By Mitch Wagner
First Published on The CMO Site
Facebook this week introduced broad changes that will have significant ramifications for the way marketers can use the platform to reach customers. Here's what to look out for.
The biggest changes for marketers introduced on Thursday are the Open Graph and new application privacy settings. Facebook changes the way that applications interact with a user's news feed. Rather than having to obtain user permission every time the app publishes an update, users configure the privacy settings when the app is first installed and then -- if the user gives permission -- the app will automatically update the user's friends with activities.
The examples provided by Facebook at the Thursday launch event were media- and game-related. With the user's permission, the Spotify app will be able to notify Friends of whatever music the user is listening to at a given time. Likewise, Netflix will share video habits with a user's Friends (in 44 countries, but not in the US until an old law gets amended).
You can see the possibilities for marketers. A retail with its own branded application -- like Starbucks or Chipotle -- might configure the app to notify a user's Friends every time that user makes a purchase with the app.
Similarly, the launch event showed how the Foodspotting app can notify users' Friends about what meals they're eating, and the Foodily app can share what recipes they're preparing. Facebook demonstrated how Foodily shared that a user was cooking a recipe using rainbow chard. I wonder if the app can be configured to share where the cook bought the rainbow chard, or if the cook used a branded ingredient, such as a particular brand of flour?
Facebook plans to change the Web-ubiquitous Like button to allow users to use a variety of verbs to describe their relationship with other things. Instead of just "liking" a trail, you can "hike" it. Instead of "liking" a TV show or a book, you can "watch" or "read" it.
I haven't seen any information on how the changed Like function will be implemented. Will Facebook control what verbs users can use instead of "like"? If users can use any verb they want, I can see a lot of potential for problems for marketers, where Facebook users say they "hate" a product, or just use a verb that's very popular in hip-hop music and rhymes with "fire truck."
Another new marketing tool: A "we're here" feature on Pages that shows how many times people have checked into a business location.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg kicked off the announcement with a description of extensive revision to user profile pages. Now called the Timeline, the replacement for the profile is designed to provide a richer, more comprehensive, and more attractive view of who a person is. Facebook has details. Users can embed apps in their Timelines (which they used to be able to do in Profiles, until that capability was discontinued), and marketers will want to get their branded apps onto user Timeline pages.
One question left unanswered: Will Facebook Pages get support for Timelines as well?
There's a lot to Facebook's announcement. SearchEngineLand's Greg Finn has a good overview.
Facebook users are apparently complaining up a storm about recent changes. But then again, they always do, at first. What do you think? Is Facebook moving in the right direction?
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