Social Networking websites are slowly turning into social marketing websites.

26/04/2010 Hardik Gondha 34 comments

-By Hardik Gondha

Take a close look at these scenarios. A teenage boy is sharing strategy secrets about football on a Facebook group. A mother is posting photos of her trip to the Himalayas on Flickr. A Father is uploading a video of his daughter’s performance in a band on You Tube. A marketing expert is sending invites on facebook and twittering about a new product he’s trying to sell.

When we compare these scenarios it is evident that the marketing expert trying to sell his product on a social networking website is the odd one out. The reason is that other than the marketing expert the rest of them are using social networking websites for the purpose of social interaction. They are using these websites to either share a topic with people of the same interest or sharing photos or videos with their family and friends. Their purpose of using these websites is nothing more than to share, belong and socialize.

To start with, I would like to give the reader an idea on what my paper is going to cover. I argue in this paper that social networking websites are slowly turning into social marketing websites. They are getting too commercial for a social network online. The core purpose of social networking websites is for social interaction, which is being intruded by small/large scale companies or individuals who sign up to these websites just to market or promote their product (emarketer 2010) which is poisoning the social networking environment commercially. I will be reviewing the largest social networking website online as my case study, Facebook (Saleem 2010). This paper will also shine a light on particular marketing practises on Facebook which are exploiting the privacy of individuals and also exploiting the Terms and conditions of Social networking website.

Individuals do not sign up on these social networking websites to receive offers from different brands and companies. This kind of activities on social networking websites is exploiting ones privacy in a way. In a recently proposed privacy change from Facebook which will be come into effect from April 2010, states that

“To serve social ads we occasionally pair advertisements we serve with relevant information we have about you and your friends to make advertisements more interesting and more tailored to you and your friends. For example, if you connect with your favourite band’s page we may display your name and profile photo next to an advertisement for that page that is displayed to your friends.” (Facebook 2010b)

This privacy change by facebook would exploit users’ privacy in a huge way. To think about it, Facebook is making you market for a brand/company using your identity which you are not even aware of. Not only they are pulling out information from your profile but also using it commercially to make some profit out of it. We cannot be assured that our personal information is not being passed on to the advertisers. Facebook claims that it does not, but there is no proof of it.

Why is Facebook in danger to be populated with commercial material?

In a recent study of the most searched brands in the United States, Facebook tops the list. It beats Google, which was second on the list. It had a unique hit of 10,673, while Myspace was going down the graph as usual (Hitwise, 2010). The number of visitors is increasing every day. Since the second quarter of 2008 the percent of global internet users who visit Facebook has increased approximately by 35% (Alexa, 2010). Another reason why so many brands chose Facebook as their marketing platform is because they get to choose their target audience. For instance they could search for users using their location. Creating pages, groups or profiles does not cost them a penny. There are no subscriptions charges to use these tools on Facebook. This makes it more tempting for people to market on Facebook. This shows why every brand/company would like to associate itself with facebook. They do not think much of how social media marketing could do some serious damage on their brand image if trigged in a wrong way.

Marketing on Facebook is being carried out by creating profiles, groups, applications and pages in the name of the company/brand. About 20-40% of the new profiles created on Facebook are bogus. By bogus profile over here means not representing oneself. They are spammers, marketing experts and malware writers (Muncaster, 2008). The people and the companies with the aim of marketing on Facebook create a new profile on the name of the company/brand and send random friend requests to as many people as they can. This approach of marketing is no different than receiving spam e-mails in your inbox. Not many know about it, but the current terms and conditions of facebook states that

“You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission. You will not use your personal profile for your own commercial gain” (Facebook 2009c).

Talking about groups, anybody and everybody is allowed to create a group on Facebook. A group is created for the people to share same kind of interest and thoughts on a topic. But then different brands are creating groups and inviting unknown members to join. Another thing I came across during my research on Facebook groups is that, a lot of groups are created with some interesting topic name which makes people join them, for example “10,000,000 Strong for our troops!” This group talks about the US military forces and their fight against terrorism. But then the real motive of the group owner is to make as many people join the group and sell the group to somebody else. He wants to get paid for the number of members. There are a lot of groups out there doing the same, or sending their members some affiliate products or the group is full of advertisements(O’Neill, 2010). Counter arguments can always be made stating the users can post anything they want but again as always; it is against the Facebook terms and conditions to promote products through a group.

Applications are one of the major tools which attract the members. There are applications for every niche. Be it quiz, games, business, advertising, survey. Applications are being used in many different ways as a marketing tool. These marketing experts make applications with a questionnaire or some game and state that the users can win something in return if they finish the quiz/game and invite other people to join the same. This is how we receive the unwanted application request every single day. The platform for the application allows the developers to add their own advertisements on it which are being viewed by the users who add these applications(Rumford, 2007). The biggest benefit for the application owner and the biggest drawback for the user is that, once a user adds the application, it has access to all the private data available on your profile even if you have set your profile to limited access, without your knowledge this data is being used and sold to other companies/individuals (Soghoian, 2008). These applications do not belong to Facebook and Facebook is not responsible for your lose of data to these applications. You may give away your full name, age, location, events attended/going to attend, photos, and many other personal secure information (Zielinksa, 2008; Perez, 2009). This proves how the privacy of an individual user is being exploited by the Facebook applications.

Finally, there are the Facebook pages which are being used by most of the brands who wants some online social identity. According to Facebook statistics there are more than 3 million active pages (Facebook 2010d). When you look into it deeply out of those 3 million active pages, more than 1.5 million pages are owned and run by local businesses (O’Neill, 2010). Initially Facebook had these pages for celebrities and individuals who could be followed by their fans. But lately, different brands/products have started using the pages to promote and interact with users and get their feedback. I believe using the pages would be the right way to represent a brand/product online. But this has to be done in a way where the users are not forced to look at them or spammed with invitations to join them. Facebook pages and Facebook targeted advertising are suppose to go hand in hand. To market these pages, they are supposed to use the advertising tool which targets users’ specific to the demographic nature (Facebook 2010a). As it is known the advertising tool provided by Facebook is not free, the marketing experts using the pages tend to get around this issue by creating a profile and sending invites to join the page to random and large number of users. If the users are really interested to follow their favourite brands, they would find them and follow them. It is not necessary for every brand to send invites to every single user. Most of these pages are pointless.

