Facebook just made it easier to engage with social customers, announcing new threaded conversations and direct replies this week. The new feature, which has been tested over the last few months with select Facebook pages, allows both Facebook users and page administrators to reply directly to specific comments within a post, and begin separate conversation threads to keep relevant topics and conversations connected under the original.
Facebook brand page administrations will be able to opt into this new feature through the Page admin panel in the Manage Permissions section. Administrators will see a Replies prompt on the screen with a checkbox to allow replies to comments. Once opted in, you will be able to opt out until July 10, 2013, when all pages will have this new feature enabled. A note to larger brands: the new replies feature will be automatically turned on for profiles with more than 10,000 followers.
Currently, the new feature is only available via desktop access, but plans are to make replies available in the Graph API and mobile version of Facebook in the future.
The new replies feature makes it easier to respond to or engage with specific individuals or select comments on a brand’s Facebook page and can be used to conduct multiple-question/multiple-topic Q & A sessions or customer/consumer polls.
As a secondary feature, the threads with the most engaging conversations will rise to the top of the parent posts. Conversation threads will also re-order by relevance to specific viewers, and may appear differently to each person based on their direct connections to participants in a thread or the amount of positive feedback (total Likes and Replies in a thread, including Likes or Replies by the page owner).
According to a late 2012 study from NM Incite, a joint venture between Nielsen and McKinsey & Company, nearly half (47%) of U.S. social media users today now actively seek customer service through social media, and for the organizations that deliver, there are increasing rewards. Customers who receive a quick and effective response are three times (71%) more likely to recommend the brand, compared to just 19% who will still recommend the brand if they don’t receive a response. Time to get talking to, and with, your social customers.
For more information on the newly-announced Replies feature, click here.
