Facebook Becoming a Platform for Consumer Discontent

I have to give props to eagle-eyed Down Under colleague Lorraine Worley on this one. But it's a great example of new media impacting a corporation so I have to share.

Recently some students in England successfully used Facebook to take on HSBC, focusing their anger on a specific action taken by the banking giant -- its reversal of a decision to do away with interest-free overdrafts for recent college graduates.

Using Facebook's "groups" tool more than 6,000 students threatened a boycott, which seemed to work, because HSBC just decided to change course in their favor. The bank says it now wont be chargning studetns for overdrafts and would be refunding recent interest charges.

This is another great example of social networking sites being used to focus protests on niche decisions. This feels conceptually related to the concept of micro-trends.