Comments on: Are businesses putting all eggs in the Facebook basket?

By: Facebook pulls review functionality from pages – next steps for SMBs - Facebook, News - State of Search

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 11:50:38 +0000

[...] have long been warned against putting all of their eggs in the facebook basket. These recent changes by Facebook are another example of the importance of heeding that [...]

By: Kay

Kay — Fri, 07 May 2010 19:16:23 +0000

hi Paul, the virus and security threats issue is a very good point indeed. I’m trying to recall one such story I read about recently of someone selling facebook identities in forums for about $40 per 100. It was suggested that peoples accounts are being compromised all the time without the knowledge of the user. If an account that is used to maintain a business facebook page is compromised who knows where that could lead. Perhaps a lesson here is to change passwords regularly. Althought that wouldnt do much to prevent viruses. Thanks for your comments

By: Paul Neal

Paul Neal — Fri, 07 May 2010 15:59:41 +0000

Kay,

Great remarks. The tendency for people to get caught up in a trend is clearly evident here. Facebook undoubtedly presents a strong value proposition (at least today), but the lack of corporate ownership (as you mention) and therefore control, opens some potentially huge problems downstream for the dependency crowd. Not to mention the virus and security threats that currently loom large.

Paul Neal

By: Kay

Kay — Fri, 07 May 2010 13:24:26 +0000

@Lucy thanks for your response and I’m glad it’s not just me that feels this way. I’m seeing more and more small/home based businesses grabbing facebook pages, which is great, but it’s concerning when I see people giving up jobs to work fulltime on businesses that are totally reliant on Facebook. I’ll check out that article you linked to.

By: Lucy

Lucy — Fri, 07 May 2010 13:09:03 +0000

Thanks for the interesting article. I completely agree, facebook – for all its good points and undeniable value as a marketing tool – shouldn’t be relied upon too much. Like you say, there is potential for it to damage, as well as promote, your online reputation and the fact that you aren’t ultimately in control of it is a very important point to keep in mind; who knows in what direction facebook etc will go in the future. I think an approach which puts many eggs in many baskets (as long as they aren’t spread too thinly) is more valuable, as long as you keep your website (which as you say is crucially under your control) at the heart of any marketing strategies. Though, saying that, maybe there are cases for certain kinds of business where a website isn’t the most important thing – it would be interesting to see if anyone has any ideas on that. Also, maybe for some people a blog would stand in for a company website?

I read another interesting article which gives a good argument for using social media alongside (rather than instead of) more traditional marketing resources, which you might be interested in: http://www.drewhawkins.org/brain-wads/2010/5/2/uselessly-good-at-social-media.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BrainWads+%28Brain+Wads%29