Waiting on Facebook

So Facebook announced a whole bunch of changes which my friend Ian Schafer neatly sums up on his blog. Foremost among them is the ability of brands to have actual pages that you can friend them on (and vice versa).

Which would, of course, seem to violate the cardinal principle of "Your Brand Is Not My Friend."

My initial thinking is that most of the Prom King Brands will have success with this. (A "Prom King Brand" if you recall, is any brand to whom a large number of people impute a certain degree of coolness; that coolness factor is all the "candy" they need to listen to the brand in the social media space. Prom King Brands include the usual suspects: Apple, Nike, Starbucks, plus sports teams and entertainment properties (rock bands, movies, TV shows, resorts.) The litmus test of a Prom King Brand is whether someone would unironically wear the logo on a cap or t-shirt. If yes, then you've got a Prom King Brand.)

I mean heck, I'm already friends with the NBA. But your average brand is likely going to struggle with this. But I'll wait till the redesign actually launches to give my long-winded take on how to play this.