PETER SHANKMAN
| POSTED ON March 2nd, 2009 | 49 COMMENTS | + ADD YOUR COMMENT |
What’s wrong with this picture?
I currently have over four thousand people sitting in what I call “Facebook Purgatory,” because I’ve reached the cap of 5,000 friends on Facebook. Over four thousand people! Four thousand potential brand ambassadors, four thousand people who want to add me to their network. Four thousand people with whom I can potentially work, four thousand people who may become IRL friends, or contacts, or clients, who may, after looking at my profile, and seeing previous speaking engagements, ask me to speak at an event they’re producing.
Four thousand people (and rising) with whom, at this point, I’ll never connect.
And don’t tell me about the Fan Page. I already have one. It has over 2,000 fans. All of whom I’ve had to direct there, after they email me and ask why I haven’t approved their friend request.
This isn’t social networking, it’s social suicide. Right now, four thousand people think I don’t care about them. They think “well, how much of a social networker can Peter be if he doesn’t even bother to approve my friend request?” They don’t care that Facebook won’t let me. In their eyes, I’m the bad person.
And I don’t blame them for thinking that way. When a small part made by XYZ corp breaks inside your car, you don’t find out who made it and blame XYZ corp. You complain that your Honda stopped running. Same thing here. “Peter Shankman obviously doesn’t care about his reputation, he won’t take the time to approve a friend request. Well, screw him.”
Thanks, Facebook.
So here are my top five ways I believe Facebook can be improved to actually create a worthwhile social networking experience – i.e., where we’re going as a society anyway.
1) Lose the friend cap. I’ve heard three reasons why you won’t do this. a) Scalable base infrastructure – You don’t haz it. b) You want people to migrate to the friend page, since you can build more advertiser buy-in that way c) you don’t want to become MySpaced, where people have a billion friends that don’t matter. I understand reasons two and three. I believe one of the reasons MySpace failed (other than relying on photos of skanks as a core business model) was that people over-friended, becoming friends with millions of people that simply didn’t matter. RELEVANCE. It’s important. We’ve learned that now. As we move towards a one-profile society anyway, everyone we meet will go into our network. It has to happen that way, and it’s simply a matter of time. You want social media to really be relevant? Everyone has to be a part of the network, from our boss to our plumber. How we choose to interact with them will be up to us, and we’ll adapt our profile to fit the masses – i.e., kiss the bong photos goodbye, unless you’re the editor of High Times. Which brings us to
2) My mother is not my girlfriend, who’s not my accountant, who’s not my best friend from junior high school. Right now, Facebook assigns absolutely no relevance to anyone in your network. My mom has the same relevance as the colleague I met last month at a bar, or the guy I sat next to on the plane in June. This is pointless, and quite frankly, only makes Facebook’s 5,000 person cap understandable. For Facebook to truly win the social media war, they need to make sure their members are relevant to each other. They made a valiant attempt to do this with Beacon, sadly, they called it an advertising and marketing effort, rather than a relevance attempt. If I buy movie tickets, Facebook should offer me the option to say who I’m going with. When I type in someone’s name from my network, that person gains a little more relevance to me, and I gain a little more to them. Up and down, like little bubbles of oil in a social media lava lamp. The more I interact with someone – say, via text message, IM, email, Skype, Facebook wall, etc… Facebook will assign that much more relevance. I stop communicating with someone? I break up with my girlfriend? We stop talking? Facebook notices, and your relevance drops in my world, and mine in yours. This is probably the most important addition Facebook could possibly make. Make my network based on relevance, and I’d never, ever leave the site.
3) The Fan Pages don’t work in their current form. Search on my name. Go ahead. I’ll wait. What’s the first thing that comes up? My profile. Second thing? My fan page. (Let’s not even DISCUSS how pompous it is that I actually have to have a fan page in the first place.) What are you going to click on first? You’re going to attempt to connect with me, on my personal page – Why wouldn’t you? Facebook continues to invite you, despite the fact that it won’t let me add anyone else. That goes back to point one. By allowing people to request my friendship when you know it won’t be approved only creates tension and friction with these people. Why not simply default to the fan page? Which makes for a perfect tie-in to point four:
4) Why don’t the fan pages work anywhere NEAR as well as a profile page? Let’s look at basic logic. If I upload a bunch of photos to my personal page, as I did this weekend, shouldn’t I be allowed to tie the same folder into my fan page with one click? Instead, I’m forced to upload the same photos to the fan page. Additionally, when I upload photos on my personal profile, it adds it into the news feed. Not so with the fan pages. Facebook, you’re making it pointless to even USE the fan page. No one really cares about it, and it’s not helpful in its current form, nor does it allow me to truly communicate with my fans. We live and die on status updates on Facebook. Why can’t I do something as simple as post a status update on my fan page? The fan pages are not interactive. They’re one way communication. That’s not social media, that’s simply broadcast.
