Facebook and social success

Could there be dark clouds on the horizon for Facebook? I conducted a very informal survey of teenagers during the holiday week (well, basically I just asked a few of them) and found a growing lack of interest in the social network. I didn’t find anyone closing their Facebook account but not updating seemed to be a common theme. It’s “just people bragging” was mentioned more than once while the instant gratification of Snapchat seemed to be the popular alternative. Now I won’t say the comments of a few random teenagers should generate a call to your broker to dump your Facebook stock but it might provide a bit of pause for companies building internal social networks. Personal profiles of abilities may not be viewed in a positive light if it crosses some magic line to self-promotion. Of course, where that magic line is actually drawn is hard to define but it’s important to know it’s there, and if crossed, your social effort may turn negative quickly. Beyond the selection of the technology, such as Salesforce Chatter, consider ongoing monitoring of the underlying current in your social network. Hints of negative feedback may warrant early intervention.