The Social Media Guide asks fans to join in discussion around posts, but don’t participate themselves.
Do you follow Mashable on Facebook? Have you noticed the change in how they post? They’ve recently started asking questions. A lot of them.
Do you think the school was justified in its actions? Or are you simply creeped out?
How do you plan to celebrate Photoshop’s 20th?
What do you think of brands using augmented reality? Does it make you more likely to buy the product?
Be honest: Would you buy/wear these, or is this just a little too nerdy?
And my personal favorite: Will you watch? … Well now, that’s vague.
In the last 3 days (1pm on Tuesday to 1pm today…it’s Friday, by the way, but don’t let me get off topic), Mashable has posted 73 updates. Of those, 58 are questions. 79% are questions. W00t! Mashable wants to know what we think. And they’re going to engage in conversation with us. Right?
Wrong.
Mashable is not participating in the conversation. They’re inviting interaction by asking questions in an attempt to increase activity around each post, which will increase likelihood that posts will make it into the news feeds of more fans and friends-of-fans*, but they are not engaging in the conversations that play out in the comments. The most recent post Tim Burton Talks “Alice in Wonderland” Live on MySpace Tonight [VIDEO] had 24 comments at the time of writing, not a single one from Mashable. A scan of the previous ten posts shows an average of 33 comments, and again, not a single one by Mashable**.
At Terralever, we find this very disappointing. It’s one of the things that we insist our clients not do. Mashable is “The Social Media Guide,” and is the de facto news source for what is happening right now in social. They have also made efforts to truly be a guide by providing several how to resources that help newcomers understand the cultural norms and etiquette that govern social media interaction. This makes their current Facebook behavior all the more deplorable.
We’re not the only ones bothered. Scan fan posts on the Mashable wall, and you’ll see other discontents.
On Monday, Mashable posted this feedback request:
We’re looking to do a better job at serving our Facebook community. Some questions: 1. What would you like to see more of on Mashable’s Facebook page? And less of? 2. Would you like more questions & contests, or would you like us to stick to headlines? 3. Should we share all Mashable posts here, or just selected ones? 4. What other changes would make our Facebook page better? –Pete
Another request for interaction, to which they’ve received 204 comments. Here, Mashable has responded. Once. Out of 203 opportunities.
If Mashable wants to simply leverage their Facebook presence as a firehose that gives fans easy access to their wealth of information, cool. But please don’t use us, your fans, as pawns to gain impressions. That is a violation of our trust, and we will unfan you.
*Facebook uses a complex algorithm to determine what stories appear in your news feeds. This algorithm is a guarded secret, but stories that receive high interaction, via likes and comments, are deemed more relevant and are more likely to appear in your own news feed.
**Disclaimer: Mashable has several writers. It is possible for writers to participate in conversations under their own name, as opposed to as a Mashable admin, but my quick investigation did not reveal any of this activity.
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Hey Heather,
Thanks for this feedback – it’s super useful and we do indeed intend to engage more in our Facebook posts. The challenge with Facebook is that, contrary to what you mention above, page admins cannot reply with their personal accounts on our Facebook pages – all comments get posted as “Mashable”. This becomes extremely confusing when multiple admins want to weigh in on a topic, but the updates appear to be coming from one faceless person. We’re hopeful that Facebook will at some point allow us to post as ourselves, rather than using a single admin account for all admins, which makes it difficult to conduct conversations. If you know a way to do this, please do help us out.
One way to deal with the admin/user issue is to actually have people who “administor” or tend to the page by looking through comments, responding, etc, that aren’t actually, or technically, admins of the page. Don’t know if that would work in your org but I’ve used that model for some clients before and it alleviated that issue.
As for the asking questions but then not participating in the comments – I think it depends. A blanket statement saying that that’s bad is a little heavy handed. There’s a lot of community managers who’ll tell you that part of building a community is getting it to the point where it’s a thing of it’s own. The questions might be interaction bait, but I don’t think the conversation is lessened because Mashable itself isn’t participating. They bring up a topic, and let the community talk amongst itself. That’s not inherently bad. The nature of their business is to provide information and a structure/framework for a community to exist. They’re not in and of themselves a “product” or “business” in the way that we look at it normally.
I’m not saying they can’t or shouldn’t weigh in every so often, especially if the discussion is about them specifically. I just don’t think it’s a bad thing that mashable is essentially bringing together 33 people (comments) who are interested in a topic and talking to each other about it.
Pete,
Thank you for responding. It’s reassuring to know that you are attuned to conversations about the Mashable brand. You have been a trusted resource to social media professionals and participants as the space is ever evolving.
The admin commenting issue you mention is definitely a challenge. We, and our clients, struggle with it as well. The best solution we’ve seen so far is admins signing their comments with their name or initials. It comforts fans to feel real people are there listening and engaging.
@Katie / @Pete
From my perspective, I think the commenting/responding piece equates to an administrative decision and follow-through which can be handled many ways. Along the same lines of what Katie suggests: If you have several admins, have them take responsibility for the posts they push up to Facebook, monitor them, and ‘sign’ with their initials.
