DIGITAS PERSPECTIVE

Dr. Content, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love The Facebook
Facebook, once the industry darling, is now receiving close scrutiny and somewhat negative sentiment. Starting in the weeks leading up to the IPO, continuing with questions about mobile monetization, and through the recent announcement about the nearly 9% of problem accounts, Facebook seems to be facing a growing bandwagon of ill will. In late June, Simon Dumenco published an article about how the law of diminishing returns will impact, in Saul Hansells term, Zuckerbergs Law. The idea is simple: Zuckerbergs Law says that sharing output - content -- on Facebook will double in short periods (like Moores Law on computing capability and transistors), and that if true, this flood of content will either: A) Drown out the signal, making it impossible for marketers to be seen or heard, or B) Far exceed the ability of individuals to consume or keep up with content volume, thus reducing the utility of, or interest in, the platform. In other words, marketing messages and videos will be muted, if seen at all. While that is a possible outcome, I dont think thats where Facebook is headed. Although Facebook has its challenges, Dumencos reasoning makes too many assumptions about how people will use this channel in the future. Back to the Future: The Content Conundrum Back in the 1980s, as cable TV expanded, everyone thought that a hundred channels was completely unnecessary, and that the content would all be terrible anyway. They were wrong because they were basing the assumptions on how people used their TVs at the time. It turns out that the cable world (as well as the digital channel world) continues to grow and produce higherquality programming than ever before. In terms of time spent, we watch increasing amounts of both television and digital video. I dont hear any more talk about cable or broadcast TV having too many channels and too much bad content. Those claims have moved to the digital channels, which include Facebook, YouTube, and other social and video platforms. Which brings me back to Dumencos assumption that the only change in Facebook will be an increase in content volume. Below I address some behavioral changes, but either way, I think we can handle digital content just as we have learned on TV. From user-generated video to professionally produced series, consumers and technologists will find ways to parse it out, to modify the experience and the discovery, to learn to sort so as to satisfy their interests and needs. From a marketers perspective, the added volume of content on cable TV allowed brands to evolve beyond traditional sponsorships going back to the future to integrate into content, create it themselves, republish and curate. These tools abound on both television and in digital channels, and they continue experimentation and change on Facebook. Content volume on Facebook, in all likelihood, will evolve as it did on cable and broadcast. There will be less of what people dont like and more of what they do like. To the extent brands can deliver messages and videos that people like, and are interested in, they can use that

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DIGITAS PERSPECTIVE
channel to market with their own content. Other brands may simply be using it as an advertising platform. The Law is Static; People Are Not Part of the reason we can handle the content on Facebook is that the quality and experience wont be static. Dumenco writes about cringe-worthy oversharing, persistent tattletales, etc. Brands already take care, for the most part, to curate the experience and content they provide on Facebook and other channels. People do the same thing. They create a vision of how they want to be perceived on the channel in just the same ways that brands do. This means that oversharing will be self-monitored and monitored by your friends (Hey, Im dumping you if you post one more cat video). Consumers are the curators -- of themselves and their friends content. Will we still see cringe-worthy videos? Yes, but well leach earn to curate those. The idea that we wont be able to watch all the videos or read all the posts available on our newsfeed assumes no changes in the type of content or our behaviors. It also doesnt recognize that these messages replace other forms of communication such as email, text, chat, phone and other social catchup behavior. This content now can be sorted, and begins to take on higher utility functions. I know that a single person is not a statistically relevant user pool, and I freely admit, its probably worse if the single person is just me. But, as an individual user, I like Facebook and as a marketer, I like its utility and platform. Most people that I know assume everyone is on Facebook -- its pretty much a surprise if theyre not. Half of the U.S. population is a member. There are over 550 million unique users each month, worldwide. With those statistics, seriously, were worried that this isnt a good advertising or marketing channel?

Contact For More Information Eric Korsh, VP/Group Director, Brand Content, Digitas Eric.Korsh@digitas.com This piece originally appeared in MediaPost.

August2012