Keep it nice, we're on Facebook...

I was recently having a conversation with a gentleman about his experiences on Facebook, with a page created by his all time favourite NRL team. He is a season ticket holding, multiple jersey toting, team colours flowing through his veins kinda guy. He is a hard working man, who has seen his team triumph and stumble, all the whole remaining loyal to his team.

His enthusiasm for his team has seen him vent his frustrations on their Facebook page, following an embarrassing defeat. No swear words were muttered, nor any derogatory comment made. He was simply stating the current situation at the club, and offered an honest summation of the coach's ongoing performance. For this, his comment was swiftly removed, and he was banned from the page. When he emailed the club to pursue this, he received an email reply which closed with the statement that he should not contact the club again. His thanks for spending his hard earned money to support a club he is passionate about, has been met with one great big 'talk to the hand'. How long would a business remain viable, if this was their approach to acknowledging and responding to customer feedback?

So how can businesses, organisations and clubs get it right when it comes to appropriately managing feedback on their Facebook pages?

The first question that an admin of a facebook page has to ask themselves is, what is the purpose of this page?
Is it to provide information about your products and services? Is it to share updates with existing and potential clients? Is it to provide a place for clients to provide feedback or seek assistance? Is it to create buzz about upcoming promotions, products or events? Is it merely to score as many 'likes' as you can?

Once you have determined the purpose of the page, you can then work to create and maintain a Facebook page to achieve this. It is important to remember, however, that Facebook is only one of many social media options. Overall, your online presence should be managed in ways which will enhance your brand.

It is commonplace for so many administrators of Facebook pages to simply delete comments and block people who either raise questions, concerns or complaints. They see these as blemishes on their 'perfect' pages, instead of seeing them for the rich opportunities they are to both resolve conflict, but to also assure clients (existing and potential) they are resilient enough to successfully exist in the land of Facebook, and in fact, the Internet as a whole.

Rather than deleting the disappointed fan's comment and blocking him, the administrator of the page could have simply provided a stock standard, "thanks, but we agree to disagree comment" which would have acknowledged his feedback, but without engaging in a keyboard warrior-esque battle. 


The particular club does state on their page:

In addition to all Facebook rules, users of the ***** Facebook page are expected to comply with the following guidelines:

We encourage the expression of opinions and open discussions, but we do require participants to act respectfully and responsibly.

Posts will be deleted from the **** Facebook if they contain:

Offensive, abusive, obscene, profane, hateful or racist content, links or images
Comments that threaten or defame any person or organisation
Solicitations and advertisements by other organisations or endorsements of other organisations
Multiple or repetitive posts by a single user
Repetitive posts copied and pasted or duplicated by single or multiple users
Anything else **** deems inappropriate


It would appear that despite encouraging expression of opinions, an analysis of the performance of the team is deemed inappropriate for the Facebook page.   


With increasingly more people using social media to access information and respond to the actions of others,  considered responses are required by page and site administrators to ensure objections are handled appropriately. After all, the only thing worse than fans, clients or prospective clients posting comments of complaint or opinion, is when they give up and simply stop engaging with you completely. 




Comments

  1. I think you have chosen a poor picture of a keyboard for your blog Moo :-P

    ReplyDelete

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