A Facebook dislike button in the works is likely to have an enormous marketing and PR impact on brands and especially those that have active social media marketing programs on Facebook.
The button may change how brands operate on the world’s largest social media network. Facebook marketers would need to consider the possibility of consumers not liking their content.
A dislike button also raises measurement issues. Brands would need to tally and measure dislikes against other metrics, such as likes, followers and comments. They’ll need to decide how important the dislike button is to their social media marketing efforts.
So far, we know little about what a dislike button will entail. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg confirmed the company is preparing the button in a recent Q&A session, saying users have long requested it. However, he revealed little else. We don’t even know if it will be called “dislike.” His comments indicated it might be more of a “sympathize” or “empathy” button rather than the opposite of a like.
Facebook could decide not to allow the button to apply to brand pages. Alternatively, it could let organizations decide if they’ll accept dislikes on their pages. Facebook could scrap the idea, but that seems unlikely after Zuckerberg’s public announcement.
More Data, Better Marketing
Some say the dislike button can help brands by providing additional consumer data. By knowing what people don’t like, marketers and advertisers will be able to better target their audiences and provide better content. If certain types of people dislike a brand’s post, the brand may wish to stop targeting that demographic. Conversely, the dislikes may attract the attention of companies with other products.
The button could also improve real-time marketing by collecting more data on user sentiment. It might also improve customer service by enabling companies to quickly respond to unhappy customers.
“If anything, a dislike button provides more information about the user and can be correctly leveraged for better targeting,” Deep Katyal, a senior director at Opera MediaWorks, told Mobile Marketer. “For example, if a user doesn’t like the service and products of a leading telecom brand, a competitor can leverage that data to target those users and make them switch brands.”
Changing Social Media Marketing Practices
However it turns out, the possibility of a dislike button shows that rules for social media engagement can — and do — change, and sometimes quickly. The networks, not their users, control those rules. Organizations that invest most of their marketing efforts in a single platform place themselves at risk. Brands that hitch their wagons to a rising social media star may see their wagons crash if the platform changes its rules.
Some PR and marketing professionals found themselves in that situation when Google announced it will split Google+ into separate services, a move widely seen as heralding the demise of Google+.
Facebook has already demonstrated that it’s capable of disrupting brands’ marketing efforts. Earlier this year, it changed its newsfeed algorithm to place greater priority on posts from users’ close friends and less emphasis on posts on which users’ friends like or comment. As a result, posts from brands were less likely to appear in news feeds. In some respects, Facebook marketing may be a moving target.
Although the features and effect of the proposed dislike button on Facebook are unknown, it’s likely to seriously impact brands that are active on Facebook.
Brands must keep close watch for changes in social media networks. They must then quickly adapt their marketing and PR strategies and tactics to those changes – or risk getting badly wounded.
Bottom Line: A potential Facebook dislike button may transform brands’ marketing efforts on the platform. Perceptive organizations may benefit from the improved consumer data it provides. The dislike button in the works certainly shows that marketers must remain alert and ready to adapt to changing social media marketing practices.
William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, media measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.
