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Is Facebook mutating into a money-making machine?

February 2, 201212:31 am

I just heard about the upcoming Facebook IPO via mashable and needed to write a quick post about it as I feel that this development has a significant CSR angle to it.

The CSR angle of the Facebook IPO

The big problem I see is that Facebook is getting to powerful and influential due to its extreme high valuation ($15 billion USD+) and the consequential interest of global investors that are after one thing only: Making lots of money.

Facebook’s purpose in my view, is to provide us with a platform to connect with our friends and family. And to me it seems that an IPO will in a way sell our personal information and relationships to the shareholders of Facebook. And this is not right. It is actually very wrong.

As a responsible business Facebook should focus on providing us with the best possible personal global social networking site and not mutate into a global money-making machine out to let us pay for premium features or inundating us with the latest PR exercise of a global car manufacturer for example.

I really like Facebook don’t get me wrong but if Facebook will mutuate into this money-making machine once it is a publicly-listed company, then I am surely leaving it for good as I do not want to be part of this website anyone.

This is my view on this. What is yours?

Poll: What is your favourite Social Media Channel for CSR / Sustainability topics?

January 22, 20126:45 pm

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I decided to conduct regular polls on interesting CSR / Sustainability topics during 2012. The plan is to do a new poll every 3 weeks going from Sunday to Friday that week.

This is this weeks poll:

Your browser doesn’t support iFrames <img src='http://www.fabianpattberg.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_sad.gif' alt="icon sad Poll: What is your favourite Social Media Channel for CSR / Sustainability topics? " class='wp-smiley' title="Poll: What is your favourite Social Media Channel for CSR / Sustainability topics? " /> Vote for this poll <a href="http://twtpoll.com/yrmx3w" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://twtpoll.com']);" title="here" target="_blank">here</a>.
Thank you for participating and I will publish an analysis of the results once the poll has closed here on my blog.

The current Social Media Network dilemma & advice

July 7, 201110:55 am

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WIth the arrival of Google+ , Google’s answer to Facebook, the choice which Social Media Network to use just got more complicated (Link to the Google+ News)

With so much choice these days we are are clearly left with the dilemma which Social Media Network best fits our needs and wants. Here is what I am doing and would recommend for the time being.

Twitter

This is still my absolute favorite network to share information on. To me it seems that Twitter is also maturing at the moment. Most people I connect with on Twitter know what they are talking about and have been on Twitter for a while now (i.e. know what they want from this Network). This is a good sign for the quality conversations and interaction in my view.

My advice: Use Twitter as your number one Social Media Network. There is no better alternative out there at the moment.

Facebook

I like Facebook and when I started to share more business related information a few months back, the feedback I got was and still is pretty mixed. For me the big question with Facebook is whether I am not annoying all other friends with this business information when they are expecting more of a personal note. Facebook is intended to be more personal after all.

My advice: Use Facebook mainly for personal connections. A way to differentiate networks is not really possible at the moment.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a great site to host your online CV if you want to call it that. But I am not using it other then as an automatic outlet for my Twitter updates. LinkedIn in my view is the classic example of a great Social Network that is not being used enough from my side at the moment unfortunately.

My advice: Use LinkedIn on a limited basis at the moment. It is great for your personal CV, etc but not really for engaging a wider network of people you do not know so far.

Google+

Google+ is the new player in town. I have managed to get in while it is still in the testing phase and must say that I really like it. It is much simpler and “cleaner” in comparison to Facebook. The idea I have once Google+ is open to everyone, is that I will use this Social Media Network as my second CSR / Sustainability information outlet next to Twitter and limit my Facebook updates to purely personal updates.

My advice: Signup with Google+ and start creating your professional so called “Circles”. I am sure Google+ will be successful. Once more people sign up, you will see that it is a Social Media Network which will enable you to share relevant information for the intended networks at a click of a button.

How to find the interesting and non-promotional CSR / Sustainability articles

January 18, 20114:30 pm

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One of my goals for 2011 when the New Year arrived was to be more critical of the things I am reading and listening to when it comes to CSR / Sustainability communications and literature. One thing in particular is really starting to annoy me more and more: Most articles on CSR / Sustainability nowadays are commercially driven and most of the time only serve one purpose and that is to sell the product or service of the author, website or business.

For me it therefore very important to spend my time wisely during the day to not read something that in the end turns out to be a promotion for a product/service or business in general.

So the question for me is: How do you sort out the interesting, ie. non-commercial and non self-promotional blogs/publications or tweets from the the general and overly commercial noise of the CSR / Sustainability world?

I would really be interested to hear from you about how you do this. This is what I do at the moment.

1) I only skim my Google Reader RSS feeds in order to find interesting articles. Going into detail while browsing is very time consuming and can disappoint you very soon.

2) I only follow the people on Twitter that I feel deliver the most interesting and non commercial information. I call it my best of the best list.

3) I DO NOT sign up for newsletters anymore. Period.

4) I only join the major social media sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. More social networks is my experience will only confuse you and make your life even harder in terms of finding an interesting CSR / Sustainability article / post.

5) I use a separate email address for anything where my email address is needed in order to get some further information. Never use your main email address otherwise you will never be left alone. That is my experience.

These are five things I am doing to try to limit my exposure to the commercial and self-promotional blogs/publications or tweets.

