PR News

Will Mishandled PR Bring An End To Facebook?

by Ryal

Facebook CEO Addresses “Beacon Gate”

Mark Zuckerburg, 2004 Founder and current CEO of Facebook, publicly apologized this week for the way Facebook launched its Beacon Ad System, an online advertising application that in November, Zuckerburg said would be the largest change to the media in the last 100 years.

In short, Beacon is a socialized form of online advertising that tracks and shares a user’s Web activities on third-party Facebook advertiser sites. The informatin is shared with a user’s Facebook friends list via their News Feeds and also tracked by advertisers to help each create a more targeted online Ad campaign.

Example:

  • Ryal purchases a new Dave Matthews Band cd and T-shirt from the DMB page
  • Immediately thereafter, all of Ryal’s 182 Facebook friends receive news alerting each of his recent DMB purchase.
  • Best case scenario for Facebook: all of Ryal’s online friends take notice. Many decide to follow suit by going out and buying the very same DMB purchase. Process repeats itself a million times over. DMB Ad campaign becomes time-effective, targeted and result-driven. Product sales soar. Facebook charges DMB two-fold for future Ad space.

Genius marketing, but the first move of many that appears to be not for user, but instead for personal Facebook greed.

Facebook: User-Friendly or Money Hungry?

Members of the blogosphere are accusing Zuckerburg of stealing code, spreading lies, and offering up a complete disregard for The First Amendment.

The problem with Facebook’s SocialAds, bloggers say, is its invasion of privacy. The root problem: an “opt out” or “no thanks” policy that promises to ask users permission before Facebook shares their activity and online purchases. Accusers say the “opt out” is fluff and that the data is still shared anyway. Facebook maintains is innocence and claims it has nothing to do with the “opt out” data, going even further saying Facebook deletes such information. Hard to chew for an network that feeds on the wealth of shared of information. Even tougher to chew after watching the big dog advertisers line up to partner with the social Ad scheme.

Death By Bad PR

Is the bad PR surrounding Beacon killing Facebook? Many say yes, but point to Zuckerburg’s haughty PR as the real culprit. Josh Quittner, Blogger for CNNMoney.com’s Techland posted an article titled RIP Facebook. In the article, Quittner calls Zuckerburg’s PR tactics childish saying:

“This could have been avoided with a smart adult running things. Facebook has no old hands in its corner, no advisors to tell the kids how to behave. Netscape had its Jim Barksdale, Google its Eric Schmidt. This company has no one babysitting it. And watching it now is like watching an unattended child play with a pack of matches in a wooden house.”

Zuckerburg’s Attempt at Crisis PR

To calm the angry online mob, Zuckerburg attempted a postive PR move on Dec 5 and addressed the public responding:

“The problem with our initial approach of making it an opt-out system instead of opt-in was that if someone forgot to decline to share something, Beacon still went ahead and shared it with their friends.”

Taking responsibility or delegating blame? Easy call, and one that has spread like wildfire throughout the online community that Zuckerburg himself built.

With bloggers and mainstream media calling for blood in the water, it will be interesting to see how this all plays out. Some are sure Zuckerburg’s arrogance, dishonestly, and continued alienation of the press will ultimately bring Facebook down, bringing an end to the multi-billion dollar online investment. While advertisers take notice and begin to bleed, Zuckerburg will either learn from his mistakes, or if not, receive PR’s swift and costly backhand.

Almost as if Zuckerburg was listening in, a PR 2.0 blog post titled Facebook is a Beacon for Bad PR offered this advice to Facebook the day before his public apology:

“Crisis will happen. And in the world of social media, fires can spread at an uncontrollable pace. However, the very tools and channels that fuel negative discussions can also host the conversations that help regain customer trust and loyalty. Everything starts with people”.

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Public Relations for the N.C. Department of Transportation (NCDOT) U.S. 1/64

MMI Associates was contracted to handle media relations and to organize various efforts to open the communication lines between the construction entities on the project and motorists. The firm developed a strategic public relations campaign to ensure that local motorists and those passing through would be aware of the most up-to-date traffic patterns.