In my opinion, this just presents a bigger opportunity for us marketers. Companies get scared. They start saying “I told you Facebook was a scam” or “I knew that Mark Zuckerberg was the devil”. Right now there’s a big campaign going on that goes like this “Delete Facebook!”. If Facebook loose half its users overnight, which would never happen, by the way, they would still be the biggest social media platform on the planet. FB is not going anywhere!
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Podcast File
The Facebook Data Breach Scandal
Podcast Transcription
Well, hello again! I hope that you guys are having a fantastic day wherever you may be. Today I want to have a short podcast to talk to you guys about this big scandal going on right now on the Facebook world and on the internet world that has actually gone quite viral when talking about this data breach. For those of you guys that are familiar with what happened, I’m going to try to clarify it. For those of you guys that have no idea what I’m talking about, I’ll explain.
There is this British firm that is called Cambridge Analytica that ever since 2014 was doing a system. The organization’s task is to gather customer information, data mining, accumulating information for political purposes so candidates and political parties can use that data for better targeting and for elections. That’s what they want to do. They want to get data in order for them to be able to provide the right content, the right message to the right people, and win elections. So this organization apparently since 2014 was doing something on Facebook which was a little bit grey head or let’s say black head actually, not even gray head, that they were using surveys and being done strategically to capture that information and not letting users know what was the purpose of that user information, that they were going to use it for targeting them for political connections somehow. So it’s a data breach. Why? Because it’s using the user’s information in a method that is against the terms of the policy of Facebook.
So in case you don’t know what that means or what this whole scandal has been about, that’s basically what it is about. It’s a fact that some organization gathered the data of 50 million profiles. It’s a lot of profiles. And those profiles were used to actually target people better when it comes to the political advertising, political messages. So what does Cambridge Analytica went with this? Well, they can actually sell more, they can charge more for their services because they have more data. This is the way it works around with everything, right? If you have a lot of data, if you have a lot of information, if you have all these knowledge about your ideal audience, etc., you can accomplish better results. That’s what they’re trying to do.
Now, they did it in a black hheadway because they were pulling the information in not letting the users know what was the actual intention of doing this. So in 2014, I believe it was 2015, Facebook actually discovered that they were doing this, and they actually went after them, after Cambridge Analytica and they demanded that they delete all that data that they were using incorrectly. That’s what they did, that’s what they’re supposed to do correctly. And supposedly, the whole thing fell apart along the way and they didn’t ensure that the data was deleted correctly. That’s the mistake on Facebook’s end that they discovered the issue, they didn’t make it public, they didn’t let the users know that their data had been compromised and they didn’t follow through with the handling to make sure that the data was not being properly used.
But this is the thing, let’s fast forward now, let’s talk about what’s going on right now. There’s been this whole campaign going on about deleting Facebook Application. They’re trying to make that go viral like it’s a revolt against Facebook which is, you know, it happens, there are revolts with evolution. We are going through an era that has a lot of changes on it. It makes sense that Facebook has had some issues with it. Just today, they rolled out some security updates. Each and everyone of us can actually go in there on their settings and update their preferences and you can select what you allow other advertisers to see or what you don’t allow them to see. You can select to delete posts and publications that have been shared by you. You can disconnect things that you like, that you don’t like, you can do all of those stuff right now in the Facebook Advertising world in your own Facebook profile. So you’re being given control to actually let Facebook know exactly what you are willing to have them use for advertisers.
Now don’t get me wrong. Let’s now confuse it for a second. Facebook has been all in to accumulating user data for many, many years. That’s why they are one of the top 5 biggest market cap companies in the planet because they have a lot of data and that data is a gold mine for advertisers like myself. We use that data to get better results and to help people. Now, this is a viewpoint that I want you guys to have also. That data that Facebook gathers about each and everyone of us is something that allows them to actually put messages in front of us that we are interested in. It will really be annoying if I was targeted all the time by toys or games or fashion, or other things that I’m not into. I like it when I’m targeted by marketers similar to me. I like it when I’m targeted by people that are interested in expansion and accomplishing more and motivational guys, and all kinds of things because that’s something that makes a lot more sense for me.
