The immediate impact from Facebook’s shutdown of news during the media code was on consumers. Where's the news?
And when consumer behaviour changes, that brings intense interest from chief marketing officers (CMOs).
Brands, relying on Facebook as a sales platform, were exposed to potential damage to their reputations because the disappearance of news, and the resulting shift in consumers, meant they couldn't run their businesses.
Global research house Forrester recommends that brands take action to be less reliant on Facebook in the future.
The federal government and Facebook reached agreement, news pages were restored and life continued with the larger media companies expecting a good flow of cash this year when they are paid for their news.
Chartbeat reports that audience traffic from Facebook to news webistes has now just about been restored to previous levels.
Global research house Forrester had already predicted that 2021 would be significant in terms of nationalistic economic policies, growing claims of sovereignty, and environmental and other geopolitical turbulence.
This will accelerate fundamental shifts in consumer behaviour.
Australia’s media bargaining code is just another example.
Forrester says CMOs must:
- Commit To Values-Driven Business For Better Results. "Companies that acknowledge the values of consumers and employees, and also authentically embrace their own corporate values, will grow faster and drive better business results. Facebook’s action in this case ignores the reality that values-based consumers, employees and now citizens are dominant forces in today’s market."
- Manage The Increased Risk Of Values-Driven Stakeholders. "Collective bargaining in the age of the customer to date has been when customers or employees, through their social media activity, negotiate directly with a brand to force companies to renegotiate the terms of their customer engagement and their policies. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the brand boycott of Facebook over its refusal to police hate speech on its platform. This new friction between Facebook and Australian voters shows that firms must now also consider the values of nations and their citizens if they want to protect their reputation."
- Strike A Balance Between Bowing, Collaborating And Challenging Regulators. "Facebook’s decision not only impacted its own users, but also the reputation of brands that rely on the platform to run their business. Firms must consider their government relations strategy carefully, opting for as much co-creation as possible. Ultimately, stand-offs only hurt your reputation and damage your business ecosystem if they don’t lead you back to the negotiating table."
- Adopt A Hyperlocal Approach To Brand And Technology For Resilience. "In order to anticipate and respond to risks in a sustainable way, firms must adopt brand strategies that reflect local consumers personal values, which rely heavily on local beliefs about social issues, politics, and causes. This in turn will require technology architectures that use cloud-native, edge, and intelligent automation in support of more localised operating factors. It will also help ensure that ecosystem choices and technology platforms are resilient and adaptive enough to respond when geopolitical disruption occurs. After the recent actions by Facebook, this means creating new digital interaction options that are less reliant on the social media giant."
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