5) We’ll all be on the grid eventually. For Facebook to truly be relevant, it needs to realize that not every member is the same, and that some will want different things. I personally don’t believe there is any privacy anymore, so I’m happy to put my life “on the network,” as it were. Some other people won’t be as much. So give us options. Let us choose how much we want to share, but give us the option to share it all, or to share none of it. As we all go “on the grid,” and build one profile that encapsulates our life, (as opposed to “one for business, one for personal, one for everything else,”) people will realize that not sharing is worse than sharing, since if they don’t share, they won’t be as “connected” to everyone else. Once that happens, they’ll realize the benefit of being “on the grid.” But that will only happen when Facebook starts thinking like a true social network, and less like a website.
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Facebook didn’t anticipate that people like you would be ahead of their game. You have figured out ways to use it that people are demanding and Facebook is behind. It seems as though the early stages of arrogance that creeps in when an innovator ages. |
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I think it’s pretty ironic that Facebook doesn’t know how to be relevant to its users, when it hoards user data like the plague. I like where you’re going with this, and it’d be pretty neat to see a built-in capability where you can assign relevance in your network. Kind of an online address book meets six degrees of separation tool. One positive benefit to relevance I can see, is that even if you exceed 5K users, you should be able to assign relevance so that you can figure out who someone is when you interact with them quickly and easily. |
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I suppose there is no real difference between a cap of 5000, 10000, or even 100,000. Surely the more people you introduce to your network, the more of FB’s social ads will be seen. So in essence, more FB followers means more eyes on that ad on the right hand side of the page. |
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I agree. Fan pages are not effective tools. But I think the real question is: How long can FB last like this? Is it already “too big to fail?” to mismatch a phrase from the economy. But seriously, even if something better than FB comes along, or FB continues the trend of providing poor service for customers, or if FB finally realizes it has no revenue coming in…will people migrate away? Millions have spent a significant amount of time and energy building their network. I doubt they’ll want to just give it up. That said, I also doubt FB’s interest in improving its service. |
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Aren’t all of these networks going to merge into one some day (be taken over by the same megacompany) with, one hopes, the best of each site? Take two items from column A and combine with one from column B, etc. Then, who determines which is the best and for whom? |
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Peter, As always you are way ahead of the curve and if they were smart they will move quickly on everything you suggest. The ability to move quickly between profiles, fan pages, etc. is becoming even more important as social networking is picking up steam. If FB can’t keep up, people will move onto the next thing quickly. They need to adapt or they will die as others have no matter how many millions of users they now claim. |
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Great points about the relevancy and fan pages. We’re also struggling with fan pages/groups issues. We’ve gone back to using our group page and just letting the fan page sit there. Yet, you can’t add any apps (since groups are an app). The biggest problem we have is that there’s no way to post events easily. Tools like eventbrite can post them to your profile, but not to the fan page or group. I’m also wondering if geographic networks are less relevant than originally thought? Have any insights on that? |
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All very good points. Has Facebook created any sort of user advisory board with people like you on it to help them with their development? Seems like the end users are the best source of needed improvements. Let’s hope they take this message to heart. |
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Facebook capping friends is, to me, what MAKES it work. I don’t want to add somebody who has 10,000 “friends” because there is no human way to have the bandwidth to stay relevant with that many people. That’s what fan pages are for. I completely disagree with the idea of lifting the cap. And the reason that fan pages don’t work is exactly the same reason as I mentioned today talking about the new Skittles website (http://sarah-morgan.com). They’re brochureware, and nobody cares about brochureware anymore. We don’t want to hear what the brand says about the brand. We want to hear what people say about the brand. And that goes for people too. Finally, Facebook already does allow you the option to create relevance and tweak sharing – by creating and using different lists, and by modifying your privacy settings. Check them out – they’ve gained a lot of specificity in recent months. But I do agree that adding an algorithm to put friends that you contact recently and often highest would be tremendous. |
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And to think, you almost did not join Facebook as you thought it lacked revelance, even back then. |
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Peter – Great points. Have you actually presented these questions to facebook? Answers to your questions, or at least some info from the side of fb, would make this post even more educational. Ryan |
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Speaking of Relevance, let’s also remember the users need to keep things relevant. I clicked on an FB ad for hubspot today. The Landing page is for webinar that was 90 days ago…umm wtf? #Hubspot=#Fail. Relevance is KING, and use of social media DEMANDS relevance or you may end up looking like a fool who just doesn’t get it. If FB doesn’t pick up on this, I guarantee there is another social media platform around the corner who will. (And maybe they should demand expiration dates on ads so that content MUST be relevant!) |
