefit.
There are a large portion of Facebook’s users that are 50 and up and are exclusively on this platform. They do not have twitter or instagram, and trying to move that audience is not an easy challenge. I’m still trying to teach my grandmother how to use her flip phone. Depending on your audience, not using Facebook could potentially cut out a large majority of your target audience and in turn significantly decreasing the potential your brand has.
In general, Facebook still can have large amounts of reach. Even if your target audience is not primarily on the platform, there are most likely still those who are, who will talk about it and post about it, and world does and will get around. The large amount of users and the acceptance of just about every type of media available, makes Facebook a fairly flexible platform for your content to have a central home and a good outlet to launch your success in progress.
Having a large amount of users also lends itself very nicely for networking. Meeting new people or exposing yourself to your target audience by commenting on a friends post is a great way to raise brand awareness. Don’t be the person to comment your network on someone’s high rising post arguing with someone, that will essentially get you no where. However, you can also expose yourself to your target audience through Facebook’s take on communities via Facebook Groups.
Facebook Groups are created around central topics, ranging in specificity. There can be groups for individual brands, topics like cars or music, or communities like groups of friends, high school classes, and study groups. Groups for parents, groups for people with OCD, groups of people who just plain hate cats. You think it, they have it. Everything you can do in your normal Facebook profile is accessible, and there are ways to personalize your group to your brand and make it more unique and personable as you would like it to be. This is one of the largest beneficial offerings Facebook has. By integrating yourself within these groups, you can engage your audience in a helpful way that provides value to them, initializing the trust that is so often required with your audience. Don’t pull a Facebook here.
Groups are also a very good way to build your personal community within your brand. If you are looking to establish authority with an audience, and you already have a blog or content that people follow, a group can be a great way to get your audience together and bring you all to a mutual platform where they can express and share amongst themselves. The platform would also allow you to push notifications about announcements, provide an area for testing, or solicit feedback on a new product or idea for an update to an existing product. When you mold yourself and your products to what the general public is interested in, you will rip your pockets soon after.
Facebook does have a few other tools that can be put to work for brands. Facebook ads and promotional posts can be a good way to get your message in front of the right people. The platform allows high customization into who you are targeting so you can ensure you are hitting the right group of people that would seemingly have the most interest in your brand. The ad service can be incredibly expensive though and unfortunately, it is one of the only ways for brands to get their messages seen without any established audience prior.
Facebook also offers fairly advanced analytics for your pages and customization of your business page. Facebook offers a Google Analytics level of depth but for your Facebook group. Everything from demographic information to times of engagement are available for you to dive into. Facebook also offers a ton of customization options for you brands page. It allows you to link to external forms and shops, bring videos in from YouTube channels, and change some basic imagery to keep your site on brand and keep your users on their toes about your next big thing.
While Facebook has a lot of flaws, it does provide decent benefits in terms of services for brands and the upcoming of making yourself known. I do not believe it should be a brands only social platform, but it should be at least something that every brand has, even if it is not as active as others as this may be the only form of social media someone uses. At this point in time, Facebook is still largely a necessary evil, until something else pops up that the mass users of Facebook will flock too. Say hi to Tom for us. Even then it is still quite a few years away, but more and more users are starting to flee the platform. But where are they going? Who is next?
Where to go next
The biggest appeal to facebook is the size of the community and the relatively low barrier of entry. Anyone who wanted to get involved on Facebook could do so with relative ease and understanding, and as their use of the platform went deeper, they were able to explore and expand into the more advanced features. So what is the next move if everyone is to leave Facebook? How could any other platform have more to offer than Facebook? How could any compare? Will anyone ever compare?
There are two main contenders as of right now that I believe could eventually give an excuse to leave Facebook, well kind of leave Facebook in one instance. The two biggest contenders are, with no surprise, Instagram and Twitter. The two are vastly different in terms of basic user functionality, but are popular and fairly widely used by a very large range in audience in. If there wasn’t Facebook who would win? Instagram V.S Twitter. Ding Ding Ding!
