Cat and Mouse - How Facebook marketers risk chasing away users

The concept of "cool" is a fickle thing. For the cutting edge trend setters its a constant game of cat and mouse trying to stay ahead of the crowd, for the moment they all arrive what was once "cool" now becomes tepid.

I read a post on the Duct Tape Marketing blog about Facebooks new open API and how there is now an "opportunity" for marketers and small business to get in on the massive popularity of Facebook. The question here is, now that the cats have arrived, how long till the mice move on?

The open API is a good idea don't get me wrong, but more from a tech point of view than for any "business opportunity" reasoning. Mark Zuckerberg has said that he wants facebook to become somewhat of a platform for social networking and by opening up the system, he is well on his way to making this happen as developers start making cute little widgets to integrate into the facebook platform. But by flinging open the front door to marketers, Facebook runs the risk of driving off the trend setters and with them the masses.

Its unfortunate but the bulk of the marketing world is always going to be one step behind croud. The reason being that marketers wait until the crowd arive before they see any value in getting involved. Consumers are getting smarter by the minute and the opertunistic approach taken by the marketing fraternity is becoming more and more obvious. As long as marketers continue to take this approach the marketing cats will continue to find the trend setting mice frustratingly out of reach..