I’m hearing some reaction to the Facebook changes that have to do with its Timeline feature and frankly, I think the hysteria is quite overblown.
Whoa. Let’s slow down and remember a couple things.
1) You don’t own Facebook.
They can do whatever they want, and it’s your choice to participate in it for free. I didn’t say they always make moves that are right (even Mark Zuckerberg wouldn’t say that). But you and I both know they’re in control of the site at the end of the day.
2) Switching to another channel over what is essentially a layout change is frivolous.
You can flee to another social media channel in protest…that will eventually make changes to its layout/visibility settings that you’ll protest, causing you to either go back to Facebook or another channel entirely. The Timeline change may annoy you but it’s not worth picking up and moving over. I saw a comment from someone who said “I’m going to Google Plus and I hope they won’t mess with anything the way Facebook is!”
Let me save you some time. They will.
Change will always happen everywhere
You may like the changes, you may not, but they will change in appearance and functionality from what they have now. Regardless…why place the importance on that rather than the importance of conveying and sharing great content with the audience you care about? Does it prevent you from doing that? No. When a social media channel prevents you from easily creating and sharing the content that matters, that’s when I have issues with it. If another channel can do that for me in a more advanced way, you bet I’ll take a closer look at that option – not necessarily to replace the former, but to add to the overall mix.
If you want greater control over the content you create and share, take a look at your website and blog. These aren’t the only places your content should be living, but they are the places where a lot of your content can originate from.
Facebook is often a great distribution channel, but not necessarily the greatest place for certain types of content to originate from. This is why putting the whole of your brand into outside social media channels while ignoring your own “house” is a mistake that’s really worth getting upset about – a lot more upsetting than anything Facebook is going to change.
