How To Engage On Sites Using Facebook’s New Commenting Plugin

Facebook recently introduced a new version of its Facebook Comment Box Plugin, allowing website owners to integrate their commenting functionality with their Facebook presence.

We’ve already looked at the pros and cons of the Facebook commenting plugin for businesses considering implementing the plugin on their sites. Today, let’s take a look at what the implications are for companies running engagement programs.

The new plugin poses a conundrum to those working in engagement programs – specifically, around how they engage in the comment streams on sites using the plugin:

• Do they comment as a Facebook Page, assuming they have one (and deal with the lower personalization and effect on Page content)?
• Do they personalize responses more by using commenters’ own Facebook accounts (does that cross a work/life boundary)?
• Do they just avoid commenting on sites using this plugin?

Here’s my take on five clear options for people running social media response programs. What’s yours? Let us all know what you think in the comments below.

Option 1: Individual employees comment using their own profiles

Have company employees log in and comment using their own Facebook profiles.

• Pros:
  • Transparency of person’s identity
  • Avoids potentially negative comment streams being pushed to the company’s Facebook page

• Cons:
  • Requires employee to use a personal account for business purposes. Could be considered to cross a work/life divide
  • Company-related conversation aggregated on employee Facebook profile
  • Possible that some company spokespeople may not have Facebook pages
• Conclusion:
  • As transparent as this option is, the cons and the risk of violating work/life boundaries outweigh the benefits
  • Lost opportunity to aggregate relevant conversation and to activate advocates on page

Option 2: Comment as company-owned Facebook page

Company employees log in to their own accounts, but use the new person-like features of Facebook Pages to leave comments as the company’s Facebook page.

• Pros:
  • Clear that responses come from company’s official presence
  • Avoids using personal accounts for business purposes
  • Drive additional traffic to appropriate Facebook pages
  • Aggregated conversations provide additional content for Facebook pages

• Cons:
  • Potential lower transparency, as company name shows as the comment author (although can be mitigated via comment content)
  • Conversations aggregated on company page may not be positive in tone
  • Dilutes official content on the company’s Facebook page
  • Requires wider group of employees to have admin access to the company’s Facebook page, meaning less control over activity on the page
  • Potential for accidental comments as Facebook Pages on non company-related conversations, if employees forget to change their commenting profile back to their personal accounts
• Conclusion:
  • Clear benefits over using personal profiles, but increases the level of risk on company pages via increased admin access and unpredictable content. Depending on the company, this approach may be viable.

Option 3: Create new, business-only Facebook profiles for commenters

Company employees engage in the comment streams under their own names, but via  profiles created purely for company use.

• Pros:
  • Separation of personal and business profiles
  • Avoid additional admins on Facebook pages
  • Maintains engagement on sites with Facebook commenting plugin installed
  • Avoids diluting content on Facebook pages

• Cons:
  • Violates Facebook terms and conditions – risk of accounts being deleted by Facebook.
  • Lost opportunity to aggregate relevant conversation and to activate advocates on page
• Conclusion:
  • Risk incurred from violating Facebook terms and conditions is not advisable.

Option 4: Create Yahoo! accounts for commenters

Company employees comment on posts themselves, but do so through a new integration in the plugin – a Yahoo! login.

• Pros:
  • Works within Facebook’s rules
  • Avoid additional admins on Facebook pages
  • Avoids diluting content on Facebook pages
  • Maintains engagement on sites with Facebook commenting plugin installed

• Cons:
  • Less credibility of commenter profiles – Facebook profiles perceived as more credible than Yahoo! accounts
  • Lost opportunity to aggregate relevant conversation and to activate advocates on page
  • Could be perceived as easy for anyone to claim to be a company employee
• Conclusion:
  • This option minimizes risk to the company and maintains the ability to engage. However, this option also loses the opportunity to curate conversations on the Facebook page, and the lack of identity verification that Facebook provides may reduce spokesperson credibility (although no more than via other commenting systems).All-in-all, this provides a viable option for companies looking to engage on these sites.

Option 5: Avoid commenting where Facebook Commenting Plugin is used

Avoid the pros and cons of all of the other options by refraining from engagement on sites using the new Facebook commenting plugin.

• Pros:
  • Avoids risk of accidental cross-posting
  • Avoids diluting Facebook page content

• Cons:
  • Lose opportunity to participate in relevant conversations via comment streams
  • If adoption of Facebook pages increases, lose broader opportunity to engage
• Conclusion:
  • This is the “do nothing” approach. Frankly, it’s a last-resort if a company is already engaging in conversations on third-party sites.

Conclusion: It depends on your culture

Facebook has thrown a bit of a wrench in the works for companies engaging in social media response programs. None of these options is ideal from a company perspective – each comes with draw-backs in terms of risk, transparency and credibility.

Many companies may want to use Facebook’s new ‘company as a page’ functionality (option #2) to benefit from the ability to aggregate conversations on their own Facebook pages, and to do so credibly while providing interesting conversations for fans of their pages to participate in – and a way to leverage the advocates on your page to weigh-in on relevant topics.

However, for those carefully tailoring the volume and type of content posted on their pages, this makes life difficult. Dan Zarrella, for example, has shown that if you post too often to your page, you may lose fans. By throwing comment replies into the mix, companies may run the risk of saturating their page with content, to the detriment of people on the page. What’s more, your comments are unlikely to always be positive, so you may end up aggregating negative conversations on your page.

Meanwhile, logging-in via a Yahoo ID (option #4) offers a good balance of maintaining work/life separation for empoyees, influence over Facebook Page content, and risk mitigation from avoiding additional page admins and reducing the risk of accidental comments “by the company”. The downside of this, though, is the lost opportunity to bring these conversations to your fans, and the lack of identity verification that Yahoo IDs provide.

Ultimately, this is likely to come down to company culture. Is your culture more risk averse? Then you may want to go with Yahoo IDs. Are you more accepting of slightly higher risk? Then commenting as your company’s Facebook page may provide the greatest benefits without usurping employees’ personal accounts.

What do you think? Would you come to the same conclusion? What would you add to the mix?