I find it perplexing that there’s so much discussion and confusion about Facebook having brand issues. More than a few good thinkers are asking why users would be so dissatisfied. Honestly, I would have been shocked if Facebook had performed any better than they did.
Facebook has repeatedly committed the cardinal sin of showing what comes across as callous disregard for their userbase. Loyal users are a sensitive, fickle bunch. Above all things, they don’t like change or the feeling their patronage and loyalty are being taken for granted.
Between significant improvements to the user interface, repeated changes to privacy settings, and ongoing shifts in how advertising was treated, Facebook has riled the core userbase mostly without apology. Instead of providing a safe, secure, predictable internet home away from home, Facebook has given its users innovation and improvements. For newer users, the changes have been fantastic. Let’s face it. Facebook’s old UI was horrible. Good business decisions? Probably, but for user relations, you’re better off slowly boiling the water.
For users with more longevity, it’s the same as trying to swap out a child’s security blanket. For those users, it becomes all the more frustrating because they’re essentially trapped. They can’t go anywhere else even though they’re unhappy and now, they don’t trust Facebook as far as they could throw the server farm.
Facebook isn’t the first site to face unhappy users and it won’t be the last. Time will tell if Facebook’s choices to make changes despite their users will be a wise or foolish decision. For now, they have some brand repairing to do. In the meantime, they’ll have to be content with “popular, but disliked” and hope no one invents a better mousetrap in the interim.
