Facebook 'Voice' Feature Lets Page Admins Easily Post as Themselves, Not Their Brand

Have you ever wanted to be the "voice" of your brand? Well here's your chance! Facebook has unveiled a new toggling feature called 'Voice' that allows page administrators to easily engage on their page as themselves. You know, with your real name. So as an administrator for the HubSpot Facebook Page, I have the option to easily like, comment, or post updates on our page as "Anum" instead of as "HubSpot."

The 'Voice' feature now allows admins to easily toggle between using their brand page as their brand page, or as their personal Facebook profile.

Why This Is Important for Marketers

Often, your Facebook Page admins include people from your company who aren't in charge of actually "managing" the page, but have a reason to be an admin (they need to update a certain tab, post a certain offer daily, need to access Insights, etc.). These people aren't necessarily the "experts" when it comes to Facebook marketing, and are unaware of the smaller intricacies of the page -- such as the fact that every time they like or comment on your page, they're speaking as your brand and not themselves. There's been times at HubSpot, for example, where admins have seen something from HubSpot in their news feed and liked it, not realizing they liked the post as HubSpot. While this is by no means detrimental, little things like this can make it a little scary to give people at your company administrative rights. But now, you can tell those admins to ensure they select their personal profile as their "voice" once they become an admin.

Why Marketers Also Need to Be Extremely Careful

While it's beneficial to speak to your audience as yourself, you need to be sure you're very aware of what voice you're set on when engaging with your audience. This new update has the potential for the classic Twitter mistake where someone sends a personal tweet through the company handle. For example, you could accidentally get defensive about a certain comment a user left, not realizing until later that you said it as your company, not you. Talk about some embarrassing marketing mistakes.

While this also offers the benefit of being able to respond to a user's comment as (hopefully) a fan of the brand you work for, you simply need to make sure you're aware of who you are speaking as. Although no matter who you're speaking as, you should always be polite, kind, and respectful. At the end of the day, you still represent your brand!

But seriously guys, be careful. I already accidentally posted to HubSpot as "me" instead of as HubSpot in the midst of toggling back and forth to write this post!

Do you manage a Facebook business page? Will you be taking advantage of the 'Voice' feature?

Image credit: yugenro