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By on August 20, 2010

Facebook Community Pages: Your Lurking Reputation Nightmare

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By Renée Revetta

It’s been over four months since Facebook launched Community Pages, and they’re still a big mess.  As users were originally told, Community Pages are NOT completely “dedicated to a topic or experience” but just pages created from everything that users list in their Info tab. Sure that might encompass topics or experiences, but, for example, Community Pages are automatically created for employers, colleges, high schools, interests and activities. With 500 million users on Facebook, those interests, employers and activities quickly add up.

There are still thousands of incomplete Community Pages floating around Facebook. When I say incomplete, I mean there are pages that haven’t been claimed or linked to an official website or Wikipedia page. Here’s an example of a claimed page vs. an unclaimed page: The Steelers (where a Wikipedia page has been linked up) vs. the Pittsburgh Pirates page, which remains unclaimed. When an official source isn’t attached, it leaves the Community Page open to Facebook users’ interpretations.  Now enters your lurking ORM challenge you didn’t even know existed. Does your company have an unclaimed Community Page?

A few things to realize about Community Pages:

  • Users see a stream of updates about the topic of the Community Page (the title of the Community Page being the search term).
  • Your friend’s most recent posts about the topic are displayed.
  • Recent global posts (public status updates) about the topic are also shown.
  • It’s up to you to connect the Community Page with the official Wikipedia page or website, but up to Facebook to actually get around to making the connection complete.
  • Facebook is taking its’ time to make the official website associations live (…it’s been months).
What can you do?

Click on the “sign up” link and enter your email address to be contacted with updates for your Community Page.

  1. Conduct a search on Facebook for your company’s brand name to find your page.
  2. Sign up to be notified. You can do this directly from your brand’s Community Page (as seen above for Search Mojo’s page). When you get this message after entering your email address, you’re good to go: “Thank you for wanting to improve this Community Page. We’ll let you know when we’re ready for your suggestions.”
  3. Wait for Facebook to catch up.
  4. Realize these global results might be the same ones appearing in the SERPs, eventually.
Welcome to the world of ORM and social media, where monitoring is essential and the results are up to the users. :-)

About Renée Revetta

Renée Revetta, Search Mojo’s Social Media Specialist organizes social media efforts with the Search Mojo team and monitors daily social media activity. In addition to working on social media projects for clients, Renée manages the Search Mojo blog, Search Marketing Sage, and the company’s overall social media presence.


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6 comments on “Facebook Community Pages: Your Lurking Reputation Nightmare”

  1. Cynthia Says:

    August 20th, 2010 at 5:30 pm

    These are those odd pages that look more like wiki pages than Facebook pages, right? I hit them often when searching for brand names (who might have coupons!). They’re so odd – I really don’t understand the purpose.

  2. B. Chandra Says:

    August 21st, 2010 at 3:44 am

    Thanks for the G2 on this; FB often does a presto-chango and the rest of us have to keep pace with our Pages.

  3. napoli Says:

    August 22nd, 2010 at 6:53 am

    very very good!

  4. Nick Bentley Says:

    August 23rd, 2010 at 1:57 am

    You have to take these with a grain of salt when researching companies. I was looking for merchant account places to become a referring agent, and found a couple with a BBB rating of F. No matter what they cheerlead in social media circles, they still might be a nightmare themselves so do your homework.

  5. Renee Revetta Says:

    August 23rd, 2010 at 3:00 pm

    Hey guys – thanks for the comments! Yes, Cynthia they look a bit different from regular Facebook pages. I think quite a few people aren’t sure of Community Pages’ purpose or value add at this point. And Nick’s right…always do your homework!

  6. Chuck Reynolds Says:

    August 23rd, 2010 at 8:52 pm

    I hate that there are THREE pages now to confuse people looking for businesses… the community page, wiki page and now the places page… with ALL three have Like buttons… ugh… hate where this is going already