Are Facebook pages for businesses essentially evil?
13/07/2009, Author: Alan Redman
It’s old news by now really, but you can set up a page for your business on Facebook. And then post adverts and such.
But Facebook is a social networking site; should it become yet another channel for commerce?
From the early days of Facebook business became involved, though not necessarily in ways that were helpful to business needs. Facebook groups emerged as a vehicle for expressing views, opinions or just contempt for organisations. Sometimes these groups were set up by consumers and sometimes by employees.
Try searching for ‘Tesco’ in Facebook groups. A quick trawl brings up ‘Stop Tescos’, ‘Boycott Tescos’ and the elegantly forthright ‘Fuck Tescos’. At first organisations were alarmed by this new channel for criticism and resistance; but soon realised it was beyond censorship and often the work of a few crazies.
But now they can fight back. The same search for ASDA on Facebook brings up a corporate page for the Arrow Park. It has over 6,500 fans. That means 6,500+ people like ASDA enough to become find the page and link it to their personal page.
It all began with businesses creating Facebook groups as a means of promoting products or attracting candidates to recruitment processes. And now there’s a formal process for a business to create its own Facebook presence and interact with its customers and employees as a social entity. But should commercial organisations be appropriating social space?
We’d welcome your comments, which you can post below or by visiting the Criterion Partnership Facebook page and joining the discussion there.
Cuh, those shamelessly self-promoting businesses eh?
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