We lost a Fan today.
And given the feedback on the new Facebook and how just about everything posted on Fan Pages ends up in the individual Fan's stream, I can't say I blame people for wanted to cut down the chatter and the clutter.
We have been experimenting on the THP Fan Page, as I'm guessing others have as well. When every time you post a client's success ora status update it ends up being blasted to fans, that's at least one or two posts a day. Multiply that by the similar updates from friends and other "fanned" pages and you have the new Facebook information barrage that people are explaining about.
For marketers this will likely mean continued experimentation and a period during which they will gain and likely lose some people. Not because those people aren't fans any more, but because they don't have the time, patience and energy to be fans to as many as before.
Over time, marketers will learn when to crank the volume up or back off. Facebookers will also learn that there are tools built into the program to filter out specific friends and Fan Pages.
But for now and a little while longer, all of us including me will have to develop a think skin.
Someone has to come up with a way to easily digest all the information that gets blasted out there. Even RSS feeds get difficult to absorb. That would be one heck of a "aha moment."
Posted by: John Sternal | March 22, 2009 at 05:05 PM
Very good post. Expect a cross blog convo from me on this.
Posted by: DeAnna Troupe | March 22, 2009 at 05:08 PM
Which brings up the question -- am I ever going to get "caught" for "hiding" a friend from my feed? I'm trying to keep from getting overloaded with info, but I just know one day there is going to come a time when a friend says, "Oh, you should have known that, it was all over Facebook, don't you keep up with my posts?" and I have to say, "Well actually, since we aren't that close (or since your posts bore me)I choose to not even see them!" YIKES!
Posted by: jonah | March 23, 2009 at 10:49 PM