Yet another day. Yet another promoted post on Facebook by a brand. And yet… someone doesn’t seem to get the basics.
A sponsored post from Urban Ladder landed on my timeline last night. Just the usual – another lovely looking piece of furniture… pushed up by the brand using the normal Facebook tools.
The usual comments ensued – what is the price?… where can I see it in a store?… Oh you don’t have a store?… nice one… mast hai… wow… etc.
Then, one particular comment caught my eye.
It said,
All bloody paid comments
Huh? Where did that come from?
The good folks at Urban Ladder got back to this commenter in under 15 minutes. With the rather sane,
Anant, none of these are paid comments. People have come and commented on their own. We have promoted this particular post as an ad for this product, but the comments aren’t paid for.
Anant, our angst-ridden man responds in the next 5 minutes –
Really. Do you think people are fool? Please stop sending unsolicited adverts.
Huh? What exactly is bothering him? The so-called ‘paid comments’? Or, some so-called ‘unsolicited adverts’?
Urban Ladder, again, gets back fast, with a mix of the personal and templatized:
Anant, Facebook is a marketing and engagement platform for us. We abide by Facebook’s terms and conditions and accordingly advertise on their platform.
We are really sorry about any inconvenience caused. We’d like to clarify that a brand/business page cannot subscribe you to its posts. What appears in your news feed is governed by Facebook’s ad platform and your account settings.
If you’d like to talk about this, do let us know and we’ll be more than happy to give you a call sometime.
I’d hardly categorize this under the ‘inconvenience caused’ bucket to initiate an apology protocol, particularly since the concerned person seems to be confused on what specifically is bothering him and doesn’t seem to have made up his mind yet on that. But, ‘inconvenience caused’ doesn’t do any harm in this situation.
To which, our pal, Anant, responds:
I am figuring out how can I stop getting unsolicited adverts.
Aah! So, it may not be ‘paid comments’ after all, that seems to be bothering Anant. It may be the fact that people seem to be seeing Urban Ladder’s posts on Facebook – this includes his friends on Facebook, since that’s one way how he got to this post in the first place even if he hasn’t ‘liked’ Urban Ladder on Facebook himself. And he is clearly miffed about the kind of nice comments the piece of furniture is getting.
Now, now… why could this be? Why could a harmless piece of furniture and comments on it from random people bother Anant so much?
All you need to do is just click on Anant’s name on Facebook.
And you get this!
QED.
In these days of heightened interest in social media, it is baffling to see people indulge in what they assume is completely normal behavior online, as if trying to mimic what they’d do offline – stand outside a store and shout abuses at the products inside it just because they own a rival store. Or, come to the store and complain about how someone from the store left a handbill/notice about its products in his porch without his permission… and how annoyed he is with this act.
Fascinating!