It’s getting harder and harder to remain objective as I struggle to balance my usage of Social Media sites as a professional, and that of a user.
As a user, I LOVE Twitter. It is, by far, my favorite platform. I am also really getting to like Google+. I like Facebook’s new profile replacement called timeline and its new (ripped off circles) selective sharing.
What is difficult however is that certain things that I simply can’t stand as a user, I must embrace as a professional. In case you haven’t noticed, I am very opinionated about things happening in this industry and I am also very extreme. Very rarely do I have a muted reaction to things, I either love them or hate them.
For instance…
“Frictionless Sharing”
Facebook’s new “frictionless sharing” is a feature that I vehemently dislike as a user, but must consider for my clients. Recommending that a client utilize frictionless sharing makes me feels duplicitous; I feel as though I’m using it to trick people into over-sharing, but strategically, it can make sense in certain scenarios.
It can be difficult to resolve my personal feelings with an objective perspective on how effective it will be at getting my clients the results, while obviously still considering the potential downsides.
Another example…
Facebook Ads
Here are three ads I was shown today within 15 minutes of one another:
Let me isolate several pieces of these ads:
“sure to give some viewers their first ever anxiety attack”
“Heart Exploding Scares”
“Last 15 minutes will mess you up for life”
I HATE HORROR MOVIES!!!
The truth is Facebook advertising sucks. I haven’t seen more than one relevant ad in the entire time I’ve used Facebook. I firmly believe that ads should be shown during periods active searching and based upon an individual’s stated likes and dislikes, rather than passive and unrelated activity using information from my profile and that of other individuals in my network of a similar demographic.
So Facebook showed me ads for Paranormal activity even though I will NEVER go see a horror movie.
Why did they do it?
Because two people I know “like” it. Herein lies the major issue with Facebook advertising and their overall ethos and strategy. My friend’s interests having NO BEARING on my interests. NONE! I like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. That doesn’t mean that a friend of mine, roughly the same age and demographic with a lethal peanut allergy should see an ad for Skippy or Jif.
At the same time…
I have clients looking to increase the size of their Facebook community. Should I recommend that they consider Facebook advertising? There are some promising case studies out there that show results in getting people to a Facebook page through Facebook ads. Facebook has over 800 million users. That’s a lot of eyeballs.
So what is a guy to do?
Truthfully I don’t have the exact answer. I just try to weigh my clients goals against their specific situation. It is difficult to keep my own personal bias out of the equation. So far I must be doing ok or every client of mine would be on Twitter regardless of whether it was the right platform.
What about you? How do you deal with your own bias?
