Facebook Conference
On March 12, Switzerland’s «First Facebook Conference» took place at Sihlberg Castle. The event, held under the slogan «All about Facebook by Users for Users,» was organized by the company Beecom. Although the lineup of speakers was actually quite decent, the conference and its name gave the impression of a DIY event even before it began. On the day of the conference itself, unfortunately, the impression of a lack of professionalism was confirmed. But let’s take it one step at a time. By Manuel P. Nappo, Program Director of the CAS in Social Media Management at HWZ and Chief Networking Officer at Centralway. www.about.me/mpn
The first negatively striking and telling point was that there was hardly any tweeting from Sihlberg. However, without an officially defined hashtag, this is not surprising. It may be that there are still association meetings in Switzerland that manage without a second screen via Twitter, but a social media event in 2013? With international guests? Seriously? If you look a little closer at the organizer, the lack of a Twitter stream comes as little surprise. Although the agency offers social media support, none of its leaders can be found on Twitter. Nor are social buttons to be found on their site. Alright, they organized a Facebook and not a Twitter Conference. So I took a look at their company Facebook page. Practically zero interactions, and out of 3500 fans, only 150 are German speakers. Either all the likes are bought in, or the fans are just very poorly served.
But back to the event - a web bricolage like from a children's playgroup. The website of the event was created as Facebook-conference.ch and the associated prize award as the Swiss Facebook Award. This, although Facebook prohibits combining their brand with other names, other brands or general terms. It also does not allow the use of the logo or content that bears a confusing resemblance to the brand. That doesn't seem to have deterred organizers from doing it anyway. But it gets particularly amusing again with the Facebook page. Where else? Here, the list of missteps is practically endless. The name violates the page guidelines. The cover image, with its more than 20 percent text, violates the advertising guidelines, the screenshots in the cover image violate the brand permissions, and the vote that went through the Like button (like we did back in anno 2008) violates the promo guidelines. Well, you could argue that there are so many guidelines on Facebook that you can't find your way around. You could. As an average user anno 2008. But as an organizer of the Facebook Conference? Seriously? I wonder what Facebook would say about that.
I'm usually supportive of anyone trying something in social media. As we all know, only one percent of the journey has been fulfilled, and as a lecturer in our course likes to say, we are all "a bit of a self-proclaimed expert." But what we've experienced here is hair-raising. The organizers of the Facebook Conference belong to the kind of social media agencies that practice hucksterism. Without the slightest clue about the basics, they are harming those who seriously advocate social media relevance in the practice of today's communications mix on a daily basis.
