I recently, read an article in the New York Times titled “ Data Fallout At Facebook Puts Brands on Full Alert”. This piece clearly highlights the difficult position marketers have with Facebook. Marketers are rethinking how they work amid data privacy issues. The article brings to light two important issues.
The first important issue for any company is the importance of data. Data is crucial to a company’s survival. If a company cannot find the right customers failure is inevitable. The absence of data is the equivalent to crossing the street before looking both ways. It’s an event given to chance rather than thoughtful consideration.
The second important issue is the need for a data collection contingency. Many companies are solely relying on Facebook to target the right customers. Big and small businesses should develop their own means of collecting data on customers. In this way brands can have more control over privacy related issues and leverage the data further. An all out departure would be financial suicide but additional supplemental initiatives would be wise. In my training/consulting with companies I’ve found that a data collection strategy is typically not in place. Every growth driven organization must quickly recognize which data points are important to collect and how to gather that data.
