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The Dislike Button: Facebook Is About To Open Pandora’s Box

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According to Business Insider, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced today that Facebook is working on – finally – implementing a feature users have been clamoring for for years – the “dislike” button. In the interview, Zuckerberg explained that “what [people] really want is the ability to express empathy. Not every moment is a good moment” and that the addition of the dislike button was to allow users “an option to express feelings other than ‘liking.’”

While his sentiment – and goals – are good, I believe that Facebook is about to open a big giant can of whoop-ass. This action could easily become the equivalent of opening Pandora’s box – or Face-mageddon.

Let me explain.

I get it. Someone posts about a death in the family, an illness, an injury or just a bad life experience. We’ve all seen those and hesitate to interact using the “like” button ‘cause who wants to “like” someone’s tragedy? Facebook’s thought-process probably followed the lines of “if we give users a way to interact with those types of posts in a way that shows empathy (as Zuckerberg said) then.. well.. people will interact with more posts… which gives us more data. Don’t think for a moment that every article you share, post you like, comment you make or status you interact with in ANY WAY isn’t translated into Facebook’s mysterious algorithm that determines what is shown to you in your news feeds. In addition, I’m fairly certain it is also integrated into your Facebook user profile data… permanently.

Here are a few scenarios in which a dislike button is bad:

Right now, Facebook can only tell what type of content you interact with. It doesn’t know your personal feelings about that content unless you comment in a positive or negative way. There is already software designed to automatically identify positive vs negative sentiment. With the introduction of a “dislike” button, Facebook will now be able to better understand how you FELT about the content, not just the fact that you interacted with it.

Why is this important?

Let’s look at things that people post on Facebook… sports, religion, politics, guns… all things that could be very polarizing or controversial topics. We’ve all seen posts turn into bitter arguments. Heck, one of the most popular memes has got to be this one:

 

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We love us some drama. Don’t deny it. How many reality shows exist again? Facebook is like one huge reality show except the actors are actually people you know.

Back to that list. Let’s go with the easy one first… sports. Are you a fan of (insert team name here)? If not, every time your friends post something positive about that team, you may feel inclined to hit that “dislike” button. Not only will this probably annoy your friends (especially if the “dislikes” outweigh the “likes”) but now Facebook knows that you more than likely do not like (inserted team). How will your friends know that you disliked their post? Well, you can already view the people that “like” your posts so I would guess it’s safe to assume that you’ll also be able to view the people that “dislike” it as well.

You see where I’m going? Religion. Politics. Gun Control. Gay Marriage. Kim Davis. Abortion. Hunting. Confederate Flags. Prayer in schools. Civil rights. Whomever’s Lives Matter (this week), Legalized drugs, Immigration Policies… this list could continue but I think you get my point.

Not only does a “dislike” button offer the option of inserting a passive-aggressive “vote”, if you will, on the subject matter rather than chiming in but it can also provide valuable data about YOU to Facebook. Instead of being forced to actually GIVE your opinion on a controversial topic, now you’ll simply be able to click a button and subtly share that opinion. I can’t wait to see friend’s calling other friends out in comments such as “Hey [friend], why’d you dislike this? You suck!” etc.

What about (God forbid!) someone “dislikes” something your BUSINESS (i.e. Facebook page) posts?

It’s really a pretty genius move on Facebook’s part. Its users have been asking for this forever… so now they’re giving it you them… and they can collect more data, keep you on Facebook longer and provide you with more content you like. Once it figures out you don’t like [insert team name, political figure, movement, etc here], it simply won’t show you that content any longer. Facebook will become a happy place full of Skittles, unicorns, puppies and motivational quotes… unless, that is, you don’t like Skittles, unicorns, puppies and motivational quotes. You know all of those “I’m going to flood Facebook with cartoon pictures to drown out all of the negativity” posts? Well, now you won’t have to anymore ‘cause Facebook will be your personal screener. Sort of like that poor guy who gets to taste all of the king’s food before the king eats it to check to see if it’s poisoned.

Perhaps advertisers will soon be able to start targeting “People who don’t like Donald Trump” or “People against gay marriage.” Even scarier is how ELSE could Facebook monetize this data. Can you imagine a world in which employers, insurance companies, government agencies, etc. could access this information? I can. And no, I’m not a paranoid conspiracy theorist. What I am, however, is a realist. Facebook is a public company that needs to find ways to monetize itself. It does that mainly through Facebook ads at the moment. That being said, we all know that data is money… and we certainly give it data. Lots of it.

Now they’ll be able to combine CONTEXT with ACTIONS and that’s a slippery slope into creating a more perfect data profile of a user which, of course, allows them to, at the very least, open up new ways for advertisers to better target their audiences. You better believe that Facebook will – and already is – keeping track of everything you do on it’s site. I’m sure that buried someplace in some Terms of Service document, by using Facebook, you’ve given them ownership of the data they collect about you. Now they’ll just get better insight (cough.. data) into your thoughts and beliefs as well.

Like one friend of mine said when I posted the article this blog refers to in the beginning, “ Oh, it’s about to get fun again.”

