SmartPulse — our weekly reader poll in Smartbrief on Social Media — tracks feedback from leading marketers about social media practices and issues. Paul Chaney, Internet marketing director for Bizzuka, author of “The Digital Handshake,” and member of the SmartBrief on Social Media Advisory Board, helps create the questions and analyzes the results. We run the poll question each Wednesday in our e-newsletter and feature Paul’s analysis on this blog.
Last week’s poll question: What do you think of Facebook’s latest change to the News Feed, separating the Live Feed from a summary view of what they regard as the “most interesting activity that’s happened in the last day”?
- I don’t like it 40%
- I wish I had the option of choosing to have the summary view or not 21%
- I wish Facebook would ask members’ opinion before making changes like this 21%
- I like it 11%
- I don’t use Facebook 7%
“‘Facebook is notorious for making changes to its site without member involvement in the decision-making process. It started with the terms of service, then later the News Feed and now the News Feed again. At least, this time there is a workaround. That doesn’t address the larger question of why Facebook makes decisions on behalf of members without their input (“News Feed picks stories that we think you’ll enjoy…”). It reminds me of what my mother used to say to justify her decisions regarding my well-being: “Because I said so.” It worked for mom. It doesn’t for Facebook. ” –Paul Chaney