Social media &
Facebook Is Not Strategy
Filed under: Corporate Social Media, Facebook, Technology
If you are the kind of person that likes to plane ahead and call that strategy then you should be very cautious about all things Facebook. The thing is that Facebook is not ready. This means that the functionality that is available now might not be there in three months time.
Changes
Just to name a few changes from last year:
- Boxes on the left side bar let you customize the look of your Wall. It was a great place for promotions. For us it was on of the best sources for newsletter sign-ups.
- At some point the tab width of applications went from 760 pixels to 520. Well, that translates to countless hours of rethinking and rebuilding your apps.
- Now there was a major upgrade to pages that changed user experience considerably. There are no more tabs, replaced with a left side navigation. The first thing people see on the Wall is a row of (usually random) pictures. The little info snippet where you could put a link to your site, gone.
Stability
When you launch your product are you sure that Facebook is working that day. People have a like button. Everything loads and behaves as expected.
Support
What support?
It’s their business and I totally agree that they have the right to run it as they see fit. Facebook is light-years away from being a “mature” platform and there’s no real road map of what comes next.
So, when planning your social media strategy for the year or an important product launch do not forget to consider the risks of Facebook not being there for you.
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Image credits Michal Zacharzewski
Posted on: February 21, 2011
