SUMMARY: According to Adweek “if Facebook is performing well, it’s insulated from the news. At present, they’re performing well enough for clients to look the other way.” In other words, Facebook users will stay, so too will they.
Despite Facebook’s privacy and leadership failures there hasn’t been an exodus of users from the media site and that means that advertisers are going to stay. Why aren’t users abandoning the site? Simple..they like it too much and really don’t value their privacy as much as the media would have us believe.
Over the holiday week I sat in, via online video, some qualitative research around social media usage with Boomers and Millennials. One of the key findings is that they all believe that nothing done online is private. When asked if they would delete their Facebook account due to recent privacy issues most said “no” because they are too entrenched in the site with friends and news sites. What we also heard was that a lot of people use Facebook as an RSS fee site for their favorite news sites. “It’s easier for me just to review my Facebook news feed than to go to 10 different sites” said one person.
Does this mean that Facebook can continue to abuse users’ privacy? No. Rumors are that Facebook is already looking to replace Ms Sandberg, who has used Facebook to enhance her personal brand while lapsing over some key policy issues. The Board, at Facebook, also supports the current management because Facebook is raking in the cash via ads.
As long as people continue to use Facebook media buyers are going to continue to flock to the site. [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””] I don’t believe that consumers are ready to hold a brand responsible for advertising on Facebook and thus there is no reason to pull ads. [/inlinetweet]
