Sarah Hutton, a writer for Our American Shelf Life and a contributor here on Adrants was featured in a video, shot by Amanda Mooney (also an ASL writer and Adrants contributor) about Facebook chat.
Sarah tells the story about how she like to stay in touch (stalk?) with a friend abroad using Facebook chat because her friend is never on AIM or iChat. She also offers perspective on chat, friending and social media in general.
In response to Amanda’s question, “What do you think about brands chatting with you on Facebook?”, Sarah minces no words, saying, “That’s not OK.” She hits on the important notion that people (as in actual human beings) can’t really be friends with a brand as represented by some autobot representative that just spews corporate babble. That’s not to say brands can’t have employees who represent themselves as brand ambassadors chat as a human who just happens to work for a particular brand.
Just prior to April 15, I said on Twitter I was sick of doing taxes and couldn’t wait to be doen. Less than five minutes later, I received a tweet from HRBlock. I thought, “Oh great. Another faceless brand trying to invade my personal bubble.” But, after trading several messages back and forth with the HRBlock representative, it turned into an informative and productive conversation for me. Brand can certainly “join the conversation.” It’s all in how it’s done, though.
