Not all bad with the usage of public data

A lot of concern and discussions have gone trough on the last months about Facebook (and other social networks) privacy policies and the risk of all these data usage in the "wrong way". The only sure thing is that Facebook has in its hand (and that's why made it so valuable) what every marketer would dream of: Consumer behavior patterns and a lot of data....

But not all is wrong about companies knowing about our consuming patterns and different taste (at least in the past). It is nice when we receive a tailored catalog for a specific tool or automobile, or when American Express call us they notice an "out of pattern" purchase in some strange place. But of course there would be certain things that people would like to be kept under the table, for example viagra purchasers, or adult content shoppers, among others.

Facebook data collection has become very useful for marketers: just imagine a data bank of consumers behaviors filtered by age, gender, geography, habits (that's why the "Ilike" application has been so important and has grown rapidly over the last years), education and employment choices, events and other social classifications.

But it would be legal and ethic for Facebook selling this valuable data to marketers, companies,or even governments...???? is this practice would be comparable as incoming tailored mails or google adds tailored to our consumer behavior? is this action would be too much and crossing the line for Facebook???

Federico.

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Source:

Businessweek.com

Go ahead Facebook. Sell that Data

Online Community 1:1

Before entering in social media (specifically start-ups business), companies need to ensure some business fundamentals: sustainability and innovation plan, core business and markets, brand building strategies, good website design and quality service assurance (we don't want to be "attacked" by our customers if we know we have a lousy service) .

Social Networks are means to interact with customers, consumers, suppliers and anybody interested in your business, so each company emerged in the social networks have to design very careful the online community strategy: Goals (are we looking for brand news, customers comments, corporate news...?), resources as social media can become an important channel of communication (Staff, designers, PR, Legal, etc), channel (is the company willing to create a facebook profile, twitter, blogs..? what kind of segment and market do we want to reach?). As Twitter, Facebook and Likedin are the most important in terms of users, these social network sites are recommended for a company to be in a online community

According to Melonie Gallegos, Social Media Specialist at Geary Interactive, Resources is one of the seven things Brands need to focus when building a community or social network...you can see here the complete interview

Few companies are starting to talk about the importance of Community Managers as the leaders of a Company's Social Network or community. Companies who embrace the community challenge, need resources to deliver excellent results, we are talking about programmers, designers and all other staff people that keep the community's flow attractive and interesting...Don't be shy about your online growth forecast...!! you could be surprised...!!

Federico

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Sources:

Flyteblog.com

Talking Brands and their communities with Melanie Gallegos

Fastcompany.com

How Can Business Harness the Power of Social Media Markeging?