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It seems to me that users should have the option to decide how many friends they want to approve. Why set an arbitrary cap when some users might want or need more? |
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Hi Peter, Great ideas all (facebook should hire you as a consultant – wait a minute, you just gave them some of the best ideas for free already test marketed). But I do have a question as you sent our an ad (with your recommendation) for thekbuzz.com to help build a great fan page. That was last week, So now I am going to have a fan page built that isn’t going to work for me. I know things move fast and are always obsolete from one week to the next but us little folk place much weight on what you recommend so please be careful about what you advocate. Thanks, much – Eva |
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@Sarah – But you just answered your question. YOU don’t have the ability or bandwidth to handle 10,000 friends. Why assume that no one else does, either? My JOB is to do that. It’s part of how I earn my living. In addition, as I posted in #point #5, relevance will become key – EVERYONE will be in your network, and how you INTERACT with them will determine how much information you even SEE from them. Going to London for the weekend? Your London friends will all of a sudden become more relevant to you for a time, and you to them. Capping Facebook prevents true networking – Do you stop meeting new people because you say you have too many friends? That’s EXACTLY what the cap makes happen – I want to add everyone into my grid, then associate with them based on whether or not they are relevant to me at that point in time. But to PREVENT me from doing that, curtails the entire concept of what social networking can be. |
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I think you’re right on target, especially about the fan pages. I think they have potential, but they’re implemented in a way that keeps them out of the mainstream of Facebook society. Most interactions with a fan page don’t show up on the news feed, which means that they don’t take full advantage of the networking capabilities of Facebook. Also, many applications that can be installed on a profile can’t be installed on a page. And the name “Fan page” does seem pretentious and can be offputting. It should say something like “Join this page” rather than “Become a fan”; there have been pages that I’ve wanted to “join” but haven’t because I’m not sure that I feel strongly enough to be labeled a fan. What they really need is something that combines the capability of groups and fan pages, with the relevance of a profile. I understand what Sarah is saying about people who have too many friends. On Twitter, I don’t usually follow people who have thousands of followers unless I know them personally or have a really good reason to follow them. (I do follow @skydiver!) But, it should be up to the individuals involved to decide, not Facebook. The concept of automatic relevance ranking is a great idea. People with more relevance should show up more frequently on your news feed and rank higher on your friends list (or it should be an option to sort your friends list by relevance). Another great feature would be a better ability to group friends so that, for example, I can post pictures for my family to see but not my business associates. Right now I can specify friends only, or friends of friends, but I can’t specify that only a subgroup of my friends can see them, at least as far as I can tell. |
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@esspa kozmetika Thanks for the comment. I didn’t say that fan pages were obsolete. I said they currently could be much, much better than they currently are. That said, we don’t have any other choices at the present time, so why WOULDN’T you create the best fan page you could? I’ve put much thought into what I advocate and what I don’t. |
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Well at least now I know why you haven’t accepted my friend invitation. I have used some of the FB privacy setting so see more photos from one friend, less status updates from another and it’s working fairly well for me. But I love your insight into how everyone you meet really is in your network (or should be, to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the relevance of that relationship). And the perfect app will be one that tracks your interactions with friends and helps you sort through the clutter and read up on what really matters to you – which will be constantly changing over time. Now if only I could be your FB friend…sigh. |
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Thanks for clearing things up. I agree and look forward to learning more. |
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Great observations from you and your commenters. I have only a small group of friends and I already want to differentiate them more – I do make groups for mailing but that’s limited. Fan pages are very off-putting to me, I’m not a ‘fan’ type I guess. And groups, well, I don’t like having to remember I joined them and go there and check out the flow of info either! It should all meet in one place, all organized for easy digestion. I haven’t yet run into your level of issues on FB either but I hope they’re is listening – your concept of how a network should work, works for me and i hope when I get to anywhere near your level of use, I can remember this blog post, pop a smile and enjoy full usability. |
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Peter, thank you for calling attention to the foibles of Facebook. Like it or not it has evolved and unfortunately Facebook users seem to be evolving faster than the application itself. I have scratched my head over many of the things you noted. I also hate the restriction to one network. I find it inane that you are limited to one geographical network in this age of mobility. What if my network largely resides in a different geography? I hope that your influence makes an impact and Facebook catches up with its users. |
