Belle - Consumer space or Social space

One of the fundamental arguments that I think is coming up from these discussions and really needs to be addressed is should Facebook actually even be considered as a consumer space? As each one of the stories as to why we signed up (or wont sign up) highlights, Facebook is conceived as a social space where a lot of the real world social politics still apply. As such Facebook is not necessarily a sphere where consumer allegiances are welcome. I know when i signed on i was looking to find out how my friends were that live on the other side of the world and see how their kids are growing, not their product affiliations!

So do you think that attempting to engage with consumers via Facebook is actually going against the ethos of Facebook? While I can definately see validation in the argument that we often engage in product related conversations with friends offline so can therefore expect that to also happen online, I think there is a big difference between seeking that information from a friend and having a brand as a 'friend' where your only conversation would ever be about a product.

It is obvious that there is opposition to the idea that Facebook should be used as a commercial space by the fact that Facebook has recently banned conducting any giveaways or promotions through the page status updates (Courtney, P 2009). It seems that although Facebook users are happy to affiliate themselves with products via fan pages and even discuss products on their own profile pages they did not want their news feed to be cluttered with promotional material. I dont know about you guys but those constant Farmville updates that clutter up my news feed drive me INSANE! I can only imagine how i would feel about constantly seeing more product information rather then updates on what my actual human friends are doing!

I think the real obstacle that marketers face, and that some arent dealing with particularly well, is how to infultrate the network with the least amount of disruption to the social order. I think the censorship example above highlights that social networking sites can only act as a conduit for a companies WOM if their messages are not pushy, are seen as authentic and if they are not seen to impact on the fundamental objectives of the network.

I think that Chantelle and Nicks discussion about identifying with a brand is also really interesting, especially when we think about Facebook as a social rather then a consumer space. The question i really want to ask from that is do we really need brands in order to create an online identity, particularly in a forum that is by nature an extention of our offline community? Are the users of Facebook actually thinking about the identity implications of what brands they add as a friend or are they just looking for free stuff? Are we actually looking at the brands that our Facebook peers are affiliated with and joining the same communities because we aspire to be like them or is that info just getting lost in the overloaded news feed? Is our Facebook identity really something that a marketer can count on as a truthful indication of our possible consumer tendancies?

Reference:
Courtney, Patrick (2009) Marketing On Facebook Grows Up (Ask Your Lawyer!),http://www.socialmediaplayground.com/social-media/marketing-on-facebook-grows-up-ask-your-lawyer/2009/09/21/]