Last week Facebook emailed me.
They applauded my 100 percent responsiveness rate and remarked about my swift response time to messages.
Thank you!
Wait. Responsiveness rate? What’s that?
Take a peek at your Facebook Pages (not personal feeds). Business pages just gained a new set of metrics. Facebook is now timing how quickly and thoroughly you respond to interactions on your Facebook Pages.
Facebook is pushing for Pages owners to earn a “very responsive to message icon“.
To earn the badge, Pages admins and owners must respond to messages (which isn’t clearly defined, but I’m assuming means private messages, not comments on posts) in a specific time frame.
In a seven-day period, you must reply to 90 percent of the messages you receive and maintain a median response time of five minutes for all replies sent to be considered “very responsive”.
Only Pages admins and owners can see this initial data. But, if and when you earn the badge, it will be displayed publicly.
So, Why is Facebook doing this?
Sure it lets visitors to your page know that if they send you a message, you’re likely to reply — and do so pretty soon! But from the business end of things, I’m thinking Facebook is doing this to crack down on Pages owners who work in autopilot mode.
What does that mean? Automation.
Some people will use automation software to pre-schedule status updates so they can have an online presence when they’re taking a day off or enjoying vacation. I know I do, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
It is a bad business decision to fully automate your social media feeds and never personally check in and interact with your audience. I think this new measurement of our Facebook interaction is simply another way to see who is actually being social on social media and who has an automated store front.
What do you think? Comment below, and yes, I will personally reply — and most likely in a timely manner (if I’m not sleeping, replying to Facebook messages or taking the day off work).
