Why Does Facebook Make It So Hard to Benefit From Its Features?
Let me state right off that I think Facebook is one of the two social media sites on which all companies – all businesses – should be participating at this time. (The other is Twitter.)
That said, I also think Facebook is extremely difficult for ordinary people – people who don’t continually read tons of blog posts about Facebook, pay hundreds of dollars for courses about Facebook, and spend part of each week wrestling with Facebook’s ever-changing features – to benefit from all the features.
I mean, let’s face it. To begin with, who is going to read the terms of Facebook?
And even if we did, the wording is not as clear as Facebook might think. Or perhaps the wording is murky on purpose so that Facebook can say the terms mean whatever Mark Zuckerberg wants those terms to mean this week. But next week … user beware.
Here’s one example:
I just read an interesting blog post in which a comment by someone I’ll call Jane said she was using her Facebook profile for her business. Then she asked what is a Facebook Page.
Now someone else responded to Jane’s comment by explaining that a Facebook Page is what used to be called a Fan Page (and still is by people who don’t know any better) and that it is easy to set up. And this person gave a link to a post about this.
But here’s the important piece of info I then added to Jane’s comment:
It is in violation of Facebook’s terms to use your personal profile for your business. And if Facebook catches you, your account could be instantly disabled and you could lose all 4,457 friends (or whatever). Here’s a blog post of mine about this – http://www.millermosaicllc.com/facebook/facebook-terms/
Now wouldn’t it be a good idea for Facebook to use what’s called microcopy (small instructions next to online fields) to put that vital piece of info right where you enter your name on the home page of Facebook where it says “Sign Up”?
It would be a good idea, but why bother? Much better to let someone amass thousands of friends and then lose all these friends in a moment when caught unwittingly committing a Facebook “crime.”
And speaking of friends, let’s get the terminology correct (the terminology at the moment of writing – who knows what this will be in the next hour):
You “friend” a personal profile page. You “join” a group page. You “like” a Facebook Page.
And this is different from when you “like” comments on people’s profile pages, group pages, and Facebook Pages.
Have I confused you enough already? Please, I could go on and on.
Here’s another nice little twist:
You can get a customized URL for your personal profile at www.facebook.com/username as soon as you have a personal profile. But you can’t get a customized URL for your Facebook Page at www.facebook.com/username until you have 25 people who have clicked “like” for your Page. (Again, information subject to change at Facebook’s whim.)
Do you get the picture of why you’re not alone if you think that Facebook is much more difficult to use than most people realize?
Sure, if you only have a personal profile in your own name and have not set up any groups or Facebook Pages, you probably don’t need to know all this “stuff.”
But if you do want to get the most out of your Facebook participation for your company or business, you will probably find yourself frequently frustrated. Just remember that there are millions of others in the same boat with you.
And, oh yes, I just noticed that Facebook has changed how “Edit Page” works for Facebook Pages. Now I have to know what area I want to change instead of seeing all my choices on one screen. Please pass me the Tums!
Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) is the co-founder of the social media marketing company Miller Mosaic Power Marketing, which coaches clients on how to effectively use social media to get in front of their target markets. Get her company’s free report on Twitter (updated for #NewTwitter), Facebook and websites at www.MillerMosaicPowerof3.com
cc licensed flickr photo shared by jakeliefer
If you like FaceBook enough, but want something that YOUR business can benefit from (not FaceBook’s business) then you should check out our new online community sites for businesses, called Hoop.la (yes, that’s .la).
YOU own your content, and we don’t sell your info. Go to Hoop.la for more info. We’ve been in the online community business for over ten years (we invented the UBB). Oh, and yes, it’s got FB Connect.
I agree with you! I love Facebook as a business tool. But they sure don’t make it that easy for businesses to use. Good grief. FB has over 500 million and counting users and lots and lots of cash. Yet they are slow on making it easy for a business to use! Great post. Found you on Twitter.
I am so tired of being intimidated by all of the FB changes. At least once a week something changes. It’s a big “ball of confusion” and I’m ready to chuck it.
I set up a new account, and I’ve never been a FACEBOOK user so this is all new to me. I am unable to add a profile picture and I am baffled as to why not. I’ve looked up a zillion help sites to find out how to do this, and everything tells me to hover my mouse curser over the generic profile pic and a menu of some sort is supposed to appear that ‘makes it easy’ to add a profile pic. When I hover over the pic, however, no menu appears. What do I do now?
I too find facebook difficult to use. I’m computer literate (I think) well at least I taught myself C programming, Assembly, Fortran, etc as well as photo editing. However they keep referring to stuff in their documentation that assumes I know ALL their terminology. After all if I’m looking up something in facebook docs, then admitedly I’m not a facebook expert. They arrogantly assume everybody using their site spends 50 hrs a week for the past 3 years learning how to use it!