In real life, we come across the same kind of marketers with the same motive. But as we are dealing with the virtual world, there are search engine optimisers (SEOs) also involved in marketing. The basic hard and fast rule followed by SEOs is that, if their website is visited by search engine crawlers from a highly ranked page then even their page would be ranked high in the search engine(Wikipedia, 2010). Thus the best place they could have found is Facebook which has 400+ million active users and the website is so highly ranked. They get search engine crawlers and also the users to visit their website. Many of these SEOs are not in the need of social presence. They are there just to redirect the search engine crawlers back to their website. This would create more spam and more advertisements on Facebook which would slowly turn itself into a marketing website.

The way predictions and the debates are going on about how online advertising and marketing is going to take over all other medium within a few years (Ahrens, 2007; Bureau, 2009) it will get even more messy for the users to socialize peacefully. And with more and more advertising and marketing strategies popping up every day in the market, it gets difficult for the consumer to make up their mind on a product. In an industry survey, it was told that consumers follow the word of mouth. They trust more in their friends than any advertisement or any marketing campaigns. (Baazarvoice, 2010). And when you think about Facebook, it is all about building relationship and maintaining your social network and interacting with friends. So if your friend is following a brand on facebook, then even you might end up following that brand and purchasing their products because your friend has a positive opinion about them. This is one of reasons Facebook will remain as an attractive target for advertisers and marketers.

This paper shows that social networking sites are slowly getting commercialised and how they are turning into social marketing websites. It also covers a small part on how an identity on facebook by marketing practices is exploited in different ways.

To conclude we can say that in a way Facebook is poisoning its ambience itself. They are trying really hard to monetize in such a way which is fading out the experience of a social networking website for a user.

References:

Ahrens, F. (2007, 06 16). Gone in 30 Seconds. Retrieved 03 28, 2010, from The Washington post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/15/AR2007061502134.html

Alexa. (2010). Facebook.com. Retrieved 04 05, 2010, from Alexa – The Web Information Company: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/facebook.com

Adgully Bureau. (2009, 12 09). Online advertising will take over newspapers by 2015? . Retrieved 04 01, 2010, from Latest News at Adgully: http://www.adgully.com/media/print/2015-ouster-to-newspapers.html

Baazarvoice. (2010). Power of Word of Mouth. Retrieved 03 30, 2010, from Baazar Voice – Social Commerce Statistics: http://www.bazaarvoice.com/resources/stats

emarketer. (2010). The State of Social Marketing Integration. Retrieved 03 28, 2010, from http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007579

Facebook. (2010a). Advertise on Facebook. Retrieved 04 07, 2010, from Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ads/create/

Facebook. (2010b). Facebook Site Governance. Retrieved 04 01, 2010, from Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/fbsitegovernance?v=app_4949752878

Facebook. (2009c). Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Retrieved 04 05, 2010, from Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/terms.php

Facebook. (2010d). Statistics. Retrieved 04 06, 2010, from Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

Hitwise. (2010, 04 01). Facebook – The Most Searched On Brand in the U.S. Retrieved 04 04, 2010, from Hitwise Intelligence: http://weblogs.hitwise.com/bill-tancer/2010/04/facebook_the_most_searched_on.html

Muncaster, P. (2008, 10 07). Facebook flooded with fake profiles. Retrieved 04 03, 2010, from v3.co.uk All thelatest UK technology news, reviews and analysis: http://www.v3.co.uk/vnunet/news/2227649/facebook-flooded-fake-profiles

O’Neill, N. (2010, 03 29). Facebook Summarized In A Single Picture. Retrieved 04 06, 2010, from All facebook – The unofficial Facebook Resource: http://www.allfacebook.com/2010/03/facebook-summarized-in-a-single-picture/

O’Neill, N. (2010). The Rise Of Scam Facebook Groups. Retrieved 03 28, 2010, from http://www.allfacebook.com/2010/01/the-rise-of-scam-facebook-groups/

Perez, S. (2009, 08 27). What Facebook Quizzes Know About You. Retrieved 04 04, 2010, from Read write web: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/what_facebook_quizzes_know_about_you.php

Rumford, R. (2007). Adwords Advertising in Facebook Applications: Can I Vomit? Retrieved 03 28, 2010, from http://facereviews.com/2007/10/16/adwords-advertising-in-facebook-applications-can-i-vomit/

Saleem, M. (2010). Visualizing 6 Years of Facebook [INFOGRAPHIC]. Retrieved 03 29, 2010, from http://mashable.com/2010/02/10/facebook-growth-infographic/

Soghoian, C. (2008). Exclusive: The next Facebook privacy scandal. Retrieved 03 28, 2010, from http://news.cnet.com/8301-13739_3-9854409-46.html

Wikipedia. (2010). Page Rank. Retrieved 03 28, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank

Zarrella, D. (2009, 06 22). Is Twitter a Social Network? Retrieved 04 03, 2010, from HubSpot’s Inbound Internet Marketing Blog : http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4859/Is-Twitter-a-Social-Network.aspx

Zielinska, A. (2008, 02 21). Facebook applications access personal information. Retrieved 04 03, 2010, from The Ithacan online: http://theithacan.org/am/publish/news/200802_Facebook_applications_access_personal_information.shtml

Identity in Communities and Networks, Social Networks advertising, business, commerce, Facebook, marketing, Privacy, Social Networking

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Comments

Written by li ying about 2 years ago. Reply

Your paper is really interesting. I remember seeing status updates which is like ‘I lost 10kg in two months!’ on my friend’s profile. That status update wasn’t written by him but someone else. Also, I received a message on Facebook (from my friend) about certain products but that friend of mine didn’t send the message. It’s kinda creepy because it’s like someone’s accessing their account without permission and I’m glad that did not happen to me.