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In addition to the conversation above, I have been hoping for an ability to rank “circles” of friends on Facebook, so the people I’ve friended will not all look the same, not get the same updates, not see the same things. Lists don’t exactly do this (what, exactly do lists do?!) That’s the piece I’d add, so that you could friend everyone you wanted to, but update them differently. Show them different pictures, for example, or no pictures at all. (and if this feature exists, chalk it up to the obscure nature of help on Facebook that I can’t find it) |
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Dear Facebook, Please listen to this man!!! Thank you, |
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I’m a newbie to actively using FB so I’m only at the start of the curve. However, I already agree with Peter. How I want to interact with my business contacts is completely different from my personal ones (and each of those groups have further subgroups). I don’t have a personal fan page but do have one for my business. And I’d also like to see the option that would allow you, from your profile page, to upload the same content to your fan or group pages. It be great to have a matrix of some sort so that you can check off where to post content. And Karen, I completely agree with you on the geographic limitation. I’ve lived in 8 cities since I started college. |
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Hi Peter. Thanks for writing this post. I, too, use Facebook in a similar way as you. I only use the fan page platform as a vehicle for when one-way communication is appropriate (i.e. showing support through numbers). There are many things I would do to improve Faceook, one of which is TO CREATE MORE NETWORKS so I can search for people easier. I’ve been trying for EIGHT months to get a network set up for the college I work for without ONE response from Facebook. |
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Peter I love this: The fan pages are not interactive. They’re one way communication. That’s not social media, that’s simply broadcast. That is so true. And personal and professional life on social networking sites will continue to blur. It only makes sense for a site like Facebook to allow us to determine who of our FB contacts we share certain information with. Also, thanks for making me laugh out loud re: “other than relying on photos of skanks as a core business model.” Funny! |
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I couldn’t agree more about Fan Pages, they are beyond gross. Completely non-functional, non-referential, unconnected wastes of time. It’s just a mini-profile page with a fraction of the portlets and none of the fun. |
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Ah, thanks. I was wondering why a social networking expert who shall remain nameless (cough!*chris brogan*cough!) didn’t “friend me” on facebook. Now I know. So, I’ll go fan him. There are certain resources you want to remember you have access to and if the only reminder I can put on facebook is his fan page, so be it. |
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Peter, you aren’t the average user and at the moment the average user is who FB caters to. While I agree that you should be able to have as many “friends” as you want/need, how many people using the service will ever come near the cap? I doubt I will. I’m curious if there is a technological reason behind the limit. The internet is an interesting place sociologically… those who’ve created or been a part of the growth of web communities in the past (which I think social networking is an outgrowth of) know that you can’t predict how people are going to use a particular site or feature. Implementing user driven changes are important – not only for “giving the people what they want” but also for developing strong “brand” loyalty. If FB wants to become the “one profile”, giving the users all of the options they want is the only way to go. Speaking of “friends” – now that the majority of users are over the age of 18, can’t they be renamed “contacts”? |
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Great post. In regard to your item #2, that is why I love multiply.com. Have you ever checked it out (I know… yet another social network), but their ability to scale down to various relationship types, then allow you to share with just individuals, or family, or colleagues, or friends… opens up a whole new world. When I joined Facebook, after having already been a member of Multiply.com for years, I was shocked that it was all or nothing on sharing and shocked there is no way to note the relationships you have and the differing value those relationships may represent. But again- great post- all too true! |
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GREAT POINTS! And, I second this Dear Facebook, Please listen to this man!!! Thank you, |
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hi, FB does have relevance lists and adjustment page, just scroll your “News Feed” to the bottom… As a proficient FB-user, I would say there is already a kind of algorythm that you, Peter, are talking about, but this is just based on my observation. You’re absolutely right about numbers of people a man is able to be connected with. So youre privacy settings, Peter, should be adjusted in a similar way, like Mark Zuckerberg does it: turn off “A link to add me as a friend” inside Privacy > Search I very like Facebook and all the possibilities it has already today. Adjusting things is not always evident, but you can adapt to them quickly. Facebook IS a true Social Networking and it makes really fun if you know how to deal with it! cheers |
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Peter - |
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Yes, Facebook has some improvements to make. Some I’d like to see: * Friend groups larger than 20 (I have subdivided one into eleven separate groups–absurd!) Oh, I could go on for a while. Still, it’s better than a lot of its competitors |
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In addition to the relevance score for you, it would be great to see the relevance score for people in your network. For example – let’s assume 80% is good. So for everyone in my network above 80%, I get to see their relevance map. It let’s me connect with people they think are important and be exposed to their ideas. |
