The Facebook PR Mess with “60 Minutes”

My apologies, but I have to kindly disagree.

I understand the idea that Facebook promised for 60 Minutes to have the "first glimpse," and that in media and journalism, these should be strictly upheld. But I can't lie - I don't think that anyone's PR team spent days trying to clean up the mess of Zuckerberg not waiting long enough. I just don't think it happened.

In my opinion, people didn't watch the interview to see the new pages. We could see them online. We watched to see what Zuckerberg is like in real life, how he reacted to the move The Social Network, etc. Maybe 60 Minutes just assumed that everyone would want to see the new profile pages and overemphasized that aspect of the interview. I bet most people didn't even notice that they were rolled out before the interview. I just don't think its that big of a deal.

Even more so, Facebook makes changes all the time. I don't think is a brand misrepresentation to not wait for the 60 Minutes interview. They've never waited for anyone, so to me, it really isn't a shocker.

Regardless, thanks for your insight. Its always great knowing what other industry professionals think.

Best,Jocelyn

Nylons: absolutely brilliant assessment.

Ok I didn't watch the interview. But I have to believe that this story wasn't so much about 'exclusivity' of the story as much as a sort of mutual validation or endorsement. Facebook clearly used the credibility of 60 Minutes to gain the trust of an aging user base that is terrified every time they change their layout, or terrified of the hype that is the Facebook brand and what they perceive as a general lack of regard for privacy. Let's be real - Facebook does what it wants when it wants - and we (we meaning the mainstream) FREAK out about how they are violating our privacy and yet, we use it anyway. We essentially give them permission to continue this behavior by continuing to use the service with no real resistance. While the aging boomers and beyond are getting more and more wired, they are also among the real hold-outs for Facebook. They are afraid of Big Brother having unrestricted access to their info. What the Zbag did on 60 Minutes was get the queen of the dustmeisters, Ms Stahl, to quiver in his presence and wax on like a giddy school girl about some lame, and really minor changes to the profile interface. Big deal! But the 60 minutes audience doesn't know it's not a big deal! They were sitting there thinking, 'damn, why hasn't my daughter, the tech professional told me about this awesome Facebook thing? (damn you, Zbag) and 'look at how this sweet young man is telling Leslie Stahl all about it. Now, he's not so bad! It can't be so bad!' A brilliant maneuver!

Meanwhile - 60 Minutes, like so many media outlets, is striving for relevance! Well, gee - what's more relevant than Facebook?

Just my 2 cents.

What did you think of the "60 Minutes" segment with Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and the new changes: http://bit.ly/gp415S (cc @ginidietrich)

I can't help but lament that they didn't have Andy Rooney conduct the interview -- or at least periodically cut away to him kibitzing in an opera box a la Statler & Waldorf.

A real Broadcasting Hall of Fame opportunity lost.

60 Minutes...sure sign that Facebook has gone mainstream. Let the shark jumping begin!

"The executives will sit in their offices and claim it’s because the PR professional working with the producers at CBS isn’t doing his or her job correctly." So true.

Too often, PR people are the last to receive the credit and the first to get the blame when something doesn't go entirely according to plan.

You know, I hadn't even considered this, perhaps because, like many of us, I didn't actually turn over to the "new" Facebook until sometime Monday. At this point, it's all Facebook can do to hope that there were more like me who DID first find out about the changes via 60 Minutes.

But either way, shame on them for slighting 60 Minutes like that.

1) Gini, I agree that Facebook's rollout-plan was a mess-up. No company is above that.

2) Turning to 60 Minutes for a "rollout announcement"? Brilliant. Facebook's user-base is only large because of email-invites and word-of-mouth. I'm willing to bet thousands of older Americans checked out Facebook for the first time on Monday....they invite their friends....wa'la : email-invites and word-of-mouth. My thinking here was proven today; on a call with my dad, he asks : "Hey, have you heard of this thing called Facebook?"

What social-network do I turn to when the one I’m using isn’t “cool” anymore?

Am I the only person who was wondering why a new Facebook layout was worthy of 60 Minutes in the first place? It's a new layout, not anything lifechanging.

I think it's curious that Zuckerberg chose to use the rest home of American journalism, with its superannuated core audience, for any interview at all, let alone a "major" upgrade announcement.

Contrast that with his infamous SXSW 1:1 with Sarah Lacy.

I doubt that the "60 Minutes" PR team is particularly bothered about whether Facebook jumped the gun because 1) to be kind, their regular viewers largely are not FB power users and 2) they're thrilled to have gotten the ratings bump.

Interesting idea that FB burned 60 Minutes, but it's a little bit of the tail wagging the dog. FB boasts a half billion users -- many of them very engaged. 60 Minutes would kill to have 1% of Facebook's audience on any given night.

And the only folks influenced by 60 Minutes to join Facebook are those who don't know that much about it to begin with. I'll bet that most Facebook users aren't going to turn to 60 Minutes to learn about a platform they're actively engaged with.

I watched too, but didn't get the impression that it was an exclusive announcement--I was probably not paying close enough attention. And yup, I changed my profile that night. However, your point is well made about not crossing the media when you make an "exclusive" promise.

As a non-PR person, I never even considered the backlash from the early roll-out from this perspective. It certainly puts an interesting spin on the story for me. Thanks for the insight. The only thing I have to add, simply as a viewer and Facebook user, is that I had been looking forward to seeing 60 Minutes that night, for no other reason than to check out the "exclusive" announcement. However, after checking my Facebook, and already seeing the changes there, I didn't bother tuning in to the show at all. What was the point?

And if that happened to me, I'm betting it happened to others as well. Makes me wonder how many viewers 60 Minutes lost that night because of the non-exclusive "announcement".

What's "60 Minutes"? :)

In 5-10 years when we view Facebook the same way we view AOL today, will 60 Minutes do a "What the F happened Mark?" segment? Can you imagine life at Facebook if their numbers start declining especially before the IPO? Mark Z getting the numbers report every Monday morning..activity leveling off...then slow decline...then he is told where the people are going....then it speeds up......then massive migration....oops.."Hey Mark, its 60 mins, they want to do a follow up segment called 'What the F happened Mark?', so what do you want me to tell them?" I see a Hitler's Bunker Spoof coming because we sure have not seen enough of those in the last 2-3 years.