Last night I caught up with the BBC’s “Mark Zuckerberg: Inside Facebook“, a good documentary on the past, present and future of Facebook. With presenter Emily Maitlis striding around Silicon Valley in an impressive collection of trendy outfits it showed once again how disconcerting it is when BBC current affairs people dress casual (see Evan Davis).
More important though was the impression that despite being valued by some at $100bn there is still much debate about where the company’s value actually lies. The big hope of course is advertising, but WPP boss Sir Martin Sorrell poured some serious cold water on that idea, suggesting that Facebook is more suitable as a PR medium.
Even Facebook themselves seem on shaky ground when it comes to their latest innovation in advertising, sponsored stories. It was incredible to see the company’s VP on Public Policy struggle to defend the use of people in adverts without their permission. It ought to be a question to which he, of all people, has an answer and credit to Emily Maitlis for asking it in such a direct fashion and revealing the uncertainty.
At the same time Forrester Research have highlighted the deficiencies in the use of Facebook as a marketing platform, pointing the finger of blame at both Facebook and marketers. Facebook, they say, doesn’t give marketers the tools or certainty that they need, while marketers still don’t know how to plan, integrate and resource for Facebook and have little understanding of the all important EdgeRank algorithm.
Plenty of reasons here to stay sober on social media.