While Instagram is currently owned by Facebook, a lot of the negativity attached to Facebook is not present on Instagram. Instagram is photo based, an outlet to share the selfies they’ve taken, the vacations their on, the kids they’ve made, or that cool new sushi place up the road. There are still issues with Instagram that stems from its parent company, but a big portion of the platform does not lend itself to be victimized by the same mistakes plaguing Facebook.
Timeline exposure has been the closest Instagram has followed in Facebook’s path. At one point, you only seen the same handful of pictures that received the most engagement and promoted posts. But taking note of Facebook’s missteps, the timeline is now much better and you are even notified when you have kept up with all new posts from the last two days so you know you are seeing everything. There also comes the issues of your photo can make the Trending Now page in the search bar and now suddenly everyone can see your photos. Although there is the option to have a private account, not everyone feels the need to utilize that, until suddenly they’re being swarmed by ads, likes, and unnecessary comments from strangers.
Instagram also does not allow for the native sharing of links on the platform, aiming instead to have one link in the person’s bio and that is it. This cuts down on an abundance of spam and fake news issues that plague Facebook. It even makes what you link that much more important because if you have it on your bio, it is clearly important and you want people to see that. Though there are ways to add more links into the bio, natively posting the links on a photo to the timeline is not possible.
Instagram also allows for a very nicely done story feature, much like Snapchat, but taken a step forward with a lot more interactive features added in. You can also take one step forward with stories as well and save them as a collection that will pop up on your profile. Stories also has additional, interactive features like polls and swiping for direct links out of Instagram that are only accessible upon hitting specific follower marks, cutting back on spam and other malicious things, but still being able to provide services that users want with preference going to those accounts that are generally more active and engaging.
Instagram is a fairly solid platform assuming it changes a few things, but if photos and video are not your thing, or you want a little more flexibility in the medium, Twitter is another solid choice to go with. Twitter is moreso like Facebook in terms of your timeline, but has a lot less of unnecessary pages and links. Twitter has been around since 2006 and quickly because many social networkers medium of choice.
Twitter allows for quick consumption of micro-news in the form of tweets, which are now running a 280 character limit per tweet, compared to the old model of 140. Users can choose who they follow, break followers down into lists, allowing them to filter in between news, subcultures, and friends and family. You have the option to protect your tweets, essentially putting your profile on lockdown where only people to allow to follow can see anything on your personal page.
The barrier to entry is fairly low as the premise is very simple, which is encouraging to users and allows them to get started relatively quickly. There are a lot of prolific people who only use Twitter as their means of general public communication, which is another big plus for users of the platform. Even Bernie Sanders uses Twitter. And Oprah, cant forget Oprah.
While they do have an ad program and feature sponsored content on Twitter, it is no where near the extremities of Facebook. Typically, a users timeline will only block or hide content the user chooses to not see. This allows all of a brands content to be viewed fairly and equally, and far from overwhelming. However due to the large amounts of content posted to Twitter, and the frequency of new tweets, you have to be fairly active in order to be seen. It is not like Facebook where the most recognized post gets more attention, but with a quick search in the search bar, you can see any and everything of, mostly, the only thing you really wanted to see! Twitter thankfully lends itself to be a platform that takes repeated content and excessive posting very well.
Twitter offers similar analytics features that Facebook offers, but they are not as in depth. This is not necessarily a fault of the platform, but the platform does not allow for the deep levels of customization and options as Facebook does, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. They have a night mode, so that pretty cool. Easy on your eyes when you’re scrolling through at 2am. The joy in Twitter comes in the simplicity of it. There are no groups or other collections of private happenings. Everything is public interaction. For brands, this provides an amazing way to be ahead of the curve and on the platform engaging their audience. From searching hashtags to jumping into random conversations about unrelated topics, Twitter provides great opportunity to those willing to put time into the platform and get the most benefit out of it that they can.
