Neville Hobson offered some good advice yesterday regarding the use of Facebook and Twitter by brands:
So here’s some good headline advice to marketers:
1. Don’t act like “marketers”
2. Align with fans instead of selling to them
3. Be quick to listen and slow to speak
4. When it comes to positive comments, let your fans tell the story for you.
5. Direct consumers to other channels for marketing messages

Facebook created fan pages because it doesn’t want brands to act like humans and have the same communication capabilities as humans (friends). Some marketers are trying to bypass the algorithm and pretend to be humans so they can issue status updates for broadcast. They’ll be caught.

 What Mr. Hobson says is absolutely right — when networking, brands must not be boorish. They need to offer news and value. Customer service is okay, but not too proactive, and it must be light-handed way. If Twitter or Facebook are allowed to become the Sunday or Wednesday circular they’ll both get dinged. That will open the door for the next app to come along sans promo-land and win the hearts of the people. Finesse is the key here.