We’ve asked our team to comment on the changes to Facebook announced at the F8 summit from the perspective of different disciplines. In this second installment, our community moderators, Lauren Lindsay, Steve Mannino and Amy Gosalia look at user reactions and community management challenges.
Lauren: Changes in User Behaviour
Facebook’s move to the Timeline is going to make users focus first on altering and updating their own profiles. The yearbook-like format means a lot of work for people who’ve had Facebook since college and are now going to have to downplay years of partying photos. During this transitionary period, we may see a slight drop in brand interactions, as users pull their attention away from the Newsfeed to focus on making sure those old pictures won’t cost them their jobs.
I’m interested to see how users can take advantage of the organization factor of Timelines without many personal photos. Some people just don’t use Facebook as a place to display photos of themselves – how will they keep their timelines interesting? Will book apps and updates have covers attached to them? Can you put in movie clips attached to the movies you’ve seen?
With Open Graph, Facebook has removed the need for the self-measurement aspects of using GetGlue, Foursquare, and a host of other self-reporting apps. Right now, I’m using them to keep track of what I’m reading and doing as well as to get badges and points. If they introduce badging and rewards, many users will probably never need to use those external apps again.
Lastly, I wonder how much Andy Samberg was paid to be Fake Zuck. It’s interesting to see how much of a cultural spectacle a developer conference can be. It’s sad to say, but I find myself more interested in the fallout from F8 than in any political debates and speeches. I think this may be because Facebook is making it explicitly clear what effects these changes will have on my day-to-day life, which politicians don’t accurately do. Isn’t that a little strange?
Steve: Common User Apprehensions
With every change to Facebook’s functionality, we always see a backlash as longtime users question their loyalty to the social network, feeling as if “big brother” is making its move. With the changes announced at F8, this effect appears to be amplified.
If we take a step back and really look at the two major new features, Ticker and Timeline actually represent very minimal changes to publicly available user data. Yes, Timeline will definitely be a big change in the way that data is represented, but in reality it’s simply a new, fluid way of viewing all the content users have already been sharing with friends and connections.
Everything in the Timeline was already available to everyone else; it’s just now readily available in a user friendly experience, threaded by year.
With the upcoming integrations with other services like Spotify and Netflix, Facebook promises to provide value to the user as well as an increasingly interactive environment, simplifying the sharing they were already doing via multiple apps and plugins.
So, to the Facebook users who see these changes as an invasion of personal privacy, just remember one thing: Facebook is still an opt-in medium.
Amy: A Community Manager’s Perspective
The unveiling of Timeline during September’s F8 presentation has created quite the social media buzz lately as users try to navigate through Facebook’s new features. Emotions have been mixed; some see the changes as an opportunity to humanize their profile while others think the changes are unnecessary and pose even more complications to an ever-changing Facebook user interface. But what will these changes mean for brands and how will companies engage consumers past the “like” button?
Currently, brands have a limited bag of tricks when it comes to pictures, posts and content distribution. Once content has been posted it has the potential to fall into an abyss as users have the option of hiding status updates – no one wants to be bombarded with promotions and meaningless chatter! If Facebook does indeed decide to roll out Timeline for brand usage, not only will this present a huge opportunity for engagement but it will completely change the game for companies on Facebook.
Brands will now be able to shift their primary focus from building and maintaining conversations to compelling content that tells a story. Instead of treating Facebook as just a community that’s updated post by post, moderators will be able to connect with consumers on a more emotional level by capitalizing on the infinite scroll feature that is Timeline. Brands will be able to speak to the present as well as the past, reigniting nostalgia and forgotten sentiments. The look and feel of Timeline brings Facebook closer to a blog and away from a “chat-like” forum. It will be interesting to see how companies use Timeline to their advantage as it opens the door wide open to be creative and think outside of the box.
In our third and last post on this topic, CM’s tech team will discuss the ramifications of the proposed changes from a developer’s perspective.
