What Facebook Can Teach Your Company
Most companies will eventually have social media strategies, which means facing tough issues over who owns and controls content. Can Facebook’s recent stumble over terms of service inform your strategy and keep your customers sharing powerful information about how to use your product or service? Consider these four principles:
Allow users to own their content and identity.
This core principle of Facebook builds trust with users and should be preserved and amplified.
Make all “sharing” options default to the most conservative setting.
Many of Facebook’s defaults allow extensive sharing of activity. Numerous problems could be avoided with more conservative options.
Create a better infrastructure for anonymity and tracking of content.
Allow users the option to remove any of their content in the future, including things they’ve sent to others.
Don’t sneak up on the audience.
Engage your audience before you make a change. Much of the anger about Facebook’s recent changes could have been avoided if they’d been clearly announced in advance.
