Over the past few years, the Internet has grown by leaps and bounds—not only in size, but in the philosophy and technologies behind it. Since it became mainstream some 10-15 years ago, online professionals have been in a scramble to get some type of standards put in place. It wasn’t until recently that websites (and the Internet in general) started seeing order and thus became a valuable commodity to businesses, governments, and individuals around the world. With a new foundation put in place, we are now starting to see progress towards a better, more efficient tomorrow. The future of the Internet looks bright.
One of the biggest challenges to the Internet’s progress came when social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook came into the picture. With millions of individuals flocking to their sites to create their personal profiles pages so they could share daily updates with family and friends, businesses saw value and followed suit. There was a big push from businesses wanting to market themselves to the plethora of users on these social networking sites. So, with security and selfishness in mind, these social networking sites came up with methods of their own to quench the marketers’ thirst for exposure.
This is where the Internet started to de-evolve. Once again, the Internet saw the same kinds of challenges it faced at its inception. Facebook decided it wouldn’t rely on the powerful languages that had taken years to develop but would instead create a limited, hybrid version of it. Also, instead of sending users to actual websites for clients, the Facebook business profile page was born. All of the limitations that designers had struggled so hard to break free from had re-established themselves.
With all the advanced tools and languages available for web developers and designers to create rich online experiences for their users, why should they be confined to the limitations set by these massive social networks? Wouldn’t a link to the third party website be more effective than a profile page? The heart of the matter lies within Facebook’s brand management. By providing a controlled environment in which users can explore Facebook, they keep their brand image intact by avoiding viruses and other baddies that could be acquired through a visit to an insecure third-party site, thus avoiding any damage to their brand reputation.
But does this approach set back our progress? In my humble opinion it does. In a way, Facebook has already damaged its brand by turning Facebook into an online marketing whore house. It’s grown into much more than just a social networking website, but in a bad way. Because of the sheer size of its user base, it’s only natural that marketers would swarm in the masses to get a piece of the action. Think about it… millions of users supplying you with personal information on a daily basis about what they like, want, and need. This is the perfect scenario for quality, targeted traffic. The problem is that many companies don’t approach their social media strategy with the user in mind.
Social media is controlled by the individuals that use it. Almost 100% of the content is user-generated and as long as it accomplishes a task that the users want accomplished, it will be successful in achieving its goals. When bad marketers get in the mix and try to come up with sub-standard methods of generating interest, we end up with a never-ending supply of useless and low-quality applications, Facebook wall spam, and eventually a decline in usage.
It would be nice if Facebook took a different approach and decided to keep the business side of things separate from the personal side, but where’s the money in that? So until we see a major shift in the way these massive social networks are run, we’ll have to deal with the primitive incarnations of our websites written in FBML so we can market to the Facebook crowd. And remember, before you jump on the Facebook bandwagon for the sake of social marketing, make sure you have a strategy in place. An effective social media strategy is more than just jumping on board with the latest trends like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. To effectively market to your target audience, you have to keep their needs in mind and provide something interesting, funny, useful, or worthwhile.
The De-Evolution of the Internet
Over the past few years, the Internet has grown by leaps and bounds—not only in size, but in the philosophy and technologies behind it. Since it became mainstream some 10-15 years ago, online professionals have been in a scramble to get some type of standards put in place. It wasn’t until recently that websites (and the Internet in general) started seeing order and thus became a valuable commodity to businesses, governments, and individuals around the world. With a new foundation put in place, we are now starting to see progress towards a better, more efficient tomorrow. The future of the Internet looks bright.
One of the biggest challenges to the Internet’s progress came when social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook came into the picture. With millions of individuals flocking to their sites to create their personal profiles pages so they could share daily updates with family and friends, businesses saw value and followed suit. There was a big push from businesses wanting to market themselves to the plethora of users on these social networking sites. So, with security and selfishness in mind, these social networking sites came up with methods of their own to quench the marketers’ thirst for exposure.
This is where the Internet started to de-evolve. Once again, the Internet saw the same kinds of challenges it faced at its inception. Facebook decided it wouldn’t rely on the powerful languages that had taken years to develop but would instead create a limited, hybrid version of it. Also, instead of sending users to actual websites for clients, the Facebook business profile page was born. All of the limitations that designers had struggled so hard to break free from had re-established themselves.
With all the advanced tools and languages available for web developers and designers to create rich online experiences for their users, why should they be confined to the limitations set by these massive social networks? Wouldn’t a link to the third party website be more effective than a profile page? The heart of the matter lies within Facebook’s brand management. By providing a controlled environment in which users can explore Facebook, they keep their brand image intact by avoiding viruses and other baddies that could be acquired through a visit to an insecure third-party site, thus avoiding any damage to their brand reputation.
But does this approach set back our progress? In my humble opinion it does. In a way, Facebook has already damaged its brand by turning Facebook into an online marketing whore house. It’s grown into much more than just a social networking website, but in a bad way. Because of the sheer size of its user base, it’s only natural that marketers would swarm in the masses to get a piece of the action. Think about it… millions of users supplying you with personal information on a daily basis about what they like, want, and need. This is the perfect scenario for quality, targeted traffic. The problem is that many companies don’t approach their social media strategy with the user in mind.
Social media is controlled by the individuals that use it. Almost 100% of the content is user-generated and as long as it accomplishes a task that the users want accomplished, it will be successful in achieving its goals. When bad marketers get in the mix and try to come up with sub-standard methods of generating interest, we end up with a never-ending supply of useless and low-quality applications, Facebook wall spam, and eventually a decline in usage.
It would be nice if Facebook took a different approach and decided to keep the business side of things separate from the personal side, but where’s the money in that? So until we see a major shift in the way these massive social networks are run, we’ll have to deal with the primitive incarnations of our websites written in FBML so we can market to the Facebook crowd. And remember, before you jump on the Facebook bandwagon for the sake of social marketing, make sure you have a strategy in place. An effective social media strategy is more than just jumping on board with the latest trends like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. To effectively market to your target audience, you have to keep their needs in mind and provide something interesting, funny, useful, or worthwhile.