So I’m very interested in being targeted correctly. I get targeted by electronics. I like electronics, I like iPhone devices. I get targeted by these guys that sell this really cool wallet that I really like a lot because I can actually put all my credit cards in it and it actually worked. It’s called Rich. I don’t know if you guys have seen that before but it’s an awesome wallet. This is not a paid promotion guys. By the way, I’m not hired by them. But it’s an awesome wallet that you can put all your credit cards in it and attach your cash and stuff like that. So I like being targeted by that stuff because it’s a thing that is relevant to me and I am going to appreciate seeing and not think like my time is being wasted.
So that customer profile data that you have given to Facebook is used for that benefit and purpose. Facebook on this particular scandal is not responsible for them getting rid of that data or spreading it incorrectly. A lot of people don’t understand what really happened. That’s not what happened. There was this other company which is the Cambridge Analytica that was the one that took advantage of that data and used it incorrectly to serve their own political purposes which is horrible, it does absolutely suck. It’s not okay because we have all these data and they’re trying to manipulate the system so they can actually try to win an election. So, who knows how much that influence or not, I mean, there’s schools of thought here. One of them says that that has no effect on elections and that it’s just like one more thing that people are doing, trying to manipulate elections.
And the other one’s would say that it totally had an effect on the elections. Maybe a lot of you guys voted for Hillary but I voted for Trump because I felt that that was a better opportunity for the country, not because I was being targeted on Facebook. I actually don’t remember even seeing one single ad about Trump on my news feed. I don’t know about you guys, but the social media had zero influence on my decision on whether I wanted Trump for president or I wanted Hillary for president. It had zero influence. I made my own decision based on what I had seen myself and based on my own stands as an entrepreneur. So I think that most people can actually attest to that. Most people can actually say with a clear statement that they were not influenced at all by it. But, who knows?
Anyways, besides the point guys, if you guys are listening to this podcast, if you’re here with me, if you’re paying attention to what I have to say, I am assuming that it is because you are marketers yourselves. So let me tell you where this puts Facebook, what is the danger for you. I’m going to say that pretty much close to zero, it doesn’t really make a difference. Let’s say that this campaign of like delete Facebook all over the planet goes really viral, and on the worst case scenario doomsday hits, imagine this, so doomsday, right? Like it’s the end of the world and Facebook collapses and they somehow manage which is not going to happen ever to get 50% of all Facebook accounts deleted with this campaign. Do you know that they are still the dominating social media platform if that happens?
What that means is that if they suddenly out of nowhere get half of their crowd, their profiles to disappear, they still have more users than any other platform out there. That means that they’re going to have about 1.1 billion active users on the platform, plus Messenger, plus WhatsApp, plus Instagram, etc. So trust me, they are not going anywhere. I like when this stuff happens guys because what it does is that the ones that were on defense whether they’re going to do Facebook Advertising or not, they actually go back to the traditional ways because they say, “You see? I told you so! I told you that this is going to end. The ride is over.” And you could see the Facebook stock collapsing, they went from $180+ to $150 today that I saw this morning on the stock market. So, people have been panicking. I think that panics are great moments of opportunity that if you jump in, you can actually maximize your results.
So, right now, I’m more excited about actually getting more things done and seeing more results. I’m definitely more interested in jumping in right now because what I know is going to happen is that maybe a few million people are going to follow the trend and delete their Facebook profiles because Facebook is “out to get them” and Mark Zuckerberg is evil and he’s going to take over the world and he’s going to be the new, uhm, what is this guy called? From the movie of you know, there’s all kinds of bad guys, but there’s this one movie that I see from the kids the one that has minions on it. You guys can remind me of it but you know who I’m talking about. Well, suddenly Mark Zuckerberg is going to become one of those guys, right? And, that’s not the case guys. I’m actually a big fan of Mark Zuckerberg. I think he’s a great, great guy. I mean, when you see him talking you can see somebody that’s actually a really humble guy that is actually a big humanitarian, he’s all in to philanthropy, he donates a lot of money for activities that are helping the world, he’s helping more than most of us out there.