Furthermore, there are SO many groups on Facebook with SO many followers. As you stated, some groups are for entertainment purposes and some groups are for marketing purposes. I received so many groups invitation by friends but I rejected them all because I think they will make my info page in Facebook long and ugly.

Surveys on Facebook is so annoying and I agree with your action because it only allow marketing companies too target you based on your interests.
Written by AnamariaR about 2 years ago. Reply

Hi Hardik,

Thank you for an interesting paper.

I do believe that social networking sites are slowly turning into a social marketing website. This is from points that you discussed in your paper such as “Facebook is making you market for a brand/company using your identity which you are not even aware of. Not only they are pulling out information from your profile but also using it commercially to make some profit out of it” but also from my paper that discussed ways that SNS’s are used by business for their businesses needs.

SNS’s are allowing businesses to gain information from its followers and use it for marketing purposes. I believe this is a privacy issue and followers should be informed that information is being collected. But some users are willing to quickly click and accept the “terms and conditions” without even reading the fine print because they want to immediately use the application This then allows the business to access information on their profile. To look at this scenario, it’s the users own fault for not reading the fine print and should not complain that information is being collected from them.

With some users being unaware of information being collected on Facebook, others are happy to support their favourite businesses and give information to help them succeed. With one example from my paper
“Restaurant chain Firehouse Subs use Facebook to communicate with its customers. Facebook has been used to collect feedback about new items the business was considering to add to the menu. In one instance, within 2 hours of posting the question on whether to add a new menu item or not, over 100 comments were made by its Facebook fans (Levin, 2010). Feedback received was both negative and positive.”

I personally don’t install or use these applications on Facebook and I also limit the amount of personal details I publish on the site, with my name not even being correct. This is due to the fact that I don’t want the site accessing my private information and using it for their own gain.
Thank you for an informative paper that has reminded me of the reasons why I choose not to use applications and limit the details I give to Facebook to publish and use.

Reference:
Levin, A. (2010). Social Media Madness. Foodservice Equipment & Supplies, 63, 12-15. Retrieved April 22, 2010, from Business Source Premier database.
Written by esti1 about 2 years ago. Reply

A great read; I love the way you opened the discussion with really down-to-earth examples.

I must admit though, that I disagree with you in your argument that “social networking sites are slowly getting commercialised and how they are turning into social marketing websites”.
I do not see anything wrong with companies trying to sell things to people utilizing social media platforms. Social media is just the new way of communicating. In times bygone, people would meet socially in a physical sense, and vendors would approach them, asking whether they would like to purchase a product or service. We even see this notion nowadays. For example, I was recently in Venice Beach, California, relaxing and enjoying the cool breeze, and was approached by a Palm Reader. I did not take offense to this, even though I was involved in a recreational activity. Social network marketing is essentially the same thing, only occurring in a virtual space.

Indeed, in my paper “Social Networks Are Effective Marketing Tools” (Waks, 2010), I argue that social networking sites are effective marketing tools. I received a comment on my paper with a question regarding the tension between the online community’s interests and those of marketers, and I felt that the answer I provided there is very pertinent here too.

To quote my response to that particular comment

“So if this tension exists, or potentially exists, how would it be resolved, or prevented?
Marketers should be careful not to push their products or services in people’s faces; it is suggested that they win over people by participating in online conversations about their products or services and that they aim to provide expert advice, real benefits to consumers, as opposed to obviously advertising products (Chaney, 2009). In addition, marketers should constantly aim for openness, honesty and transparency (Chaney, 2009). So really, the tension is resolved by the company really engaging the customers in a truthful manner.

Consider Toyota’s Facebook page, which prominently displays a link to information on its recall campaign (Facebook, 2010). Clearly, Toyota knows that its consumers want honesty and openness from the company in light of its recent vehicle crisis. Toyota is preventing the potential tension between the community’s interests and the company’s interests by providing real, genuine and useful information.” (Waks, 2010)

References:

Facebook (2010). Toyota USA. Retrieved May 7, 2010 from http://www.facebook.com/toyota
Chaney, P. (2009). Top Ten Secrets to Social Network Superstardom. Retrived May 7, 2010 from http://www.mpdailyfix.com/top-ten-secrets-to-social-network-superstardom/
Waks, E. (2010). Social Networks Are Effective Marketing Tools. Retrieved May 16th 2010 from http://networkconference.netstudies.org/2010/04/social-networks-marketing-tools/
- Written by hardik gondha about 2 years ago. Reply
  
  Hey esti,
  I will definitely not disagree to the fact that social networking website’s are a great tool for marketing. Because they get access to all the information they need. Demographic location has made it even more easier to target the audience they are looking for. My argument does not conclude that marketing should be banned on these websites. If it needs to be done, it has to be done in a ethical way.
  
  For example, if i leave my e-mail address at a store and few days later i receive a e-mail from them promoting their product, i guess it should be fine. But again, if i receive an e-mail from a random marketer trying to sell his product, most of the people would get offended. I think these e-mails qualify as Spams. Having said that, it is not different if a unknown store tries to approach us my leaving messages and invites on our profile. It is all about how the company decides to carry out their marketing strategies on these websites. They should consider the fact that users get annoyed if they trigger it in the wrong way.
  
  -Hardik.
  - Written by Belindam about 2 years ago. Reply
    
    With regards to the commercialisation of Social Network sites such as Facebook, I read a related paper by Stevie Marshall. It relates to issues of Privacy online.
    
