Much ink has been spilled over recent weeks regarding Facebook’s new features. One of the recent changes- the addition of Community Pages- has taken a backseat to more pressing issues regarding privacy. But upon further inspection, it seem that Community Pages have wide-reaching implications when it comes to organizations and their social media marketing.
Most of you probably noticed that Facebook prompted you to join pages based on your interests. Why? It seems like Facebook intends for Community Pages to be like a Wikipedia entry plus social media. When I click on the page for American University, my alma mater, I’m linked to a page that hosts the Wikipedia entry for AU and a page that aggregates all mentions of AU in people’s statuses.
Many of these posts are from the actual school, however I’m immediately struck by how many entries are irrelevant. And by irrelevant, I mean, not even related to American University. It’s not hard to imagine how many programs around the world contain the words “American” and “University.” Just on the first page alone, the aggregator has pulled up the American University in Beirut, National American University (in Austin) and American University in the context of “I’m going to an American university.” This instantly brings to mind the Skittles campaign I wrote about last year and how people would abuse the Skittles Twitter aggregator by using the Skittles hashtag with non-family friendly related posts.
The pages pose two problems: 1) now there are two pages for American- the community page hosted by Facebook and the page hosted by American, 2) the inevitable misuse of the page either intentional or accidentally. Facebook says that once the pages reach a certain popularity level, the page will then belong to the community- much like a wiki. This means colleges and universities will likely be the first to see their pages reach this point as most people have some sort of higher education affiliation.
It will be interesting to see if the Community Pages are something that will widely ignored (I confess that this is the first time I’ve looked at AU’s page) or if they’ll eventually become more important than the pages you “Like.” It’s important for anyone in marketing or recruiting to watch this trend carefully. Originally, Facebook fan pages were great because it allowed the college or university to oversee honest discussions and answer inquiries about the school outside of the more formal school website. I worry that if the Community Page catches on, it will replace the fan page as the spot for open communication, giving marketers for the university less access to join the conversation and help dialog.
Jun 1st, 2010
9:43AMJoel Cloraltsays:
Great post Kate!
I believe community pages won’t take off soon. They are something people are still trying to understand and probably more than half of Facebook users don’t know these pages exists. On the other hand there are multiple community pages with the same name since they were created from whatever people had written on their profile.