What do you do?

Picture Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fboyd/2310866391

Facebook Community Pages: Promoting CSR via Facebook

May 10, 20102:30 pm

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I have recently started to do a lot more Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) related information-sharing via Facebook. When I began my Facebook crusade, I blogged about it here as well. I listed the positives and negatives I found using Facebook as a information platform.

Since then Facebook introduced several interesting changes that all help us as Sustainability / CSR professionals and enthusiasts to increasingly use Facebook as a hub for sharing information and connecting with likeminded people. One of those recent changes has been the introduction of Facebook community pages. This is the link to the Facebook blog about purpose of community pages

This quote really captures the essence of it:
‘ Community Pages are a new type of Facebook Page dedicated to a topic or experience that is owned collectively by the community connected to it. Just like official Pages for businesses, organizations and public figures, Community Pages let you connect with others who share similar interests and experiences.’ Instead of becoming a fan you click whether you ‘like’ the topic, interest or experience.

I really like the idea of these page types and went to work straight away by creating a community page for the topic I am so passionate about: Corporate Social Responsibility
This is the link to the community page: Corporate Social Responsibility on Facebook.

So far over 100 people have ‘liked’ it and I hope you will find this page useful to spread the word about CSR.

So what do you think about these new community pages? Do you think they will be popular and useful? Will you indicate what you like and share this with your friends on Facebook? I think this is a positive move by Facebook and these pages can be used as all sort of tools to promote CSR across the globe.

Innovative Sustainability promotion – Earth Day on Farmville

April 21, 201011:42 am

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If you are on Facebook and you like games then you might have come across the application game called Farmville. Millions and millions of people play Farmville every day and there seems to be no end to the popularity of this game. (This is the Wikipedia link if you would like to know more about Farmville)

Now Farmville also has a promotion of Earth Day integrated into the game itself. The promotion is working in the way that players can buy certain items for their farm (this is the purpose of the game, to design, individualize, grow and maintain your farm!). These items are only available for a particular time period therefore making them unique and are all related to Earth Day in one way or another.
Items you can buy for example include an “Earth monument” or a “Earth Day” flag amongst other things which you can show of on your frm. And this is what players of Farmville are after: Collecting unique items that help them to individualize their farm and design it the way they want it.

My opinion:
I believe that this is a great new and innovative example of how to promote Sustainability topics involving a very different stakeholder group. We need to have more ways like to this to raise awareness and reach the right target audience in order to promote Sustainability across the globe. Imagine the future scenario where the some of the main advocates for a more sustainable world will also show their influence through spreading the word via online games, online events, etc.

Obviously this will never replace the why we currently raise awareness about Sustainability issues now but this step by Zynga (the company running Farmville) is really encouraging to see in my opinion and will hopefully be just the start of the new ways to engage stakeholders and advocates online!

What do you think about this promotion of Earth Day within an online game? Am I just so geeky to like this way of raising Sustainability awareness online?

Facebook – A useful Sustainability and CSR platform?

February 16, 20106:28 pm

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I guess most of you are also members of Facebook and I assume you are also interested in Sustainability and CSR. The question I have pondered on during the last few weeks is whether Facebook is actually a good platform for the Sustainability / CSR field. I am convinced that LinkedIn and Twitter are but what about Facebook?

These are the positives, negatives and the unknown aspects of Facebook and Sustainability/CSR from my point of view.

Positives

Facebook is a huge platform. Here are some stats on Facebook’s reach. What an amazing place for potentially promoting Sustainability / CSR. A recent example is the Robin Hood Tax group which has amassed over 70.000+ members within days.
Facebook offers an amazing potential reach for causes or people with common interests. This is the a link to a recent success story of a London Group. Really interesting. Imagine this could be a Sustainability / CSR group next time.
It is free of charge with all sorts of ways to connect to friends, family, likeminded people and interesting Sustainability / CSR information.
Important discussions and topics are being shared and discussed. A very promising breeding ground for potential new ways of stakeholder engagement, etc.
Great technology and amazing interactivity features that can only help visualize and expose certain aspects of Sustainability / CSR in a positive way.

Negatives

What about my privacy? Are the new privacy settings really working? Will these new rules be enough for everyone to feel safe while sharing something on Facebook?
From a company point of view it can be said that the barriers of entry for companies on Facebook are still to high (Just look at the revenues Facebook is making from ads…not much in comparison to how big they are). Could this be a sign that the consumer is disinterested in the corporate world on Facebook? How can a company run a Facebook campaign and properly tap into the vast stakeholder feedback that it could offer?

The unknown Facebook factor for Sustainability / CSR

Will Facebook also be a platform for promoting Sustainability / CSR or help us be more sustainable? Sometimes it seems to me that the things we do on Facebook such as joining a group or becoming a fan of something/ omeone is just too superficial. Where is the use in it?

In summary
I do not think we could imagine a world without Facebook now but this is not true for the Sustainability / CSR field. Currently there are different platforms that are more significant. And not Facebook.

So the questions is: Isn’t Facebook really just a platform for connecting with your friends and family or will it transform into something different over time? Something more complex….. Mark Zuckerberg definitely things so.
For the Sustainability / CSR field, Facebook still needs to evolve in order to be more accessible. Maybe is this something the Facebook teams are currently working on. Who knows…………