So people expect Virgin to provide quality, innovative products and services and when Ryan Air hinted that they'd consider charging for the use of the toilet on their aircraft, people might have laughed at the suggestion, but no one was surprised.

Branding problems start when the companies behind successful brands do something that goes against the grain.

So when British Airways' launch of Heathrow Terminal Five was such a fiasco, people were surprised and lost confidence in a brand they'd previously trusted.

And when social network Facebook issued news terms and conditions there was an immediate outcry among users, a flood of negative media coverage and a somewhat embarrassing climbdown by the company which quickly reinstated the original terms of use.

The problem for Facebook was that they'd greatly misjudged their community and indeed, this is surprising.

That Facebook's fundamental mission is to empower individuals to communicate and build relationships, makes it difficult to understand why company executives tried to impose new rules of engagement without consultation of their key stakeholders, their millions of users.

Among the many changes was the shift of ownership of content from the user to Facebook.

So if you'd posted photographs for example, as most Facebookers do every day, and then sometime later wanted to delete your profile, all the photographs you'd posted would remain 'live' on Facebook even though you are no longer part of the community.

People didn't like this. And they voted with their feet.

Thousands of users deleted their profiles immediately as headlines around the world rang out the 'Big Brother' implications.

But Facebook responded swiftly.

At internet speed they cancelled the new terms, reinstated the old ones and informed every individual user by posting a note and an apology on their profiles.

This return to form was perhaps unsurprising as people expect an internet service such as Facebook to be nimble and responsive.

This reaction was just what the doctor ordered to restore trust and the company's reputation.

What they did next was truly innovative and might, with time, prove to be revolutionary.

At the very least it will restore complete confidence in Facebook as a brand and as a company.

The company published two documents, Facebook Principles, and a Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and asked for feedback from its users.

'Last week, we returned to our previous terms of use as we worked on a new set of governing documents that would more clearly explain the relationship between Facebook and its users,' wrote Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the company blog.

'Since then I've been excited to see how much people care about Facebook and how willing they are to contribute to the process of governing the site.

'Our main goal at Facebook is to help make the world more open and transparent.

'We believe that if we want to lead the world in this direction, then we must set an example by running our service in this way.'

Facebook Principles covers the rights of individual users of the site, and will act as a framework for future changes.

It includes commitments that users own their own information, that they have a right to decide with whom to share it, and that future decisions about the site are subject to a 'town hall' style of democratic discussion.

The Statement of Rights and Responsibilities will replace the terms of use.

They include the view that information on the site is not going to be available forever, but can be deleted by the user, that new rules should have input from users and the rules should be easy to understand.
Mr Zuckerberg said: 'History tells us that systems are most fairly governed when there is an open and transparent dialogue between the people who make decisions and those who are affected by them.

'We believe history will one day show that this principle holds true for companies as well, and we're looking to moving in this direction with you.'

Users are invited to comment on the proposals and have until March 29 to do so. Any contentious issues will be put to a vote which will be binding if more than 30 per cent of users take part in the ballot. So far, the community has been forthcoming with feedback.

At the time of writing, Mr Zuckerberg's blog post had 3,056 comments which ran to 99 pages.

This is kind of engagement strategy, although innovative, is the next logical step in internet-enabled democratisation of business.

If it works, it will truly set Facebook apart from competitors, taking its model beyond the 'network' and monetisation of content model to a whole new dimension of community. Where Facebook leads, others will follow.

This could very well be a significant turning point in corporate governance practices generally.


>> Sherrilynne Starkie is the managing partner of Strive Public Relations, a strategic communications consultancy serving the Isle of Man. Visit her business blog, www.strivepr.com/notes or follow her on twitter.com/sherrilynne