An Adventure with Facebook

            While doing my normal social media surfing for the day on Facebook, I noticed something different on my newsfeed.  (No, Facebook did not change its layout, AGAIN.)  I noticed that the status bar was not prompting me to update my status.  It was asking me to tell Facebook about my Halloween costume.  Or what my favorite Halloween candy was.  I was so surprised, I refreshed my newsfeed multiple times to see what all the different prompts were.  (And took screen shots.)

            I'm not sure I could tell you the last time I updated my Facebook status other than a random, "Let's Go Hokies!" every so often during football season.  To be honest, I now use Twitter to see what people are up to.  No one seems to update their status anymore unless they are an organization or a baby boomer (nothing against either, that just seems to be the trend).

            What caused this change in prompt?  In other words, what was the problem Facebook was facing?  Maybe the fact that so many of the generation that helped to make Facebook so big, has moved onto Twitter to update people on their lives.  Facebook is now just seen as a place to upload pictures, and have conversations between people.  Twitter has taken Facebook's place in the social media world of the "What's on your mind?" prompt that Facebook normally sports in the status bar because Twitter is where to go to find other's thoughts.

            What was Facebook's audience with this?  My best guess would be everyone with a Facebook account.  But more specifically, the younger generation (high school, college, and young adults) that have decreased their status updates.  Facebook is trying to spark a trigger in our minds to update our status every once in awhile, and therefore allow us to have conversations about our thoughts on Halloween.  In the long run, we would use Facebook even more, and maybe even neglect Twitter.  (At least that may be Facebook's thought.)

            As intrigued as I was by this, I must admit that I did not update my status because of the change.  And I didn't notice anyone on my newsfeed responding to any of Facebook's prompts in their status updates (if they were updating them at all).  So I would have to say that this attempt by Facebook to increase the number of people updating statuses did not work.  But maybe some other interesting prompts (that don't necessarily have to do with a holiday) would.

An Adventure with Facebook and Psychographics

            While on Twitter, I noticed that my professor tweeted an article with Facebook in the title.  Me being me, I was instantly interested.  I find Facebook to be quite interesting.  People post many different things on Facebook (some of which they really shouldn't), and don't necessarily realize where else that information is going besides their friends' newsfeeds.

            Social media in general has gotten a lot of press regarding allowing what employers see from your profile.  Not many people are aware that Facebook is aware of what brands, companies, and products you are liking, and informing marketers of what else to advertise to you.  This is the premise of "psychographics".  

            "They can target based on interests and lifestyles instead of just what is on their mind at the moment."  From a company standpoint, this can be great for marketing towards exactly what the consumer wants.  But from a consumer standpoint, this can be considered a bit creepy.  I'm not sure I want Facebook making decisions for me on what exactly I might be interested in regarding what things I have "liked" on the site.  I realize there is a benefit to it, but it is a little bit too Big Brother to me.

            The article also touches on the point that Facebook might be feeding this information they are currently gathering to other sites in the future.  This would be a great money maker for Facebook, but it teeters on the line of sharing some information that Facebook users may not be comfortable sharing with marketers.

            As a marketing student that is also a consumer, it is hard to take a definitive stance on the subject, although I am leaning towards keeping my privacy.  We'll see if that changes as I go further in my career and society becomes more open...