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In a high profile case late last week Vodafone and First Direct pulled their advertising from Facebook after they were randomly placed on a page giving information about the British National party (ref. Guardian). This has resulted in a number of companies reviewing their online advertising, with four more companies following the lead.

It used to be that you would know a publication, the demographics of the audience and place an appropriate advert in the right slot, even on the web. Then along came social media and user-generated content and the lines got that little bit more fuzzy.

It is one of the biggest problems for social sites and more importantly, users and advertisers. Take Facebook for example, if you have your own agenda for how you want to use your page for ‘networking’, you have to be careful who you network to, and who networks to you. What they write on ‘your wall’ or leave a message about can have repercussions.

It has happened to the MySpace page for my wife’s beauty salon, that linked to someone’s profile who was looking for, how can I say it… one night stands. One of her clients clicked through being nosy and was none too impressed. Despite the fact that it was just a link, the connection was made by the client and for any business, or individual, this could seriously harm your brand or reputation.

I think social media sites are still finding their way and these issues will fade away, that is if the social media sites don’t fade away first.