Why Commenting as Brands on Facebook Sucks

Yes, the reaction to the impersonality of a brand name versus the reaction to the personality of a real person is undoubtedly there. However, the reaction may well be offset if the brand's avatar is a photo of the person behind the brand rather than having a coca cola bottle as the avatar. Overall, I see this discussion as a sub-set of the 'useful-comment-versus-spam-comment' argument. I administer a brand on Facebook. I had vaguely heard about commenting on other pages as a brand, but didn't look into it until I read your piece. I can see the advantage though, because it gets my brand name in front of other people. So I just went and switched accounts from my personal account to my brand account (it's easy to do - there is a toggle in the account section at top right on the page) and left a comment on a page that I like. The thing is that I didn't put anything in my comment that I wouldn't put in any other comment anywhere else - no 'come and look at my page' etc. But with sites that are, for example, comment-luv and keyword-luv enabled, the line between signing in under one's own personal name and a 'brand' name is blurred - so commenting as my brand on Facebook is not much of a leap. [I just have to go and get my photo taken now]

Jay, I don't think you're looking at the whole landscape. I work for a company that is working through best practices and policies for doing customer service via social media. Thanks to Facebook, when someone cries out for help we now have two options. IKE PIGOTT: Hi, my name is Ike Pigott and I work for the power company. I see where you're having problems paying online. Can I help you? ALABAMA POWER: Hi, this is Ike with our customer care team. Anything we can do to help? According to your hardline stance, you think people will shy away from hearing from ALABAMA POWER. You don't think they'd be creeped out by some stranger claiming to be from the power company? With no verification? Now, let's say we do have a team of several dozen employees acting on behalf of the company. You dealt with IKE in the past, and reach out to him. But he's not on call 24/7, although ALABAMA POWER is. Think of it as the equivalent of Twitter's "Verified Accounts." Without it, customer care gets hobbled, and opens up the door for a lot of fraud.

Great article and I totally agree! Brands as an entity cannot and should not interact as if they were people. The only way I can see this working is for a public figure or a singer/actor/comedian using Pages as a Profile. This way they can interact while maintaining a persona (key point here = "persona" and not "logo/brand"). Plus, they would have better control over keeping somer of their looney fans from seeing their more private photos, friends, family members and conversations.

@Claire: You said: "I could give a crap about them outside of work. Except for a couple of my favorite bloggers." Really?

I am my brand. Actually, it's easier to recognize my face from my FB business page. I like interacting with other "brands" (primarily small businesses like mine) as my page, because I only care about them from a business perspective. I could give a crap about them outside of work. Except for a couple of my favorite bloggers.

"...and decided to become a marketing platform with social connections." Jay, if you ever thought that wasn't the case from day one, you might be naive at best :) But I doubt it...

Hey Jay, I agree with you. I tried it first time it became available, made a comment and gave up. Looked so weird. I mean, if a page comments on some post of mine, I would probably be annoyed too. I wanna meet the person. If I like the person I will do my best to help him/her promote their business. But starting like that is not something I expect from social media. Definitely a great observation...but what else would I expect from you :)

One problem with your hypothesis is that a brand can't interact at all w/anyone who hasn't 'liked' the brand in the first place. So, if you don't 'like' coca-cola's FB page, they can't post on your wall, comment on your status. Nada. And, if you do 'like' a brand and don't like them commenting on your wall or whatever, you merely 'unlike' them, right in their comment, status update or however they communicated with you. I LIKE communicating with brands as people. Quite a few of my friends (offline as well as on) are strongly identified with their business brands. All of them are small businesses, not working for large corporations. So, when AbsolutelyClean comments on my page I know it's actually Stephanie, who's funny, bright, intelligent and a cool person to be around. She just happens to own a cleaning company and is excellent at branding herself and business. Same with Mari Smith. She may post as MariSmith or Mari Smith. I know both as they're the same person. Kim Castleberry is also KimCastleberry and on it goes. So, a brand communicating with you on FB isn't about the logo, but the person behind it. Besides, who doesn't have an avatar on some blog/forum? Same thing.

Interesting point you made: " People don’t want to interact with logos and branding. People want to interact with people." But there are also people who just want to interact with brands/companies. Isn't it? Maybe not the majority. But when employees are responding to customers on behalf of a brand and disclose their real identity, this might be something different. I interact with several brands on Facebook. But I only do it when I know from whome the response is comming. But you are right: when people interact with brands/logos this is not a satisfying communication. And yes, people want to interact with people. Best wishes from Switzerland, Aldo

This totally sucks especially since Facebook allowed us to act as humans and not company brands when initially setting up pages and accounts. I just realized that I replied to an event on Facebook as a brand and not myself. And of course there is no way to change it!

I approve of this message. Signed Cocaine and Whores

Spot. On.

I agree Jay, if Facebook page admins use this wrong (which they will) people will leave very very quickly. No question Facebook will turn into what MySpace was when everyone left it!