As Facebook has grown, Internet Marketers have come to call it home. There are countless events at any one time being promoted that are focused on getting people to join self improvement seminars or buy products. The Facebook for Business group has over 33,000 members at this point, and is still growing. When we launched Calliflower on Facebook, it was with the intent of reaching these business people with a quality conferencing service.
Recently I’ve been hearing increasing reports from this community of people being arbitrarily and inexplicably banned. There is even a rumoured class action suit in the works, as Internet Marketers find their efforts at building community suddenly cut off. In some cases, that might be more than a year’s work and many thousands of dollars invested.
Sometimes these folks come to me asking for my help believing that as a prominent blogger who has written about Facebook, and the CEO of a development company with a Facebook product, I might have some sway. Unfortunately not.
Facebook has always focused on ensuring that users have a good experience. That has meant aggressively weeding out certain kinds of members and solicitations. Perhaps it’s time, however, to find an accommodation with the Internet Marketing community. At minimum that should include instituting an efficient appeals process. After all, these folks signed up for Facebook in good faith, and they’re only using Facebook for its intended purpose – building community amongst their own following of users.
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