    In my comment to his paper, I suggested Facebook may eventually develop two streams, an open “free” stream (with ads) and a paid for “private stream”. With this in mind, I asked how much or if you would you be willing to pay for privacy. He suggested $8. I’d be interested in hearing your opinion.
    
    Check out the paper at: http://networkconference.netstudies.org/2010/04/commodifying-community/
    - Written by hardik gondha about 2 years ago. Reply
      
      Hey Belindam, The idea you have put forth sounds great. Free stream and private stream. By private stream i assume a network without advertisements. In that case to think about it, its not the advertising which are bothering the users all that much when compared to marketing. I am sure even in a private stream you want other fellow mates to find you and be able to add you as a friend. So that enables anybody to add you or send you a message in that case. But yes, it will definitely make a huge difference to the people who are really concerned about privacy and network free of advertising and marketing.
      
      8$ sounds fine to me. I would definitely pay. On another thought. If one fine day Facebook turns into a only paid version. I assume most of the users would pay that amount. What do you think?.
      
      Cheers
      Hardik
Written by Amy Bear about 2 years ago. Reply

It is something of an affront to realise some sites, such as Facebook, consider user generated content as belonging to them, that once it has been posted on their site, the author of that content forfeits all rights of ownership. Facebook reneged that decision after some backlash from its users, but that they thought they could do it in the first place is a worrisome condition of social networking sites in general. They are, afterall, generating revenue based on user generated content. Without its users, where would Facebook be? What does Facebook have, or provide, that does not rely on users?

I’m very glad for the Terms of Service provided by my social networking site of choice, LiveJournal (http://www.livejournal.com/legal/tos.bml), in which it states: “LiveJournal claims no ownership or control over any Content posted by its users. The author retains all patent, trademark, and copyright to all Content posted within available fields, and is responsible for protecting those rights, but is not entitled to the help of the LiveJournal staff in protecting such Content.” Not only do they claim no ownership, but in my role as support staff, I get to help protect the rights of users defending their copyright.

I know I’m discussing something not quite in the vein of your paper, but content ownership on services relying on user generated content is a point of personal interest, and concern for me.
- Written by hardik gondha about 2 years ago. Reply
  
  Hey amy,
  
  I was under the misconception that any data posted on SNS or similar website belong to them. It is interesting to know that livejournal has such TOS. And yes, Facebook is a empty book without its users. Over commercialization is going to cost them loss of users few years down the lane for sure.
Written by FransiscaMS about 2 years ago. Reply

Yes social networking sites now turn into many ways, besides for socializing and get any information, you are able to build your own little company here and marketing all your stuff, pretty useful enough to across the time and space problems, so do you thinks its a bad idea or good one?
- Written by hardik gondha about 2 years ago. Reply
  
  I respectfully disagree. It is definitely a bad idea due to many reasons. If companies start relying on SNS for business, then few years down the lane half the members of these website’s would be companies ( because of free marketing, free registration and as you stated saving time and space ). Which company would not like such a deal ? In this case users would start quitting the website soon. Because the users are on these websites for the sole purpose to socialize.
Written by Lee-Ann Khoh about 2 years ago. Reply

Great paper Hardik, and even more relevant now with the new Connections and linking pages feature being rolled out. Facebook is forcing all its users to have their interests, schools and workplaces they list linked to a public “community page” so that even if their profiles are private, people on those pages will be able to see the connection to the user. Unknown to most people, users’ statuses, links and notes can also appear on these community pages if they include certain keywords. All of this just means more personal information for the marketers to mine from us.

Li, A. (2010). Connecting to everything you care about. The Facebook Blog. Retrieved May 15, 2010, from http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=382978412130

Opsahl, K. (2010). Six things you need to know about Facebook connections. Electronic Frontier Foundation. Retrieved May 15, 2010, from http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/05/things-you-need-know-about-facebook
- Written by hardik gondha about 2 years ago. Reply
  
  I came across this new feature on facebook lately. Looks like Facebook wants to take over the internet soon. I was unaware of the fact that status, links and notes would leak out of the profile to these pages. But again, these features are optional. I assume it would not be a burning issue in future.
  - Written by Lee-Ann Khoh about 2 years ago. Reply
    
    I think the main issues here are lack of choice (either share your interests with the world or to no one) and lack of awareness (most Facebook users don’t know what’s going on and therefore aren’t really making informed decisions). So it’s less about connecting with friends/acquaintances (the supposed purpose of social networking) and more about connecting with companies and products. From a personal perspective, I don’t mind being marketed to (they’re just doing their job and occasionally there might be benefits for me), I would just like more flexibility than the rigid model that Facebook is bringing in.
    
    Here’s an article about how to opt out of Instant Personalization.
    
    Axon, S. (2010). HOW TO: Disable Facebook’s “Instant Personalization”. Retrieved May 16, 2010, from http://mashable.com/2010/04/25/disable-facebook-instant-personalization/
Written by JasonK about 2 years ago. Reply

I agree with the argument of your paper, that SNS’s, in particular Facebook, has since its public launch in 2006 (Kornblum 2006), gone from being focused purely on providing social networking services helping to connect people, to becoming focused on using its massive database to attract advertisers money for its primary source of revenue. Revenue is also sourced from gifts and virtual goods as well as applications (Johnson, 2009).

Facebook is extremely attractive to advertisers mainly because of its huge user base of 400 million users (Facebook Statistics, 2010). Also attractive is the simple manner in which Facebook permits targeted ads to be directed to users based on demographic data (Location, age, sex, keywords, education, workplace, relationship status, relationship interests and languages) (Facebook Advertising, 2010).

Because of Facebook has a free membership setup, it has to seek revenue from other sources (Johnson, 2009). However by doing this, the underlying Facebook system needs to be open to permit advertisers access this demographic data and application developers have access to user’s personally private data causing a massive breach in user’s privacy.

