Who Cares What I Like…?
Ever since Facebook decided to ditch the “Become a Fan” and “Join” buttons in favor of a standard “Like” option, the more I think they are expending unnecessary energy in tweaking a pointless feature.
To put it bluntly: I don’t think most Facebookers care about what you and I think. The majority of users don’t spend a significant amount of time on fellow Info pages to see the plethora of pages someone belongs to and is a fan of.
Now that these options have been removed, you either like something or you don’t.
When it comes to the pace Facebook is growing, they would be wise to keep the following concepts in mind:
Humans are not billboards
Facebook was founded, and is being used for social interaction. A company who thinks having 1 million fans or likes is more important than steady communication will find the tool of no value. For example, take e-mail marketing. It does not matter how big your list is. You still have to provide valuable and timely content. The same goes with your FB profile: being proactive and communicating with your strong customers and influences will beat out the most “liked” profile any day.
As you below, there is no way I’ll spend time viewing all of the pages you support. Signing up for every invite won’t help further your cause. It also makes you look like a follower and not a fan.
The MySpace Effect
In my humble opinion, there were several issues that contributed to the downfall of MySpace. I won’t call them mistakes and I will call it a downfall because the company was simply a testing to ground to how the Internet would react to social networking. And, the downfall is related to profile disorganization and user spam. Profiles started too look like poorly designed web pages and they could not maintain the uniformity needed to build a cohesive community. Anyone could upload HTML and create a unique profile. FB has managed to keep users within the “ropes” by not allowing organized chaos and every profile essentially looks the same.
People like playing by the rules and feeling part of the group. The ones who don’t will leave.
Change everything mindset
Even though people are still signing up by the millions, avoid giving users the “I’m still growing” feel. It’s not necessary to continually change features just to keep it fresh. Of course testing new ideas is good but don’t over do it. We need to know what to expect when logging in each day. No one knows what to really predict when signing on to Facebook, but layout consistency does matter.
The world is not your oyster
I heard someone say, “I’ll try anything once.” Well, Google has decided it’s what they intend to do. From E-mail, Office Products, Mobile Innovation, Bar code readers..you name it. The powers that be at Facebook need to get it in their head early that it’s not necessary to try and take over the world just because you’re the best at social networking.
I am not suggesting for them to get comfortable with one product either. Just don’t start feel like you need to get into the company acquisition game. Build on what you have and eventually they will come running to you. MySpace did not have to be bought for them to cave. Don’t forget it.
