Mike Rynchek
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

Social media giant Facebook recently migrated to their new 2.0 version despite wide based criticism and user backlash.  The new site is set to showcase new user and developer features, such as additional tabs within the user’s profile, simplified navigation, dynamic privacy, and much more.  If you are reading this post, you have likely already experienced these features first-hand.  Instead of focusing on the feature side I would rather discuss the social side of this site launch.  The purpose of this post is to raise the question; did Facebook ignore the outcry from its user base, thus essentially violating the first rule in social media: to listen and communicate with those around you and who participate in your brand?

I was originally intrigued when I provided some constructive criticism to Facebook about their new layout.  The thank you page, or essentially their response, was a bit surprising. They basically said, “thank you for the feedback, we will take it into consideration, but you will not hear back from us.” Wait a minute?  You are a social media site and I just helped you, but I will not hear anything back?  On a regular basis, I tell clients that social media is a wonderful platform to gather user and customer feedback/criticism and to openly discuss and respond to it.  I understand the scalability issues with it being more personal on this level, but these were the same people who made chatting sexy again!

The biggest representation of backlash didn’t so much take place in the blogosphere, on Twitter, in journals or publications. It happened on Facebook itself.  Early on, new, anti-Facebook layout groups began to form, building massive followings.  (Below I have listed some of the top groups, I have seen… okay, and perhaps joined.)  Within these groups is a wide discussion about how much dislike people have for the new layout and how much better the old site was.  Discussion even arose today about applications that still allow you to use the old site.

1.    1,000,000 AGAINST THE NEW FACEBOOK LAYOUT! – 1,977,456 members
2.    Petition Against the “New Facebook”  – 1,353,608 members
3.    I Hate The New Facebook – 1,227,502 members
4.    5,000,000 people who want the option “Back to the old Facebook” to remain – 777,595 members

There are dozens of groups just like these.

So to conclude, I raise the question: Would Facebook have been better off not launching the new site, or even perhaps incorporating new features into the new design?  Also, I thought it would be interesting to list out the violations against social media etiquette that I feel Facebook committed (Again these are only my opinions open to debate or discussion.)

1.    They did not address any of the groups listed above (at least to show that they would like to add to the conversation).
2.    Really lame feedback response or lack thereof.
3.    Going live with the new Facebook prior to addressing user concerns!