As I mentioned in my own paper, user’s personally identifiable profile information can be made public through the Facebook Application Platform Interface (API) (Grimmelmann, 2009).

API’s and their developers have access to the following personal information on user’s profiles according to Facebook Platform (2009),

“…your name, your profile picture, your gender, your birthday, your hometown location (city/state/country), your current location, Name, your political view, your activities, your interests, your musical preferences, television shows in which you are interested, movies
in which you are interested, books in which you are interested, your favorite quotes, your relationship status, your dating interests, your relationship interests, your network affiliations, your education history, your work history, your course information, copies of photos in your photo albums, metadata associated with your photo albums (e.g., time of
upload, album name, comments on your photos, etc.), the total number of messages sent and/or received by you, the total number of unread messages in your in-box, the total number of “pokes” you have sent and/or received, the total number of wall posts on your Wall, a list of user IDs mapped to your friends, your social timeline, notifications that you
have received from other applications, and events associated with your profile.”

To permit Facebook to become advertiser and API friendly, it has had to compromise its privacy. Other SNS’s are closed by default, however Facebook has open privacy settings by default, meaning that a user’s profile data is automatically accessible to advertisers, applications, Everyone on Facebook and the Internet (Facebook Privacy Policy 2009 ; Onwuasoanya, Skornyakov & Post, 2008).

For Facebook, money appears to be more important than ensuring the privacy of user’s personally private information.

I think that you have highlighted another aspect regarding SNS’s, that once their primary objective is no longer to provide a pure social networking environment, they have compromised on their initial goal and purpose with consequences for its users such as the disappearance of privacy for Facebook users.

Interesting article that sheds light on how commercialization can negatively affect SNS’s.

My personal opinion is that user’s will soon see what Facebook is really up to and how it is simply selling its database to advertisers. With the recent news article showing that Zuckerberg thinks its users are “Dumb F#cks” for providing so much personal information on their profiles (Carlson, 2010), users will start to leave Facebook in search of a better social network experience that hasn’t compromised its goals and become commercialized selling out its users for a profit.

Carlson, N. (2010, May 13). Well, These New Zuckerberg IMs Won’t Help Facebook’s Privacy Problems. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims-wont-help-facebooks-privacy-problems-2010-5

Facebook Advertising. (2010). Retrieved from http://www.facebook.com/advertising

Facebook Privacy Policy. (2009). Retried from http://www.facebook.com/policy.php

Facebook Statistics. (2010). Retrieved from http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?
statistics

Johnson, B (2009). How exactly is Facebook making money?. Retrieved from
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/sep/16/facebook-money

Kornblum, J. (2006, November 9). Facebook will soon be available to everyone. USAToday. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-09-11-facebook-everyone_x.htm

Onwuasoanya, A, Skornyakov, M & Post, J. (2008). Enhancing Privacy on Social
Networks by Segregating Different Social Spheres. Rutgers Governor’s School of
Engineering and TechnologyResearch journal, 2008. Retrieved from
http://www.osd.rutgers.edu/gs/08papers/Paper08-Facebook.pdf
Written by Richie_M about 2 years ago. Reply

Excellent paper Hardik, it presents a lot of privacy questions that need answering by Facebook.
It is disconcerting that our privacy could be sold to companies in order to arket their brand, and makes me wonder if I have my details or image associated to any product or cause that I am not aware of.
Truly an eye opener.
I will definately rethink what I put on Facebook in future.
Cheers.
Written by PaulaB about 2 years ago. Reply

Hi Hadrik,

I am currently in Belgium, travelling Europe (my annual well deserved break, but this time must finish my Uni assignments at the same time).

Your paper is interesting one exploring commercial side of the social networking. I agree with you that one needs to explore the technology as product not just assisting human beings but also as technology being as product that was invented not just for use, fame but for generating money as well.

Your conclusion is reflecting reality:
“This paper shows that social networking sites are slowly getting commercialised and how they are turning into social marketing websites”

The social networking sites especially the big ones have marketing deparments that deal with marketing and many users of their product do not even know. For example Facebook was marketing themselves as secure site where private will stay private. It was one of the Facebook promised features the security/privacy that attracted people to join. However, the Facebook breached their promise more then once and it is believe that marketing is behind the reason as well. The recent breach eventuated only couple weeks ago when private content was accessible publicly. Apparently many users stop readjusting their security settings that Facebook make frequent changes so users chose ‘default’ settings. I suppose one really should not be 100% sure that information on social networking intended as private will stay private that there are other who have access to it and may use it for other purpose. It is something everyone joining social neworking should be aware not to provide something they may regret later.

cheers
Paula
Written by WendyL about 2 years ago. Reply

Thanks for opening my eyes to the goings on with Facebook and marketing/advertising. I like how you have stated that Facebook may become a “Social marketing site”. After reading your article I realised that there has been alot more activity in particular with my ‘friends’ on facebook becoming fans of certain brands, slogans, companies, etc… As you mentioned it is slowly creeping in.

Interestingly though whilst trying to find a particular article on the internet (but did not find) all these blogs and tips from numerous websites came up on the different methods to effectively marketing on social networking sites. And thus now people are sharing the tried and tested ways to effectively encroach on the social networking sites. You have raised a very valid topic that will be interesting to see what happens in the future.
- Written by hardik gondha about 2 years ago. Reply
  
  As you said you have been noticing alot more activity on your friends page stating they have become fans of brands, slogans, companies,etc. Facebook has made a small change which is helping them gain a lot members to join groups and pages. Before i start on that, i would like to get into ” slogans ” as you mentioned. These are nothing but Groups. Group owners choose a very smart line/slogan which they think would be appealing and people would click on become a fan/Join group”. For example, ” YEs!! c’mon YEs!! Im Gonna Study aLL night… (2mins later ) (-_-) zzzzzzzzzzzz… slept !”. This is one of the groups i came across lately. I was shocked to see around 100,000 members.
  
