I’m sure I’m like everyone else who gets totally irritated by the torrent of notification emails you get generated by comments left on a post you’ve interacted with. When Facebook announced earlier this week that they were testing an opt-out feature for these updates, on a personal level I couldn’t have been happier but from a business perspective this seemed to me another hurdle placed in front of community managers who want to nurture conversations with their fans – basically the largest social network in the world is encouraging people to be less social. Without encouraging participation in discussions and chats online with people who have already said they ‘like’ your brand, where can planners get their insights from, how can you gage what’s working and what’s not when it is so easy to disengage? And let’s face it; most people would disengage because they want to feel like they are in control (eek!) and that they have a choice in when they are to be contacted.

The truth is however, I’m hoping that this will have the opposite effect and sort the ‘wheat from the chaff’ of fans who really do want to engage with a brand and those who 1) are transient joiners 2) are passive 3) are random/unrelated-to-post commentators, (as these are the fans who are likely to opt out immediately). The people who are leaving comments and wanting to follow conversations are those that could/may be potential advocates and it’s these fans that are fundamentally more useful.

There is definitely a fine line between keeping users happy and those brands building Facebook’s fortunes, but ultimately the former has to be priority so that users feel comfortable enough to engage with essentially ‘faceless’ profiles (I know, I know – a little dramatic). It also puts further pressure on community managers to be more engaging – what’s the editorial calendar look like? Is it full of updates or actually proper conversation starters? What are the other tools which can be used to get people really wanting to be part of a branded community; which help alleviate the natural disposition of users to opt out?

The truth is – if you’re not the Starbucks, McDonalds or Coca–Cola’s of this world then developing a Facebook community, one which is well populated (all clients want to see this) and one you can garner insights from, is not easy – in fact – it’s getting harder. But focusing on quality of engagement rather than the quantity of comments (and likes) should make for a smarter, more thoughtful approach to using Facebook as a viable marketing tool.