Following on from yesterday…

…and the power of Corporate Blogging, Facebook have been causing a bit of a storm recently. A couple of weeks ago, they changed their terms and conditions in an apparent move to claim ownership of user’s content (including photos, status updates, notes, whatever). That caused a lot of articles to be written, lashing back at Facebook (more than 750 according to Consumerist.com). At the time, Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, responded with answers to some of the questions raised by the changes. And as of today, Facebook are reverting to their old terms and conditions whilst they sort out some better wording. Facebook is large enough that this probably would have been forgotten about in a month anyway, but by listening to the community and blogging some responses Facebook have definitely saved some face.

 

I do have one thought about all of this though. Assuming the old adage that "all press is good press" is still widely believed, could a company use something like this purely for marketing purposes? What if no-name company does something "bad" just to get blogged about, and then reverts the "bad thing" to turn it into good press? Imagine…

1. Logging company X chops down a tree which is home to an endangered bird.
2. This is not liked, blogosphere goes nuts.
3. Company X blogs "well we had to do it".
4. Equally not liked, more craziness.
5. Company X then opens up a wildlife preserve, apologises and promises not to do it again.
6. Company X is now the most famous logging company in the world, and by now your thoughts on them are neutral – "Yeah, they did a bad thing, but they did a good thing to make up for it". But the important thing for Company X is that they are now much higher profile than before.

It’s a dangerous game to play (your "good thing" has to be enough to cover up the "bad thing"), but get it right and there’s money to be made. Not all press is good press, but bad press can be turned into a "good thing".