Yes, it is.

Educators Need To Stop Acting Like They’re In High School

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Focus on Teen ProblemsIf you know me, you know that I know a little about conferences. If you don’t know me, just check out my LinkedIn profile and you’ll see that I’ve been involved in some capacity with 16 automotive conferences/events in the past 5 years. Some of them I was super involved in organizing curriculum and marketing the event for the conference itself and some of them I was working for vendors in one capacity or another – sometimes even multiple vendors at a single event. I believe that it is in the best interest of dealers to get the education they desire to take their sales and dealerships to the next level.

Favorites don’t matter to me. Sure, I have the events that I like to go to, as does everyone who has attended conferences. I personally don’t care which conference a dealer wishes to attend. The whole point is for the dealer to attend a conference that offers content that they feel will help them be more successful in our business. That’s why I created a list of every physical automotive event I am aware of and even included a form for people to submit events that I’m not aware of. This is an unbiased list that I hoped dealers would use to identify events that may be convenient for them to attend. Let’s face it. Only 5% of dealers actually attend events. Sometimes that’s due to budget. Sometimes it’s due to a lack of motivation. I thought it would be a valuable resource and have had a lot of positive feedback about it. In fact, I’ve heard feedback from vendors that they also use my list because there are so many events that it’s difficult to keep track of them and make decisions on where to allocate their budgets.

I’ve seen a lot of bickering and in fighting over the years between cliques (for lack of a better word) of people concerning events. I am certainly NOT innocent in this. In the past, I was definitely pretty blunt and not afraid to promote an event I was involved in even if it meant ruffling feathers. I’ve learned my lesson and I do my best to no longer get involved with these politics and stay as under the radar as possible. Hell, I’m not good at being PC anyways so why bother.

The genesis of this blog post is that I just attended an excellent educational event for auto dealers. At this event, I met a person who has only been in the automotive industry for TWO MONTHS. At one point, this person candidly asked me which event(s) they should attend. This person shared that as they connected and interacted with people on social media, they would get messages from people saying they shouldn’t interact with certain people; that they were not good influences; that they were bad people. This person has seen the insane hostile conversations in public between vendors. They have only been in our business for two months and it’s already apparent to this person that there are cliques of people; that they don’t like each other; that they bad talk each other… and it’s really turning this person off.

Everyone wants to talk a good game of education for dealers as a primary goal. If that is true, let’s all focus on providing those opportunities for dealers. I’m not saying that everyone has to like everyone else or that we all need to hold hands and sing “Kumbaya.” All I’m saying is that dealers that are just entering our business are noticing all of this fighting. If newbies know about it, is it not very probable that veterans also do?

When this person finished telling me this, I felt ashamed. I am ashamed that dealers are being put in a position in which they are being pressured to “choose sides” and are being told that if they like X person, then they cannot be “friends” with them. This is unacceptable behavior from an industry full of professional experts who claim to have a goal of educating dealers. It is also detrimental to revenue and attendance at not only their events but all educational events.

Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. Just realize that the opinions expressed in public forums are being noticed and absorbed by dealers and some of them are choosing not to get an education because of unprofessional behavior that they are being exposed to

To anyone holding educational events: Please don’t deprive dealers of an education. If you truly care about helping dealers improve and succeed, please let this be a wake up call.

In the end, the ones who are really losing are the dealers.

[P.S. I am NOT directing this towards anyone specifically. The dealership employee that expressed these sentiments inspired this blog. I don’t harbor any ill will towards any people or their educational events. Sure, I have my personal opinions and I’m not perfect and in no way am I trying to judge anyone. The purpose of this blog was to share this story. I sincerely hope that nobody takes this personally. I can only hope that the people that need to hear this message do so and take a moment to reflect on behavior that may be unbecoming of them as professionals and reflect poorly on them as educators.]

[P.S.S. Not only is it turning dealers off, it’s also causing vendors to second guess whether they want to be associated with an event.]

Facebook Hashtags and Personal Posts

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A couple of days ago, I wrote an article about how dealerships (or any business, for that matter) can use hashtags in their social media posts to potentially increase exposure.

The biggest question I had was regarding hashtag visibility from personal posts so I thought I’d write a short article with that answer.

Facebook privacy settings trump everything.

What does that mean? If you put a hashtag in a post on your personal profile that is public, anyone clicking on (or searching) that hashtag has the ability to see your post. If your posts are limited to friends of friends, only those people can see those posts. If your privacy settings are “friends”, then only your friends would see your post in a hashtag search.. you get my point.

Unless your friends are hashtag-using people, hashtags have the most possibilities for businesses and Pages. That being said, it could be useful to create a hashtag for a conversation amongst friends (or a common interest or event.. say a birthday party or other group event) so that all of those involved in the conversation/event would have the ability to view all the posts, pictures and other related content easily.

So, there’s your answer. The visibility of your personal posts with hashtags rely completely on the privacy settings of THAT post so don’t freak out and think that everyone can see your hash tagged personal posts should you decide to use hashtags.

(Except maybe the NSA, but that’s a different story).

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