A big thing Twitter lacks that Facebook does have our specialized communities that you can join and participate in via the hashtags or the search bar, but community based apps should be the way you do this. By separating the concerns and focusing on the core platform that Twitter has made so great, we will have to look externally for communities.
Community based apps are those like Slack, Discord, and even some of the features in Mastodon. The apps that typically, not many people have ever heard of unless it’s the ‘big thing’ at the time. At their core they are very simple, you join a channel or community, and are able to then participate with members of those communities, You chat, you swipe, you enjoy.
In Slack and Discord, once you gain permission to join a community, there are further sub sets of channels that you can join. Channels can vary from general announcements and a generic chat room to more focused targets like hobbies and other general areas of interest. The best part about these types of communities is that they are completely customizable. You can have channels be however you want them to be, and fully express the brand you are throwing out for the world to see. These apps also allow for deep integrations with other services. Slack is best known as being a business communication tool first, and therefore allows deep integration of work and productivity apps like Trello, Microsoft Excel, Evernote, Google Drive and more. While some of these integrations are premium and require payment to access, the options seem limitless and if you need the external resources, chances are you will be able to integrate exactly what you need to with the platform and in a matter of time, those small fees are well worth it. Mastodon attempts to bridge the gap between these community based groups and a more traditional timeline or newsfeed of activity.
Mastodon at its core is a Twitter clone, but it is done in a way based off of what they call Instances. Instances segregate your timeline into specific servers, allowing for the exclusivity of Facebook groups, but all in one central place, unlike community groups. Users of Mastodon can log in and see the general overview, which would be the timeline of those they follow plus activity from specific instances. Users can also log in specifically into these Instances, allowing them to interact with just those specific subsets of users. Mastodon is a very new platform, but they’re in the process of proving that they can stand a chance against Facebook and other social giants. Mastodon runs off of a no ads, no spam, no premium content type model. The platform itself is open sourced, meaning that anyone can get involved with the production and development of the app. The feeds are chronological in nature, and you can separate concerns, or see one massive dump depending on preference. The possibilities are endless.
The biggest challenge Mastodon faces is the relatively high barrier to entry. The platform was made for the more well informed as the concepts can be a bit complicated. And due to its relative infancy, the likelihood of people taking time to learn and participate in the platform is not all the way there just yet. There is also a lack of social proof as there are not many big names out there quite yet on the platform. The good doesn’t always come easy. Always worth it though!
Moving on
It is pretty plain to see that there are plenty of options out there for moving a brand off of Facebook that are just as viable, but maybe not as convenient at the time being. Over the course of the next year, without a doubt there will be a platform that will rise as a true contender to Facebook, and the social war will ensue. It may be a brand new app, or a platform that has been around for a while that finally nails everything users are looking for in a social networking app. It may even be something entirely brand new. What goes around comes around Facebook.
The shortcomings of Facebook have long been into play and the latest privacy scandal coupled with the on going list of complaints in algorithmic choices do not help their cause in the slightest. The privacy scandal represents a tipping point for the Facebook brand and many users are eager to move on to a more secure platform that offers a similar robust amount of features like Facebook but will ensure the confidentiality of very detrimental information.
As stated before, for brands it is still a necessary evil to at least be represented on Facebook for the time being. If you are just starting out on social media marketing, put in the time to see if your brand is very actively on the platform to where you will be able to set yourself up for success and not failure. Furthermore, deciding to vacate Facebook as your primary social presence can be a dangerous, and potentially breaking move at this point in time. If you are relying on Facebook as your primary source of marketing, now is the time to start integrating into other platforms before it is too late and you become a part of the past alongside. At this point, Facebook is one bad press day away from being swept under the rug by an underdog fresh onto the App Store ready to be downloaded. Stay Tuned.