I’ve often said that any decision can change the direction of your life forever. I usually use the scenario of a hall of doors one can walk through or forks in a road one has to pick from. Every action has a consequence, good or bad. Success (maintaining it) is the result of many good decisions. Failure, decline, etc. is the result of bad choices. Like I said, I’ve said this many times so it was refreshing to find a video where someone makes the point in a way better than I ever did. His points start at 2:34 and 3:33 and the story which highlights his points begins after.
What about social media? Well, the same principles apply. For every decision there is a consequence. In social media it would be a disaster if there were no consequences. Someone that talks a lot about the consequences of start ups is Mike Arrington. This week he talked about the Facebook Burger King campaign drama. Burger King was giving out free sandwiches to Facebook users who dumped 10 friends – and the friends were notified they were being dumped, which goes against Facebook’s policy. Arrington said:
Facebook consistently tell users they can’t do things in the name of privacy, despite the fact that those users know full well what they are up to.
Now let’s go back a minute to what I said about actions having consequences. Burger King was the one who initiated the action of going against Facebook’s policies. If you don’t like the rules don’t play the game. In other words, don’t use Facebook. It’s really that simple. Since Burger King decided to ignore the rules Burger King should be willing to take the consequence – close the application until the friend notification part complies with Facebook’s rules.
If Facebook allowed Burger King to circumvent the rules, what is to stop other application developers from doing the same? One of the “promises” for Facebook users is that the friend will not be notified if he/she is removed. That’s a two way street. The person removing is free to remove people without the ex-friend being notified of the removal. The person being removed will never open their inbox and have that potential humiliating feeling that their “friend” removed them.
It’s a two-sided promise.
But I guess the receiver doesn’t matter, huh Arrington? No, of course not! Only the person sending the notice matters! Yes, that is sarcasm because it is nonsense.
People were willing to dump “friends” (most likely people they don’t know, don’t really care about but accepted to be nice but who knows?) for a sandwich. Self-pleasure for the win, right? As Swoozie’s video points out, every action has a consequence.
It would poetic justice (karma) if someone who dumped a friend ended up having to go for a job interview and the person they dumped as their friend makes the hiring decision. Or he/she falls in love and the best friend of the person he/she fell in love with is the person they dumped for a sandwich.
Because odds are, the person who dumped the friend (depending on the depth of the friendship) will forget who they dumped. The person dumped however, due to the way it happened, might not ever forget.
And up comes that forgotten consequence….
I think that Burger King knowingly went around Facebooks rules because they knew it would stir up some controversy, and controversy means free press for them. (Such as this article and the many others that were written about the campaign.) In addition, they used the fact that Facebook shut them down to their advantage by stirring up even more controversy, and creating even more free publicity, by putting up a landing page that said the app itself had been ‘sacrificed’.
While I agree with you, and the potential for a few hurt feelings is definitely there, I think that most people either knew the people they sacrificed, and then just added them back as friends, or they didn’t know them at all, so the loss of the Facebook ‘friendship’ was no big deal to either party.
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if any stories come out about people that were really hurt by the campaign, but for now, I think I side with Burger King on this one.
http://thefutureofads.com/2009/01/09/burger-king-lets-people-sacrifice-friendships-for-whoppers/
There is a basic foundation (sanctity) in business: both people need to honor the agreement made and not change the rules on the fly. Trust is important. When you enter into a business arrangement even if you try to lock down all the possible contingencies, it still boils down to trust. If I give someone $X, I expect to get what I paid for. If I purchase a house I don’t expect to get kicked out at will. If I rent an apartment I expect my renter’s rights to be withheld. When the bank gives me a Privacy Policy I expect them to honor it. When someone buys a car they expect the dealer to honor the warranty.
I can go on like that all day. In the end, if the terms are agreed to then it is expected to be honored. Most people when entering agreements TRUST this will happen.
Facebook has a policy – NO notifications on friend removal. It’s a very simple policy. Burger King opted not to accept it. You agree with Burger King.
So if you have a house, I expect you not to care if your bank forecloses on it outside your agreement.
I expect you not to care if your car dealer doesn’t honor the warranty. Don’t complain – not one word.
I expect you not to care if your boss decides to pay you once a month instead of once a week. Don’t even get angry about it.
When you enter an agreement, and both parties agree to the terms (BK shouldn’t be on FB if they didn’t agree), I expect you not to say one word.
If BK launched the campaign without notifying users then that’s another story all together. But hey, why not break an agreement as long as the company can profit right?
And remember, when that same disregard comes back at you…not.one.complaint because you can’t have it both ways. Agreements can be broken (without both sides agreeing to the change) or they can’t.
One last point…many people on the net want people to follow them. They want traffic for their site. And many don’t know most of the people following them. Yes there are people who use FB for friends only but there are many like me that accept members in the community that I don’t know at all (and I would never diss them by exchanging their interest in me for a $3 sandwich). So to assume (and that is one HUGE assumption) that it was not a big deal to either party is just that, an assumption. But again, that’s not the point.
FB has a policy. BK broke it and the trust behind a business relationship. App should be banned. It’s just that simple.