  The small change which Facebook has made lately is from “Become a Fan” to ” Like it”. This change was made to lower the barrier for users to become connected with brands and groups. And definitely its working well for them. Users were used to clicking on Like button on photos and status messages. Most of them do not know that by clicking on Like button when it comes to these groups/pages, they are actually becoming a member of the group (Parr, 2010).
  
  Reference:
  
  Parr, B. (2010). Facebook Faceoff: “Like” vs. “Become a Fan”. Retrieved 05 16, 2010, from Mashable: http://mashable.com/2010/05/11/facebook-faceoff-like-vs-become-a-fan/
Written by laurap about 2 years ago. Reply

I think this is a great paper and very true, Facebook abuses the data it keeps from individuals in order to create marketing databases for anyone with enough money to pay them for the data and research.

They have no interest in being simply a social networking site, they use the popularity of their product to generate huge advertising schemes. Essentially we are voluntarily participating in marketing research through using the site. While it is easy to understand that companies need to make money, more stringent polices could easily make Facebook are more palatable option for those concerned about these issues.

As you say in the paper, company profiles should be clearly distinguished and should probably be allowed no “out-bound” requests to spam people, only inbound requests. This would go a long way in developing better trust between Facebook and it’s users.
- Written by laurap about 2 years ago. Reply
  
  Here are a couple of articles to support my claim about abuse of data by Facebook:
  
  http://www.securecomputing.net.au/News/164539,facebook-employee-reports-widespread-privacy-abuses.aspx
  
  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/technology/07adco.html
  
  Abuse is a word I believe to be true, but it may be subjective since technically we are giving them permission to do so.
Written by Jennifer_cumming about 2 years ago. Reply

Hi Hardik, I found your paper really interesting, a well written piece getting your opinion over well. While I hope that what your paper is saying does not occur, I can see the evidence that it is likely to. At one point in your paper though you mention that with the Applications, it shows one way of how privacy of an individual user is being exploited by Facebook. This I don’t quite agree with as when you log into Applications, the majority do warn first about allowing access to data, so a user should be aware that when they log into an Application, that it is allowing the Application creators to pass on any information that they deem necessary. Maybe users need to be more aware of the consequences of using said Applications. Users should also be more aware of the actual face value of the applications that they are accessing, especially with, as you mentioned, the growth of the bogus applications and groups. But aside from this i found your paper interesting and it certainly has made me look at how I should be more careful about the information. I have on Facebook and how this can be exploited by marketing experts. Well done.
Written by Emily about 2 years ago. Reply

A great paper, and a good take on an issue which will probably become more and more controversial as social networking sites such as Facebook become increasingly commercialised. On the other hand, Facebook is doing a good job of keeping the frog in the frying pan by becoming commercialised slowly, rather than all at once. For example, Facebook allowed its users to become used to the targeted advertising that pulls information from user’s profiles, before moving on to pulling information about the other websites a user visits ¹.

I believe that it is not just independent marketers that are turning Facebook from a social networking site into a social marketing site – Facebook itself encourages this kind of usage. Take a look at the ‘Create a Page’ page, for example ². It offers to “create a page for a local business; brand, product, or organisation; or artist, band or public figure” to “communicate with your customers and fans”. Thus, it is quite obviously promoting itself as a source of potential fans and customers.

¹ Kincaid, J. (2010). Facebook’s Plan To Automatically Share Your Data With Sites You Never Signed Up For. Retrieve May 10, 2010, from http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/26/facebooks-plan-to-automatically-share-your-data-with-sites-you-never-signed-up-for/

² Facebook. (2010). Retrieved May 10, 2010, from http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php
Written by Andrew Pettigrew about 2 years ago. Reply

Hi Hardik,
I enjoyed reading your paper. Having recently sat through an advertising presentation from Facebook, I can see corporations flocking to this site to advertise and market their goods and services. Facebook now has the personal information, including ages, sex, hobbies, location, interests etc of 400+ million members. Hence they can put together a campaign that accurately targets the customer demographic that’s most suitable to your profile for an attractive price (Facebook, 2010). I can see this quickly becoming the next big mass marketing medium; you have newspapers, magazines, radio, television and now Facebook.

We’ve seen rock stars and other personalities maintain pages on SNS and this maybe seen as “cool” or “sic,” however these people like corporations are building a brand. They are building a customer base just like any other company. However when an established corporation sets up a Facebook page, they need to be extremely careful how they approach this process. Companies, who have traditionally marketed via uni-directional mass marketing means, now have to employ additional staff to monitor and reply to postings made by the public. Their Facebook page needs to be kept focused on the positive aspects of product ownership or present industry related news, and not act as another product catalogue or advertising page. More importantly they must not allow the page to get bogged down with support issues as these can quickly turn nasty. Companies who fail address customer concerns on SNS sites can easily have the reputation attacked by word of mouth. Remember these word of mouth endorsements or criticisms are made by friends to friends and these carry weight.

