How about those social media trends anyway?

Now for a little break from rubber chicken infested missives...

In the past few days, the Twisted Oak Winery Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/twistedoak) has seen a couple of posts from wineries and wine organizations from outside the Sierra Foothills area - one from Sonoma, and one from Monterey (see above).

I'm pondering whether this apparent trend really constitutes a fair use of my winery page.

On the one hand, cross posting freely with other pages allows everyone to branch out and reach new audiences in one big spirit of community and raising all boats.

On the other hand, people who agree to follow/join/like a page are opting in (kind of like email) to that page and are not expecting other messages. It smells like spam. And it seems impolite and presumptive.

Also, if this cross posting gets out of hand, my winery messaging could get lost in the mix.**

Currently, I'm choosing to reciprocate the behavior to highlight the issue ("hey! you can't spray paint MY wall!"). However, the irony seems to be lost on the other parties.

I'm curious what the group mind thinks about this apparent trend.

** I am aware that I could choose to split page posts from member posts - however, I rather like the interplay between fans and would hate to diminish that in any way.

Comments

[Jeff]

Jeff,

I'm convinced the 80/20 rule applies to everything. In this instance, 80% of the people are thoughtless.

Who would think this is good form? Ahem, probably the same guy that just sent me a Facebook invite to a wine event at a restaurant in Norway. Seriously. The guy can't take two minutes to remove the checkmark next to my name before forwarding it to all of his "friends??"

I think your approach of gentle sarcasm is the right tact until more aggressive action is called for.

[Shana Ray]

I am a big supporter of having all comments from fans (err "likers") and the brand on one Wall Page, it allows for interaction within a community. Especially one as stimulating as yours...

But, while we are all essentially promoting something, the page itself should be about topics RELATED to the brand. If I were to promote bacon or cupcakes, or my new line of rubber chicken perfume or something that we all agree has to do with the spirit of the Twisted brand, I could see it being of value to your fans. A comment like the one above provides NOTHING of value and should be deleted.

That being said, it may get confusing figuring out what is of"value" and what isn't. That is where a social media disclaimer comes in saying that you have the right to delete any posts, links or comments that don't provide value or are distasteful, etc. This way all can be happy.

It is very similar to blog post comments where one may choose to let in one that is promoting something that has nothing to do with the community.... i.e., #WOW10, an amazing seminar coming up in Sonoma County (http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23WOW10) or something similar. :)

[El Jefe]

I'm reminded of an earlier form of social media called Usenet. Usenet simply was a collection of interest groups, from the highly technical to hobbies to kinkiness, accessed via the internet. In its early days Usenet was pretty pure in that each group had its focus and didn't have unrelated noise.

Then one day two clever lawyers decided to advertise their business across EVERY Usenet group, and their messages popped up everywhere. You can probably imagine the furor this caused - in fact, from this episode came the use of the word "spam" to describe this behavior: can't talk for all of the bloody Vikings singing...

This situation is similar in that anyone who belongs to the group (page) can post anything anytime. The only tool we have to police it is the Delete button, after the fact. Spam like this ended up rendering Usenet mostly useless...

[Jeff]

usenet? Now you're going way old school on me. I've been online since '95 and I feel like I'm old school.

Isn't Usenet where they first traded, ahem, pictures.

At any rate, facebook is what it is. When my Mom and father-in-law friended me within a week of each other early last year I knew everybody had gotten in the pool, for better and for worse.

Also, for what it's worth, I moderate the Wine Business Network group on LinkedIn and I instituted a No Spam policy. You get off topic and I remove you. No questions asked. The rate of spam dropped rapidly overnight.

[El Jefe]

You want to get old school, we could talk about dialup BBS - Bulletin Board Systems. 1200 baud modems anyone? ;)

[El Jefe]

Thats a good idea about the policy. So Ive written a posting policy for the FB page. Its located here: http://www.facebook.com/twistedoak?v=info

[Meg Houston Maker]

Yes, it's spam. And yes, the way to answer spam is to have a policy already in place that indicates your tolerance level.

More discursively: Many of my clients and colleagues have drunk the "markets are conversations" Kool-Aid, which is a good thing. But they interpret it too liberally for their own good, tangling themselves in the idea that comments and wall posts should be governed by a free speech ideology. Not so. Your Facebook page, or your blog or magazine or company website or product pages, are your publication, and it's perfectly acceptable, and in fact highly advisable, for you to set (and post) an editorial policy about community engagement.

The best policy I ever ran across was very simple. It was from Intel, and it said, essentially: "The good, the bad, but not the ugly." In other words, if a comment is on topic and contextually relevant, it will be approved and posted, regardless of whether it’s laudatory or critical of Intel. However, if a comment is ugly, offensive, denigrating, or completely out of context, it will be rejected. The New York Times’ policy is similar: they moderate all comments, publishing without edit those that are thoughtful and backed by a real name. However, like Intel, they tolerate no personal attacks or vulgarity. A commercial site might add that comments should concern the company's products, or at least be germane to a thoughtful discussion of them and their improvement.

Jeff, I think your wall posters here are exploiting the good will of the "free speech" campers. Since their comments are related to your line of business, they might raise a slight ethical dilemma within those who are (rightly) liberal minded, catholic in their tolerance for discourse on the larger topic. But scratch the surface even slightly and you see that their intentions are plainly to refocus visitor attention onto their own product. That's off-topic, so that's just spam.