The Social Network Lab

I went to see the movie Social Network the second night it came out because I saw the advertisements on television and I thought they made the movie look interesting and exciting.  I didn't know much about Mark Zuckerberg before I went to see the film.  I was told by one of the audience members that the movie was non-fiction so I was interested to see how Facebook came to be. 

One thing that I found really interesting was the personality of Mark Zuckerberg.  In the film Mark Zuckerberg was a computer genius, but he still had feelings like everyone else.  I found it really interesting that many of his actions were in response to his own feelings of low self esteem.  I think his social life suffered because of his genius abilities and he was misunderstood by his peers.  I think his audiences will relate to him better now because they may identify with Zuckerberg as an actual person who struggled with women and didn't fit in socially all of the time.  In the movie, Zuckerberg doesn't end up getting the girl he really wants even though he is the youngest billionaire in the world.  It gives the message that money cannot buy you happiness and anything or everything you want. 

I think the movie does portray Zuckerberg as a hard working, creative, coding genius.  With that being said, he was also still very influenced by other people and forgot who his original friends were. I think he was swept up in his success and hurt some people along the way.  This is called forgetting who your friends are.  This would make audiences perceive him in a negative fashion.  However, money can change and do strange things to people and Facebook is the prime example of that.

When I went to see the film, the movie theatre was packed.  I was really interested in looking at who was attending the movie.  The age range in the room was really young.  I couldn’t believe it.  I found that really interesting.  I wondered if the age of the audience would understand the litigation aspect of the film and was curious if the public would be interested in that part of the movie.  I remember thinking that the advertisements about the movie didn’t focus on the litigation part which was a huge part of the film.

After reading the interview that Ben Parr had with Mark Zuckerberg, I have come to the conclusion that Zuckerberg is a smart business man.  I say this because Zuckerberg realizes that focusing on his business and developing new products is more important than worrying about if people like you are not.  He is not hung up on if people like or dislike him after watching the Facebook movie and I admire that.  The media could portray that this response to the movie is cold hearted but in reality, it is what is important.  Business is business.  I think it is a realistic response, especially with how big Facebook is.  I don’t think the amount of people that come out disliking Zuckerberg will even make a dent in the value of Facebook now or in the future.  It is a numbers game in my opinion.

I visited http://prpost.wordpress.com/feed/ the Zuckerberg, Hears and Hollywood: PR Lessons Learned from the Past section and learned that Zuckerberg appeared on Oprah on the day the movie came out to announce the establishment of his foundation and his first gift of a $100 million which was given to the Newark school system. Zuckerberg says the timing was coincidental, which seems to insult the audience’s intelligence.  I agree, underestimating the intelligence of your audience is a public relations nightmare. Personally, I don’t believe that the timing was coincidental with Zuckerberg’s power and influence.  With that being said, I think it is important to see the good that is being done by the generosity of a $100 million dollar donation.  I have a background working in charities and this type of donation will change many lives.  I think the public relations strategy for Facebook now and in the future should be to focus on philanthropic initiatives and the success stories that prevail.