Cheers
Andrew
Facebook. (2010). Facebook Advertising. Retrieved May 7, 2010, from http://www.facebook.com/advertising/
Written by Keith Law about 2 years ago. Reply

Social Marketing Websites

“According to Facebook statistics there are more than 3 million active pages (Facebook 2010d). When you look into it deeply out of those 3 million active pages, more than 1.5 million pages are owned and run by local businesses (O’Neill, 2010).”
In an article for Business Spectator, Melinda Varley states:” Paid social network advertising is expected to reach $US2.5 billion in 2010, a 14 per cent increase from 2009, according to figures from marketing research firm eMarketer. “ She concludes with:” Facebook, and other social media sites, not only provide a platform in which brands can have a web presence, it is a channel in which brands can personalise themselves, give themselves a face and engage with consumers in a fun way.
While in the past brands may have been sceptical about social media’s worth, now there seems to be no limit as to what brands will do to enter the social movement.
With 400 million users worldwide, covering every demographic, Facebook is a smart destination for every business sector from financial services, food, cars and technology brands. Its potential, and the potential of brands that choose to get on board and do it properly – is endless.” (Varley, 2010) There is no doubt that your conclusions are valid. They will become “social marketing sites”.
To keep a perspective the figure of 400 million users worldwide also implies there are 5.6 Billion non users. It is less than 7% of the world population. Perhaps the richer 7%.
“To serve social ads we occasionally pair advertisements we serve with relevant information we have about you and your friends to make advertisements more interesting and more tailored to you and your friends. For example, if you connect with your favourite band’s page we may display your name and profile photo next to an advertisement for that page that is displayed to your friends.” (Facebook 2010b)”
I find this example to be particularly exploitative. I would be furious if that happened to me. In my paper “The Relationship Economy” I looked at the way commerce plays a part in interacting with on-line communities. Facebook and social media in general is only one of a number of platforms used. Other tools include blogs, email, forums and chat rooms. I propose that the way to make a real commercial impact is to be fully interactive and supportive member of the on-line community. You need to identify those communities that some affinity for the products you market.
“The success in social network marketing comes from successfully targeting and offering the right product to the right market. It’s also about helping others. You do not want to enter social networking for the sole purpose of selling. If you do you will quickly be discovered and will gain a negative reputation which you absolutely don’t want on the internet. Your goal with social network is to develop a brand for yourself. You do this by attraction marketing. The more you share your wealth of knowledge the more you will become known as an expert in your field.” (Brant, 2010).
“This paper shows that social networking sites are slowly getting commercialised and how they are turning into social marketing websites.”
It is true that all media is commercialised: television, radio, magazines and newspapers are real world commercial communication channels. To expect that the Internet would be any different is extremely optimistic. Commerce not social chatter makes the world go around.
WORKS CITED
Brant, T. (2010, January). Social Network Marketing is the Foundation For a Great Online Business. Retrieved April 30, 2010, from Ezine@articles: http://ezinearticles.com/?Social-Network-Marketing-is-the-Foundation-For-a-Great-Online-Business&id=3521976
Varley, M. (2010, March 26). Who’s cashing in on social media? Retrieved April 30, 2010, from Business Spectator: http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/article/why-it-pays-to-have-a-personality-pd20100325-3uv86?opendocument&src=blb&
Written by Michael N about 2 years ago. Reply

Your paper argued well and made me think how unethical Facebook and SNS are. Yes, it is a choice to use these sites, but if a lot of what you have reported is true then I feel it is unethical to use people for such things as putting profiles next to brand names. The you have nothing to hide why worry arguement to me does not wash. Probably not much can be done and it is a choice, I agree, but it is still not a particularly good thing.

On his blog Rubel (2008) argues this that sums up the ownership issue of our information:

‘More importantly, social media marketing also implies that social networks, blogs and other like channels are advertising venues. They’re not. They’re public spaces just like our great National Parks. We must respect them as such. Otherwise we’re going to pollute the environment and make them less enjoyable for everyone’

Whilst not a lot may be able to be done, you have reaffirmed an important issue, well done for argueing against this practice.

Rubel, S. (2008). Ethical Social Media Marketing. Micro Persuasion. Retrieved April 30, 2010 from http://www.micropersuasion.com/2008/10/ethical-social.html
Written by samantha_w about 2 years ago. Reply

A thought-provoking paper – I found the part about how search engine optimisers work with Facebook accounts particularly eye-opening (want to read up on that a bit more now). I also wrote about privacy and social network sites (http://networkconference.netstudies.org/2010/04/241/) and with all of these papers, it’s interesting how everyone has looked at the topic from a different angle.
Written by Stevie Marshall about 2 years ago. Reply

Nice paper, you’ve opened my eyes to some of the more deceptive practices marketers are using on SN sites.

My own paper http://networkconference.netstudies.org/2010/04/commodifying-community/ explores how Facebook commodifies social capital. There’s no doubt these marketers are doing the same, but in a more conniving and underhanded manner.

I’m sure Facebook would be attempting to stop and hide most of this exploitation (that of it they don’t directly profit from anyway), the first thing that will happen if this exploitation becomes too rampant is that Facebook’s reputation will drop and it’ll begin to suffer a slow death. Just look at what being the most popular did for Kazaa.

Still, if Facebook can keep the exploiting marketer’s at bay, there’s no reason they can’t continue commodifying our social capital for some time to come
Written by Cathy Brzeski about 2 years ago. Reply

This paper really challenged some of the existing attitudes and knowledge i have developed in regards to marketing online, specifically on social networks.

This is because i am a marketing student! For every marketing unit i have done, we have learnt about how the internet is opening up so many possibilities and opportunities for brands. The internet allows us to reach specific demographic groups which may be advertising resistant and may not watch media such as Television. The internet is a place where we can cost effectively build our brand image and connect with our customers and potential consumers. The internet is a place where we can better explain and educate people about our brand, products and services. On the web advertising doesn’t need to be rushed like in a 30 second tv spot. People can take their time to read about a brand, and a products features and attributes.

The above is a little ramble on what i have learnt in relation to Marketing/Advertising on the Web!

Now the reason why i found this paper challenged my current knowledge is that it discussed the negative dimension of advertising on social networking sites. I never thought of it this way. From a marketing perspective advertising on SNSs is seen as a fantastic positive thing because of how much potential there is to build a brand, connect with consumers which are hard to reach etc etc etc

But you have presented the side of the people. Which i think is great. I think marketers REALLY need to consider many of the factors you have talked about before marketing on sites such as Facebook. They need to ensure as you said that they aren’t intrusive, allow people to have space, target only those who are interested, and have proper accounts which distinguish them as a brand rather then a facebook group.

