Is it ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’ to a Dislike button?
Social Media — By Charlotte Brophy on August 2, 2010 4:01 pmThe call for an official Dislike button on Facebook has been further fuelled by Mark Zukerburg’s comment recently on American news channel ABC, stating that he would “definitely think about it”.
So, why has this become such a talking point amongst the site’s users? I think that some are simply keen to have the button from an “I want to dislike things” point of view. I’m referring mainly to the 3.2 million who have joined the group and signed the petition supporting the concept, probably without giving a second thought to the impact it could have on brand pages. And conversely, there are those who have; namely those who utilise Facebook on behalf of brands who anticipate such a function to be an issue if it were to be created. 
However, according to Mashable’s Pete Cashmore, there’s nothing to worry about. He thinks that Zukerburg is “humouring us” and that Dislike buttons won’t be coming to Facebook anytime soon for one key reason: “it would damage the company’s relationships with brands, businesses and web publishers – these groups are essential for building both web traffic and ad revenue”.
I agree. It wouldn’t make sense for Facebook to damage such relationships for the sake of a Dislike button to please the general user, but is that the final word on the whole debate? Of course not.
New Facebook buttons keep popping up through third-party sites, so although the Dislike button might not exist on Facebook officially, it has already cropped up in other forms – Facemod and Facebook Dislike – and can still have a detrimental impact.
It’s widely agreed that a Share button would be more appropriate, especially for the more distressing stories where it is seen a tad distasteful to Like, i.e. ‘I like Swine Flu’. But, like many of the said-to-happen developments in the social media world, unless it comes to fruition, everyone will just lose interest and move onto the next thing. Next week, I might be posting about a Hate button that has been launched by Facebook which is causing massive controversy. Quite doubtful I realise, but I’m no Mystic Meg.
Image courtesy of Oldmasion: http://www.flickr.com/photos/httpoldmaisonblogspotcom/221227903/.
Tags: dislike button, facebook, mark zuckerburg, pete cashmore, Social Media
4 Comments
I have no problem with having a ‘dislike button’. To improve you need to know what people dislike about you or your product. Encouraging people to be honest and to leave constructive criticism on your wall/fan page can only be a positive experience. Depends how honest you’re willing to be to provide a better service.
i ‘like’ this blog post
I’ve often wanted a dislike button to use on friends status updates. If they say or post something you don’t like or if they post something bad that has happened to them and you want to sympathise.
I think that it’s important for brands to understand what it is (if anything) that people dislike about its products or services, rather than just knowing they dislike it.
If someone felt strongly enough about disliking something, you would hope they’d take the time to leave a constructive comment, which they can already do. Simply knowing that “10% of people dislike a brand” is fairly vague and won’t help a brand much in terms of learnings and improvements.
Perhaps the answer would be to have dislike buttons for a brand’s individual status updates, at least narrowing down customers’ objections a bit more?