Just this past Friday, Facebook admitted to spying on its users.
A light breeze blew across the nation as Facebook users breathed a sigh of relief to the realization that they are not irrationally paranoid. The truth shall set you free!
First, let’s consider this caveat:
We are all about real business success at tse.net and what really works for our clients.
According to US Economic studies from the Department Of Commerce as reported in our free E-book “Discovering The E-commerce Lifestyle” (available upon request to our contact email address), Facebook marketing only results with 1/4 of 1% of actual sales. This is real sales data – not based on perceptions of hype.
The fact is that Facebook users do not respond well to marketing on the social network. Yes – Facebook is huge! However, hype and fads must be separated from real trends.
Is this a big deal? Apparently, Facebook follows users and records their habits when reading news feeds. They record what you read and how long you read it in order to understand what interests you. It’s all about marketing of course.
Remember the Science Fiction movie “Minority Report” as the lead character is walking through a hall and is greeted by name with hologram ads targeted to his interests? Data mining of what you are interested in reaches back far into the 20th century as magazine publishers would sell their subscription lists to sales firms. Does this mean a greater convenience or a creepy realization to you?
In the past, a subscription to a popular fishing magazine meant you would soon have your mail box stuffed with fishing tackle mail order catalogs.
Does this equate to an invasion to your privacy?
The internet in the 21st century is data mining on steroids. Marketing is a numbers game, but beginning with 20th century telemarketing, soliciting sales has become more about impersonal harassing of customers to make sales. It must work or this form of marketing would have went away years ago.
Our attitude at tse.net is more of the “opt-in” method. We find in our experience that quality acquisition of customers beats data mining. If you provide a better product, customer experience and value, you will be the tortoise and not the hare as in the classic Aesop story.
Gaining customers is important – but maintaining customers is what leads to real success in your marketing. It is a simple matter of quality over quantity. Quantity is short lived in business.
It is a basic question of quality VS quantity. Resorting to dirty tricks or appealing to the least common denominator may work at first, but quality and value will win out in the long run.
To read more about the shocking admission by Facebook – CLICK HERE to read a well written article from The Jewish Business News.
Think deeply about your product or service and ask yourself how you want to be perceived by potential customers.
Do you want to be known as a harassing marketer or the producer of a great product your customers will want to tell their friends and colleagues about?