The Incredible Power of the Facebook Push
Facebook’s billion+ user base is seen by many as fantastic advertising vehicle on many fronts, there are arguments for and against that of course, but you can’t argue with the fact that Facebook has the incredible power to influence large numbers of people.
Whether they know it or not.
In June of this year Facebook admitted to tweaking its news feed as part of a psychological study to see if they can manipulate users’ emotions. From the New York Times -
Facebook routinely adjusts its users’ news feeds — testing out the number of ads they see or the size of photos that appear — often without their knowledge. It is all for the purpose, the company says, of creating a more alluring and useful product.
But last week, Facebook revealed that it had manipulated the news feeds of over half a million randomly selected users to change the number of positive and negative posts they saw. It was part of a psychological study to examine how emotions can be spread on social media.
Facebook got themselves in a bit of hot water for this study which some pointed out as potentially dangerous. To be fair, Facebook is hardly the first internet company to tweak their websites to manipulate their user base.
Getting back to the power of the push, we saw Facebook demonstrate its awesome abilities to mobilize people with a simple tool at the top of the news feed reminding US users to get out and vote. The results from this election day remain to be seen.
Within the past few days, Facebook promoted another newsfeed message asking people to donate to organizations working against ebola.
The question that arises from the latter two pushes is how effective are they at promoting their message? In the case of election day, how many people used Facebook’s tool and then went out to vote? How many people did they remind to vote who otherwise wouldn’t have? In the case of the ebola push, how many people donated, how much money was raised and how many organizations benefited? In both cases was it a little or was it a lot?
We can take this a step further and ask what’s next? What good (or evil…see above) can Facebook promote through the simple act of posting a note on the top of its newsfeed? A few examples -
Promote flu shots before the winter season hits. Good
Tweak the newsfeed during an election cycle to highlight the work of only Democrats. Evil
Encourage people to donate during the Holiday season. Good
Manipulate your social interactions by showing certain events to some friends but not others (event invites come to mind) or not showing your friends that it’s your birthday! Evil
Encourage volunteering and provide a list of places you could help. Good
Discourage people from supporting immigration reform. Evil
Guide people to the nearest credit union for better bank rates. Good
What to do about this? Facebook could and should provide better transparency on how they wield this power and the results from doing so. They have a social obligation to provide this information to their user base, as does traditional media, so we know what it is we’re being sold. double entendre