The truth is, many companies are more about the cash then about the ethics. Even though i have learnt about the importance of ethics in marketing, realistically being socially and ethically responsible isn’t top priority for companies, in many cases!

Marketers are known to jump on any Communication Vehicle which will allow them to reach target markets. Unfortunately Facebook has become victim to this. If it wasn’t so popular and huge, it wouldn’t be seen as attractive for advertising. Marketers are all about getting their messages out there on anything, as long as people will see the message and remember the brand. Marketers advertise in toilet urinals, on billboards, on foot paths, on shopping trolleys, in elevators, on buses, on TV, on radio, in magazines, in newspapers.. basically EVERYWHERE!! So its no suprise that Facebook has become a popular target, as you have mentioned.

I think the only way we can regulate the commercialization of Facebook is if the Facebook Corporation takes a stand and develops a stricter policy for brands and companies!

I apologize for my long ramble. This paper really has challenged my existing knowledge and BUILT on it.

It is definitely important to consider both sides of the story. I like how you have written your paper from the point of view of the people.
- Written by samantha_w about 2 years ago. Reply
  
  “I think the only way we can regulate the commercialization of Facebook is if the Facebook Corporation takes a stand and develops a stricter policy for brands and companies!”
  
  Kathy, Facebook WANT to be commercialised – otherwise they would have stayed a private College students only SNS – sadly, it’s all about the almighty $
  
  Sam
  - Written by Cathy Brzeski about 2 years ago. Reply
    
    Yeah i agree with you
    
    But if the over-commercialization of Facebook got in the way of Facebook’s success then i am sure they would do something about it then
Written by Sky about 2 years ago. Reply

This paper is very topical: there’s just been another round of privacy changes on Facebook. I think there’s an interesting tension in this paper in terms of who is held responsible for the ongoing commercialisation of Facebook. On the one hand, you note that Facebook’s administrators make various attempts to prevent people from using Facebook as a marketing tool, such as the prohibition placed on using groups to promote products. On the other hand, the author notes that Facebook’s administrators have taken a number of steps to commercialise the space, including sharing users’ information with ‘marketing partners’. Perhaps it would be useful to think of Facebook as a commercial space which various marketers are seeking control over, including the Facebook administrative team, rather than as a non-commercial space which is gradually being commercialised?
Written by Mandy Burke about 2 years ago. Reply

Your paper reminded me of an interesting campaign that I have had my eye on over the last month. A fan page was created on Facebook for Rob Multo and targeted advertising appeared all over Facebook regarding being his “fan”. His information page said “I’m on a mission to get friends because aunt Esme said if I know people then I will have a good life so I want to get at least 1009 friends!!”. Now targeted advertising always makes me think that there is a company behind the advertising as what person would pay to build a fan base? But Rob Multo managed to deceive a massive number of people and quickly made a lot of friends or “fans”. He posted unique content daily which included witty comments and weird Youtube videos.

After a few weeks of updates it was announced that Rob Multo was actually a campaign for the new Motorola phone called Moto Blur. Rob Multo was an anagram of Motoblur. This announcement led to a number of people bad mouthing Rob on the wall of his fan page. One fan called him “Knob Multo” while other fans were posting links to other better smart phones directly onto his wall. This has all seemed to blow over though and Rob now has faithful followers on his page. He announces competitions every so often and gets a lot of interaction with his fans. High interaction would suggest that his fans are highly engaged with what he is up to. He has also accumulated 2881 people that ‘like’ him. So I guess this would mean that the campaign has been a success?

This campaign has been an interesting one to watch as you can see the ups and downs of a social media campaign being played out. Where initially everyone is your friend and then everyone hates you and now people are playing nicely again. I think what Motorola did well was let the anger subside and didn’t get involved with the backlash and stayed true to its campaign. It would have been very easy for Motorola to pull the links to other phones off the site and take the nasty comments down but they let it stay. I think Rob Multo is a great example of a new way of marketing through social media.

Marketing through social media is a great way to market and advertise a brand, as people become fans because they have an interest in that brand. I think as long as a brand isn’t interfering with my personal social networking space too much than I welcome being marketed to this way. When I find them interfering in my personal space it is as simple as removing them from my network or hiding them from my news feed. When I first learnt about targeted advertising through Facebook, I felt a little uneasy about it but I now prefer it to traditional marketing methods. The brands that Facebook advertise to me are products that my friends or I have a genuine interest in. Which is so much better than watching television and being forced to watch dreadful advertisements that have no relation to what I am interested in!

Very interesting paper, congratulations!

Motoblur (2010). Retrieved on 27 April 2010 from http://www.motorola.com

Rob Multo (2010). Retrieved from http://www.facebook.com/#!/robmulto?v=wall on 27 April 2010

Motorola dupes consumers (2010, 30 March). Mumbrella. Retrieved on 27 April 2010 from http://mumbrella.com.au/motorola-dupes-consumers-with-unbranded-campaign-21911
- Written by hardik gondha about 2 years ago. Reply
  
  Hey Mandy,
  
  I enjoyed reading the details about the campaign. It was very interesting.
  
  True that target advertising is way better than watching random advertisements on television. Advertisements are not an issue if we look at it. They do not interfere or disturb you in any way. If someone is interested, then they read them and click on them.
  
  But how comfortable are you with the fact that they might use your profile picture and name beside their brand name and then advertise it to the friends on your list ? There are few brands which i like and would like to follow them on Facebook, but im scared that might use “me” to advertise to other people. There is a lot of difference between liking/following a brand when compared to supporting/advertising for a brand.
  
  Cheers
Written by S_ward about 2 years ago. Reply

I never fill out surveys and the like on facebook, and am now glad i don’t. I didn’t think that possibly marketing companies were creating these applications for their own benefits. Very tricky, guess it was always on the cards with so many users so easily reached for little cost.