Comments on: Seems Dumb To Me

By: Marko Bon

Marko Bon — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 21:32:02 +0000

@ John — Ralph Lauren did not request that the Page “Squatter” be removed from Facebook. Our stance was very much to reward him for being a fan, which you note in your post. I believe the user in question had taken over multiple fan pages across many luxury brands — so perhaps Facebook removed him for that reason, or at the behest of another brand.

By: John Battelle

John Battelle — Sat, 17 May 2008 01:44:20 +0000

@michael – I think there is a difference. But why not have a program where all these folks can be a part? No reason to make them official spokespeople. But every reason to embrace them.

By: Michael Cohn

Michael Cohn — Sat, 17 May 2008 01:35:57 +0000

Don’t you think there’s a difference between encouraging a conversation about your brand, and awarding spokesmanship to the first person who wears a t-shirt with your logo on it?

By: David Mullings

David Mullings — Fri, 16 May 2008 21:00:06 +0000

I know that if someone created a fan page for my brand, I would take advantage of it, partly to avoid the backlash of "taking away" the person's page and also because I don't want to control what people actually say about my brand.

I would would engage the creator and provide some exclusive insider stuff to really make them feel special, engendering even more love from them, which will then be spread to all their friends, acquaintances and "fans" of the page.

If you want positive word of mouth and ridiculous support, get a super fan involved (just look at what Mariah Carey's fan club has been doing to promote her album).

If you want negative word of mouth - take away the page and they probably tell 100x as many people in this day and age, worse when it shows up on a blog...like right now.

By: Ian McAllister

Ian McAllister — Fri, 16 May 2008 16:54:12 +0000

I couldn't agree more that brands should let fans evangelize their brand. Facebook's Groups product works quite well for this purpose.

Facebook Pages are intended to be authoritative, official placements to represent a company, brand, artist or other entity. Ralph Lauren is justified in wanting to own their own "authoritative" Facebook Page. Would you rather they offered the previous tenant nothing, or do you think $200K would be more appropriate. If the latter, then this would simply be a new form of domain squatting.

I think Facebook made the right call in making this a self-service feature to begin with and shows good judgment in how they handle ownership situations.