Bank of America help (@BofA_Help on Twitter, not Facebook) does this in their interactions which are managed by six customer service employees sharing a singular account.
From a brand/brand perception standpoint, the approach seems impersonal and more of a way of getting the fan-based activity to occur to ensure stories get pushed into users’ feeds as opposed to authentic conversation that Mashable is encouraging. Of course there is value in the fans interacting with each other. I don’t think Heather’s intention was to make a blanket statement about participating in the conversation as a standalone statement. In my opintion, it’s the approach as a sum of its parts that feels off-brand for a trusted social media source like Mashable. My honest interpretation was that the Facebook Fan Page must have been outsourced and just wasn’t being watched by Mashable.
It’s only fair and respectful to note that I’m a huge Mashable fan and reader of its content (and will continue to be). Maybe that’s why the Facebook Fan Page approach seemed so ‘off.’
Katie,
You know your social, and I’ve enjoyed our conversations on the subject. You have some very solid points from administration to content to discussion. When making decisions about each of these things, the key is to work in alignment with brand and business goals, community expectations and context. Statements and links may inspire conversation, but don’t inherently require it. Questions are different as they present a request for response. When we submit that response to a suggestion box, we don’t expect a reply. When we submit it on a social network that is about interpersonal connections, we expect something different.
I see your point. I don’t think we’re disagreeing from oposite sides of the spectrum. I agree that for the most part, when you’re interacting on Facebook there’s an expectation of (continued) participation on your part. But I definitely think there’s room for exceptions to that rule and I think Mashable’s a good candidate for that simply by the nature of their service. Social can be used for different purposes – as a vehicle for brand-consumer interaction, but also as a vehicle for consumer-consumer interaction, facilitated/initiated/sponsored by a brand. All I’m saying is that there are two models and neither one is “wrong” by default. Facebook tends to lean towards the former, but the latter is legit too.
@msherr – I love our chats as well! I’m not here to argue, I just like talking about this stuff and enjoy learning through talking through various points/opinion. Like I said in the beginning, I don’t think we’re coming at this from opposite sides, just varying view points and I think that’s ok and even good.
I love it when the comments from a post are as good as or better than the post. Thanks for the post Heather and Katie, Pete and Scott for your responses. Loved the discussion and points brought up on both sides.
@mashable: Posting as a person although you are an admin is possible programmatically (which means you can write an application that does this). I discovered it by accident one day when I found myself posting as myself in our Facebook Application Profile (where I’m an admin of course). We thought of adding this as a feature to RSS Graffiti but it is a bit out of context there so I plan to write a small app that does this. The bad thing about it is that as simple as it may be to implement it (post as a person in your Fan Page by using code), writing a new application and releasing it to the public has much more to it than meets the eye. Anyway the point is you can get a Facebook developer to write an application that does this for you. Nobody every done it so far and the first one to do it will probably be worshiped by Fan Page admins.
@heather: Although I been a Mashable reader for a very very long time I often find myself frustrated reading Mashable. Every so often I also express my frustration in comments. I discovered your blog through the “Mashable Changes its Facebook Posting Strategy” and it really catches my attention because it gives me a a different angle to “the Mashable question”. Although you are right about Mashable’s writers not engaging in conversation, I never really had noticed it. My main focus and complaint about Mashable lately (last year or so) is that more often than not I read stories that seem to be “paid for”, or anyway mainly serving some “greater purpose”, other than giving me information. I mean that I -annoyingly often- see stories that concentrate on creating an impression and shaping opinion about a brand and always wonder “why am I reading this?!”. Of course I see Mashable from a distance and -in its own field- it’s been a great success. Even for a dissatisfied reader like me, Mashable still is among the main sources of information about “all things social”. Mashable (at least in a commercial level) is following what I prefer to call “the edge of the web” (instead of just “social web”) and despite it’s flows it still gives you a good feeling of what’s going on there. So I’m really curious to see how this evolves. After all Mashable started as just another blog but in many ways it’s not “just another blog” anymore. Thanks for this story.
Yannis
@Yannis Thank you for your comments. For page admins, the inability to selectively respond as either the “brand” or as ourselves, is an annoyance many share. You are right, the person who solves that problem, whether an application developer or Facebook themselves, will have our gratitude. I also appreciate your perspective on the content within Mashable’s feeds. They are a go-to resource for those who want to remain informed on what is happening in social media and at “the edge of the web,” and it makes perfect sense that companies would seek opportunities to have their brand and product(s) featured in the lineup. I do think Mashable has done a good job of clearly identifying when articles have been sponsored in some form by a company, and I would guess they have been doing so long before the FCC first issued regulations for sponsored blog posts. To your point, the reader’s hope will always be that they are understood as readers and members in a community of dialogue, rather than a target market. Watching the evolution of any organization, especially one that operates in such a dynamic space, will be fascinating.
P.S. I like the RSS Graffiti application. We have used Yahoo Pipes to accomplish similar functions, but have switched to RSS Graffiti on some of our own pages. It’s easy to use and works well. I’m looking forward to combining Pipes and RSS Graffiti for greater control and customization of feed content.