Implications of Facebook’s Page Commenting Changes Turning Off Comments May Be a Problem
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A conversation with Matthew Snodgrass (see bio), Social Media Director at WCG, about Facebook’s planned changes to its “whitelisting” policy and its implications for pharmaceutical marketers.
UPDATE: Pharma Facebook Commenting Changes: The Final Story
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Background
Within the next couple of weeks, Facebook will be announcing changes to how their Facebook Pages work, specifically when it comes to commenting. Currently, Page administrators have the ability to disable comments to Wall posts, photos, and videos. This process is called “whitelisting.”
Many pharmaceutical companies have taken advantage of this, since they work in highly regulated industries and would find it difficult to deal with open comments from the Facebook community.
Facebook will be changing their policy when it comes to disabling comments. At some point, possibly as early as mid-June, Facebook will be opening up comments on ALL pharma Pages with some exceptions. It’s important for pharmaceutical companies to know what those exceptions are and how to handle them.
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Questions/Topics Discussed- Explain how Facebook currently implements “whitelisting?”
- Why do pharmaceutical companies want to turn commenting off?
- What are the specifics of Facebook’s new policing regarding comments?
- What types of pharmaceutical Facebook pages will be exempt from “whitelisting” (ie, NOT be able to turn off comments)?
Guest Bio
Matthew Snodgrass is Group Director, Social Media for WCG in New York. Along with extensive experience in digital marketing and social media, he brings with him over sixteen years of digital media experience, such as producing, directing, writing, and editing. At WCG, Matt oversees social marketing for WCG clients spanning health care, pharma, biotech, and consumer brands, such as sanofi-aventis, Warner Bros., Hershey’s, and others.
Matt was one of the founding members of the Association for Downloadable Media, an industry group focused on advancing the field of podcasting, where he served on the executive board. He was also one of the founding members of the Podcasting Open Metrics Initiative.
Matthew can be followed on Twitter: @mattsnod
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