Facebook:  Social Sharing Gone Too Far

As Facebook draws ever closer to their publically traded future, they continue to dominate the spotlight for a multitude of reasons.

The obvious economic impact of Facebook making its move to the stock markets is astounding in and of itself. They are expected to be traded at an overall value of $86 billion. In today’s economic climate, that puts them in quite the elite league. But, as ever consuming patrons continue to share intimate details of their lives, Facebook’s privacy settings continue to be at the forefront.

What I find interesting, is Facebook is now quoted as working with the federal government to share information collected about its members for a variety of reasons. The Consumers Union took out a full page ad in a recent Politico publication seen below:

The text is a bit hard to read from this image so it’s passed below.

"Facebook and its users have a special relationship -- one that makes the Web a more fun and social place. But Facebook has been keeping track of practically everything you've ever done on their site -- and lots of other sites -- and will only share some of that with you. Now they support allowing the government broad access to your records. Meanwhile, a national survey by Consumer Reports projected that nearly 13 million U.S. Facebook users have never set privacy controls -- an essential step in using the biggest social network safely. Facebook should think twice about how it shares your private information ... and so should you."

What I find interesting about all of this is people want to blame Facebook. How can you really be mad at a platform? No feelings…no emotions. Simply a sharing platform that everyday consumers choose how to interact with….shouldn’t we all be mad at ourselves?

Personally, I’m not your typical Facebook consumer. I can’t stand hearing about people’s shopping trips, garage sale finds, a new book they’ve read, or much else of the mindless drivel that Facebook shares with me. But again, that’s personal. From a marketing standpoint, it’s pure genius. Haven’t any and all of us in our marketing and advertising background steered our customers to forge true and personal connections and relationships with their customers? Don’t we as marketers strive for the same? Facebook allows that engaged interaction for nothing…or virtually nothing anyway.   Yet, as consumers, we want to bite the hand that feeds us…

Guess it goes back to the typical cliché….”you can’t have your cake and eat it too.”