Many news sources in the UK and US today have published that the Cambridge Analytica scandal has cost $80bn in 10 days....I think that's what you could buy Starbucks for that.
mark zuckerburg and his team appear to be rushing towards a social media meltdown at the speed of United Airlines rushing towards their next victim with a tazer. They don't seem realise that they have now impacted the state of their relationship with their users and that this is now emotional.
I used to do a lot of work in social media meltdowns and I do a lot of research in this field and this is like watching a textbook meltdown so as weekend comes.....I thought I might amuse you with a little prediction of how things may unfold over the coming days.
The facebook people have already made some moves towards what appears to being responsive by announcing they are making changes that will make it easier to access their settings.....what a mistake!
Their statement while accurate is not completely true in some senses and because we are angry it is going to make us more so. Its tokenism and it will create the next step in the meltdown.
Yes all the settings are together now and there has been an improvement. But its from extremely bad access to information to very bad access.
I really would love to explain the science to every one but I will keep its simple. From why they will make worse and worse decisions and why users will become less and less tolerant is all really predictable if you know where to look. Although right now they don't seem to.
Our social power of expression has become common place....we are used to it. Now we are expressing our feelings more and more and we are getting an emotional kick from it. Most of these common expressions of feeling are towards positive things and this has rapidly increased.
Good causes (of which which sadly we are not running out of,) are also driving a habit of emotional expression. #Metoo, #blacklivesmatter, and youth of the world protesting guns in 800 cities and events in relation to the worlds response to Russia over the past days. People are taking emotional action in so many ways now and seeing results. As they are seeing results they are having an emotional experience. We are becoming emotionally connected digitally and expressing it more.
From a practical point of view there is just one other massive factor to consider. The emotional state of our relationship with facebok has changed because they cheated. We are now waiting for them to fail because we are upset. Our relationship is not currently in a fixed state because they broke the rules.
Danger! In scientific terms their emotional state has changed from passive to active.
In simple terms that's a bit like saying that an electrical circuit is live. You won't electrocute yourself unless you touch it and create a new circuit. The challenge is recognising the change and acting accordingly.
Facebook's problem is that over the coming days we are going to learn more and more of the things that they have done to us and are DOING TO US NOW and that's going to be played out globally over and over and over again.
Their lack of candour and radical action over the coming weeks will be the gas that ignites the flame. In my opinion they put their whole business model at risk as difficult as that may seem to believe.
So what can you and your organisation learn from what we are about to see unfold? Watch for changes in the emotional state of your relationships with customers. Your organisation may not understand emotions very well but just focus on the basics.
Here is my tip....facebook need to starting acting like it is a family situation that has just reached an emotional crisis rather than a business strategy as a way forward.
Imagine mum found out you sold her data and then you and your mates laughed at her......you don't need to imagine because that's what that nice young Mr Zuckerberg did!
My prediction - share value likely to see several more major dips from here. This situation is escalating. (Of course I may be wrong but....)