This article was originally published on LinkedIn.
Facebook now reports that as many as 87 million Facebook users may have had their data exposed as part of the Cambridge Analytica situation. The company’s stock price has dipped more than 10%. #DeleteFacebook campaigns are making the rounds. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s own COO, has acknowledged that advertisers have curtailed spending.
So where does this leave the millions of brands that rely on Facebook to share their message with customers and with the world?
The short—and possibly surprising—answer: in a good position. The chaos of the last few weeks belies a critical fact. The events at Facebook have accelerated an important shift—one already in progress—toward restoring faith and trust among social media users. And we all stand to benefit.
In the span of a decade, social media has gone from dorm rooms to the global stage, with networks now counting more than 3 billion users worldwide. The accompanying cultural and technological changes have been profound, to say the least—and not always easy to anticipate. Networks built on authenticity and real human connection saw their efforts undermined by malicious bots and bad actors.
Facebook…