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Peter, I completely agree! Amen to relevance! A CRM company needs to share some of their secrets with Facebook to get those relevance “oil bubbles” working. I was trying to get a client of mine to implement a CRM (Customer/Client Relationship Management) or even a smaller ERM (Enterprise Relationship Management) to help people with in the company understand who is taking to particular clients, which would help them cross sell services and even connect clients to one another. Social media truly will be for the masses (even the non-believers) if Facebook would move in this direction, I believe. Great post Peter, hopefully the Facebook higher-ups are reading your blog! Thanks~ @LauraSK |
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Peter, Interesting observations. As a person new to Facebook and trying to follow the top minds of social media marketing and blogging , I find it very confusing. I feel like I go one place for info and then I’m directed somewhere else. To me a fan page is rather silly. You say – “The fan pages are not interactive. They’re one way communication.” I guess that’s what I don’t like about the fan pages. If I’m too late in making a friendship connection with Mari Smith or Peter Shankman, I miss out. I’ve lost something I can’t regain. |
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I like 80% of what you wrote and empathize with your frustration – all apps struggle with meeting the needs of those at the head of the curve. However, I do think that fb has done a fairly good job of helping with relevancy. I was irritated about how all my different “groups” (my kids vs. my business friends) received content, but changed my mind when I realized how to control that based on relationships I selected when friending people. If you stay on top of the privacy settings (info at: http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=419), you can be very specific about what people see. Of course, that doesn’t mean that fb should not continue to work to meet the needs at the leading edge. |
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Brilliant post, Peter! I am especially interested in your thoughts on friend relevancy and Fan Pages. I have been contemplating whether I should make the transition from a Group to a Page, but after reading everyone’s comments, I’m going to hold off. I loved the statistical information the Fan Page could provide, but was really hoping that it worked better with the News Feeds section. I hope Facebook will read this and take action. Or, at the very least, provide a response to your thoughts. |
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Agree with everything, and here’s a silly, minor point, but I know you’re an animal lover, Peter, so you might appreciate it: The kind of functionality you describe where with one click the photos you put on your profile could be on your fan page — I want to see that on Dogbook/Facebook. It bugs me that I can’t post albums of my dog on Dogbook, only on Facebook. |
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http://www.facebook.com/sitetour/homepage_tour.php Is this the answer to your relevancy issue? |
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I believe in quality…not quantity in whatever my personal or professional pursuits. I do like what Peter says on HARO, as I am a “behind-the-scenes” marketing person. Carole Ann Lyons, Creative Maniac, Millermania. |
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You are most likely the only person I know who could generate this much passionate feedback on a blog post! |
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Dear Peter, Social media is obviously a fairly new entity in the last decade. We are all learning this new technology that is growing everyday, step-by-step. You have exceeded Facebook’s expectations. So, now you are the “CHOSEN ONE” to bring these pitfalls of social networking to light. To quote Esther Hays, “Now our children will be born cable and internet-ready”. We were not. We are the pioneers, so to speak. I completely understand that unlimited “friends” capacity is definitely needed on Facebook. We are just human, after all. People have feelings, and some feel “dissed” and angry when they cannot access a certain person! I think there is a new entity of psychology coming, “Social Media/Networking Phobia”. Some people may suffer from SMNP already! Sometimes you have to have nerves of steel and a high sense of self-esteem when you put yourself and your life out in the world. No body likes rejection! Now that certain social networking problems have been identified, thanks to people like yourself, it will pave the way for new innovators and technology developers. So, I applaud you on taking a stand. It’ll be part of your legacy. Now it’s up to “them” to find the soultions. Maybe it’s time to build a HARO network like new independent networks popping up all over the place. For Example: Thanks , Peter. You are an innovator. |
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Hey – the game has officially changed and fixed some of the issues you pointed out – specifically with the fan pages. I just posted some information on that here: |
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I think FB has a cap because if you have 10,000 ‘friends’ then its really just more of a marketing tool. I really strongly doubt that anyone interacts (one on one) with that many people on a regular basis, unless maybe they are the president. Further, to the point about the skanks as a myspace business model – plenty of men post pictures of themselves with random ladies they don’t have any real connection with – not sure how that really is all that far away from the myspace photos….. |
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Hey Peter, I really enjoyed your article / rant! You’ve got a great outlook and who knows maybe the facebook boys will incorporate some of your suggestions. I think with Google Wave coming things will be changing :) Keep up the great work Shane |
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I guess Facebook didn’t anticipate its explosive popularity as a business networking tool. Most individuals would NOT have more than 5000 friends. But use it in a business/organizational context, and almost every reasonably well known company will. |
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