I would say 99.9% more than people out there because his power and his ability to actually make money with this incredible company, he uses it to help a lot of people. So I’m not one of the actual doubters of what he has accomplished. Yes, the platform is not perfect. Yes, it has some security breaches. They have data that they’ve gathered along the years that you’ve given access to and now they might be using some of that incorrectly and some like sneaky companies like dirty scammy political firm like the Cambridge Analytica is probably one of those that they actually took advantage of a loophole inside the Facebook system that was not fixed yet. Think about it for a second guys, we’re talking about 11 years ago the company didn’t even exist. So if you think about that, you know that they’re still in evolution. I mean other companies, Proctor & Gamble, this guys have been around for hundreds of years. You have other companies, J. C. Penny, GNC, etc., right? Those companies have been around for a long time. Facebook is still a baby and not only that. They are exposed to the technology world, in the internet world, and also, there are companies all over the place trying to find like weaknesses on it so they can take advantage of their data.
So they’re going to correct it. They’re going to perfect it along the way. They will fix these issues. I think that right now is not the time to jump out of the ship and get out of it and start running away and then go back to printing traditional flyers and buying a quarter page on the newspaper. Because trust me, the world is not going back. If you think for a second that the world is going to change and somebody is going to take over now, and Facebook is going to disappear, think again. That’s not going to happen. The eyeballs of people are not going to start staring now at magazines suddenly because they don’t like Facebook. The billboards on the streets are not going to become more relevant because somebody doesn’t like Facebook. People are not going to start talking to each other more and more now because Facebook had a data breach. The world is not changing anytime soon for sure. It’s actually going to continue evolving.
So if it is not Facebook, it’s going to be the next man up. And it doesn’t look like there’s anybody close right now. So, what is my stand on this? Yes, there was an issue, Facebook recognized it. They’re taking responsibility. They’re making it better. They launched already some software updates that you can have access to as of today, March 28 of 2018. And now you can go in there, you can update your preferences and see what ads you want to be displayed, and what things you don’t want to be displayed, and what data you want to share, what data you don’t want to share. You have control of that stuff completely now and they’re giving you that power. So they are not out there to get you. They want to build a social platform. And yes, they want to make a lot of money with it because when they capture our attention, they can sell ads to smart advertisers like myself that put messages in front of all these eyeballs that are looking to consuming some good content.
So if you have some questions about that guys, that’s basically the short explanation about this story and it’s all going to go away. Just like in 2016, there was this whole big scandal about the elections and how the Russians manipulated the elections through Facebook and all these other things and it just dies away. So this is also going to die away. I can guarantee you that Facebook is going to continue being the dominating social media platform and they’re still going to continue selling ads because this is how they were built and they’re still going to give advertisers opportunities to be able to actually take advantage of the amount of attention that they actually have on the platform which is way bigger than anybody else. So, not the time for you to jump out right now and start diving into other things that have not worked out in the past and are not going to start working anytime soon.
Okay guys, so if you have any questions you can send me a message again on my Messenger, m.me/theninjamarketer and I will love to hear from you and I put out a video yesterday on my page which is the Marketing Ninja, the Facebook Page is called in which I’m talking about the 5 tips to build a successful online business today. Something that I got inspired to do the other day. If you have been listening to my podcast only and you haven’t seen those videos, well maybe you can be happy to put a face to the actual voice and go over to my Facebook Page, like the Page, see the videos and let me know what your thoughts are. And if there other areas that you want me to cover in the future podcast, that will be great to hear from you. Okay guys, I’ll see you on the next episode.
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