Know-How Exchange : Social Media

Dear Ceihl,

Facebook attempted to bring a tracking system on board some time ago and the response from users was an overwhelming "No! We don't think so!"

Online, you'll find all kinds of chat and opinion on who can view your profile, how they can track who else has visited your page and so on. And this applies for Facebook and MysPACE, and possibly Twitter.

Tax authorities in Belgium have used Facebook to track people's life styles (not view photos, posts etc.). The Belgians have said it's happening, that it's technically possible, and that they're doing it and that they're taking action (Here's a link to the TechCrunch story: https://bit.ly/BelgianTaxTrace).

There IS a tracking package for MySpace, it's called Trakzor https://www.trakzor.com/ and it seems there's a different internal policy with MySpace than there is with Facebook.

There's an interesting viewpoint on tracking and Facebook here:
https://bit.ly/FacbookTracker.

I'll leave you to make up your own mind although you may serve your customers better by simply asking them up front with a simple survey.

Rather than tracking people through Facebook or Twitter, would it be better to track ISPs. If that's a possibility, you'll find more information on ISP tracking here: https://www.dnsstuff.com/

On the whole I think the bigger question for all marketers thinking of tracking prospect activity on any kind of social media platform is how they might feel having their activity monitored?

I hope this helps.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA