Now here’s a challenge that even the best internet marketing company may face.
Just when there are more ways to share more information about yourself, a sizeable portion of Facebook users are found to be sharing less on the world’s most popular social networking site.
This is according to a new report made by two graduate students at the Polytechnic Institute at the New York University. The report is based on a study of public profiles from 1.4 million Facebook users.
According to the study, one way users are becoming more protective of their privacy is by limiting who can view their connections on the social networking site. In June 2011, 53% of users analyzed made their friend lists private. Interestingly, only 17% did this in May 2010.
Also on the same period, 33% of the analyzed users hid from public view personal data such as age, high school names and graduation years, networks and groups, relationship status, interests and other personal information. In 2010, only 12% went private on these data.
Meanwhile, the researchers found that more women (55%) restricted their personal information as compared to men (49%).
Report author Keith Ross was quoted on the Internet Retailer article saying that the “greater sensitivity and public awareness of privacy issues, combined with easier privacy options on Facebook, spurred more members to protect their confirmation.”
As there are many ways for marketers to reach potential customers on Facebook, there are also several ways for customers to adjust their privacy settings. One is to opt out of allowing the networking site to use a user’s actions in its Sponsored and Featured Stories ad formats.
Once again, this new movement in customer behavior serves as a challenge for many internet marketing service providers staking their claim to the position of being the best Internet marketing company.
Will more Facebook users become more protective of their data? What do you think?
