@gordonbowman

Why Facebook's Comment System is Important

Facebook recently rolled out their long-awaited commenting system. Indeed, they had an impressive cast of publishers on board for the launch. Publishers and developers can now get their own comments plugin here. 

I'm a big fan of Ryan Spoon, of Polaris Venture Partners and Dogpatch Labs, who wrote his thoughts on the importance of Facebook's comment system. In it he notes two main reasons:

1. Identity. Plain and simple: Facebook’s authenticated login reduces spam and therefore increases quality. Say goodbye to SEO spam, trolling, etc. I am sure Cialis comments will come over time … but Facebook social graph highlights relevant comments and friends.

2. Traffic. Facebook’s comments publish both ways, integrates into the notification systems and will equate to increased publisher traffic. Whether comments occur on the publisher site or on Facebook – the content moves in both directions. That’s a big win.

I agree. These are the two main benefits. Here is my two cents on both.

By forcing a link to a Facebook account, you are ensuring identity. Simply adding a real name onto a person's comments makes their thoughts and critiques much more useful and interesting. There is also much less anonymity which will greatly reduce spam and trollish comments. The end result is a more constructive conversation all around. 

In regards to traffic, Facebook's comments will be a very powerful source of traffic for publishers. Having comments publish both ways creates a valuable virality loop between Facebook and the publishers. Here is a comment of mine occuring on Facebook.com for an example:

Any replies to this comment on Facebook and that content also appears on the blog which is a big win for publishers. 

While these two benefits clearly make Facebook's comment system important, I think there are still a couple of caveats for publishers. 

The big problem is that there are a lot of people that use Facebook primarily as a personal profile and have no interest in linking their private/personal life with their professional/business life. 

TechCrunch, one of Facebook's launch partners, recently wrote that since they made the change to Facebook Comments the overall number of comments have fallen dramatically. The main reason for the decrease is far fewer trollish comments. However, I imagine part of the reason is also people not wanting to have a link to their profile in a public forum. 

There is also a school of thought that Facebook is killing one’s authenticity. The idea behind it is that in order to join commnunities around the Web we now need to live inside Facebook walls. I think this might have some merit to it. I'm of the opinion that the Web as a whole will suffer with less wholly owned communities.

Finally, there is the privacy caveat. I think the two-way system could be made a little clearer for non tech-savvy users. As I noted in a comment on Ryan's post, people commenting over on Facebook might not realize their replies are showing up on another site. Yes, the button says "Comment on site_name.com" but I expect some users are so used to commenting quickly that they will not notice and be unpleasantly surprised.

I, for one, am still a fan of Disqus for a third party comment system. Daniel Ha and team continue to impress me with updates to the product. Plus their new Houdini theme just looks slick.

I think I mainly like the ability to have one central hub for all of my comments across the Web. 

Now, if we can just get Posterous (which this blog is on) to jump on the Disqus bandwagon too...

Nike "Writes The Future" with a big bet on Facebook

And it paid off. BIG time.

Nike, in an effort to raise awareness of the brand going into next week's World Cup, launched a new campaign called "Write The Future" with a 3 minute video depicting some of soccer's greats and how their accomplishments and failures on the field affect society and their own lives.

The video features Nike sponsored stars such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Ronaldinho and others. The video also includes other Nike athletes Kobe Bryant and Roger Federer and even a surprise appearance from Homer Simpson.

Using Facebook as the centerpiece for the entire campaign, Nike premiered the video spot on the Nike Football Facebook Page a few days early to give Nike Football fans early access before debuting the spot on TV at half time of the UEFA Champions League final between Bayern Munich and Inter Milan.

Of course, beyond early access, Nike's goal was also to grow their Nike Football fan base on Facebook. On launch day, they had an ad on most users' Facebook homepages prompting them to watch the video. Smartly, they made it so that users needed to visit the Nike Football page and "Like" Nike Football in order to watch the video.

Indeed, according to a recent New York Times article, the ad buy is among the largest in Facebook’s history. But boy did it pay off.

Here's a look at the numbers:

The move caused Nike Football fan numbers to increase from 550,000 to over 1.1 million today.  They essentially doubled their fan base overnight.  

I think this Nike campaign will make for a great case study for other brands. I expect we'll see many brands following suit with this "insider access" approach to social.    

Now let's not forget the video itself. This campaign's success speaks volumes to the creative and once again, the creative team at Wieden+Kennedy killed it. They continue to impress. At the time of writing, the has 12.7MM views.

If you haven't seen it yet, here it is:  

Ah, branding and marketing. You gotta love it.