The People Behind the Pages
26 Feb
Sometimes it’s easy to forget that there are real people being Facebook pages. It’s easy to read posts, click like, share them, or even ignore them all together but every once in a while, something happens that makes us remember that there is someone (or a team of someones) sitting behind the page, carefully selecting what will appears in a Facebook stream. Sometimes that “something” is a quirky little mistake…
Yesterday, I noticed a post from the NPR Facebook page that looked a little different. Instead of the usual link to a story that they normally post, there was a block of text:
It turns out, people didn’t mind. And a quick scan of the Facebook page shows that this post is pretty active and engaging compared to some of their other posts.
This post stood out to me because it is personal, friendly and conversational… much like a note that a friend would send. Additionally, it’s pretty transparent. Somebody made a light, honest error and they fixed it. Fortunately for the producer, the picture wasn’t anything racy, pornographic or inappropriate! (If that were the case, it would be a different story!)
The moral of this story is that it’s ok to be “off-brand” and show a little personality every now and then. I wouldn’t recommend posting off-brand messages often but every once in a while, it helps people remember that there are people behind the pages.
