If you’re a Facebook user, you know about the @everyone feature on Facebook that the group admin can write “@everyone” and it tags every single group member in the post. This is a wonderful tool for administrators to be able to ensure important messages get noticed by their users. For example, a session is cancelled for inclement weather at the last minute and they urgently need to let everyone know. This would be an excellent use case for the @everyone feature.
However, I’m a heavy Facebook user. I use it professionally and personally. As a marketing agency, I dare say I have even more use of Facebook than the average bear. Also, my whole stance on business is pro-business. So that being said, if just about anyone invites me to be a part of their page or group, I accept. I do this to support their business and I do my best to like their posts and, when I can, comment on their posts to help them with their Facebook algorithms. So, I’m in an extraordinary amount of groups. @everyone is so annoying that I seriously considered unsubscribing from any group that tagged me with @everyone. I can’t just not check notifications in my line of work.
It makes me wonder what other kind of practices we, as business owners do that drive our audience crazy. I think in all things there’s a fine line between connecting and annoying. At a restaurant, you all have had the experience of an attentive waitress vs one that won’t let you have a conversation because of too many interruptions. Digitally it’s the email newsletter and text messages (we offer both of those services, by the way) – the difference between good communication and reminders vs a barrage.
I think we all need to take a moment and put ourselves in the shoes of our ideal customer and ask ourselves how often we’d like to receive communications. If it annoys us, it probably annoys our customers too. Or, even better, ask your core customers how and how often they’d like to receive communications.
Finally, if you hate @everyone as much as I do, You can go to Settings >Notifications>Tags>Batch@everyone mentions and turn those off. You’re welcome! 🙂
