Abhirupa Purkayastha – Simplifying Life

It seems SBI’s affair with Mark Zuckerburg has left numerous by-blows (unknowingly). Well, if you are confused then  type in State Bank of India on Facebook Search and the result page that you see is something like this-

This is just the tip of the iceberg, there are probably one hundred pages named State Bank of India and none of them seem to be officially run by the bank. The one that probably has the largest number of members has its description taken from Wikipedia and only 3 posts by the members.

Now, before I begin with the affair and the by-blow part here’s a little background on why at all did I start my SBI hunt. Well, partly because of a query I had regarding my SBI account and partly because of my mission of discovering not-so-known Facebook pages. So, I searched for State Bank of India on Facebook  and the result page was…you saw the screenshot, so you know it.

After seeing the results my first question was – which one of these by-blow pages is the official one? I had absolutely no idea whatsoever on how to find the official SBI page , so , I started clicking on each of the pages that popped up in the result page.

• The first page had 2,564 members and the last post was on July 28 and not to mention there were tons of unanswered queries from the members. Some members even posted if it was the official SBI page. But I couldn’t find any response from the admin.

With a bit of disappointment I clicked on the Info tab and I noticed a disclaimer – This is not the official page.

• I clicked on the second result on the search. There were only 5 posts made since Apr 23, 2010 that was when the page was created! “Another non –official FB page, argghhh” with this thought I was going to unlike the page but I suddenly clicked on the most recent posts and found that one of the users got the privilege to be answered by the page admin. Here’s the query and the response from the admin:

Well, I thought this gentleman’s problem was solved but after going through the other posts I found that he again posted a complaint but no one answered him this time. I found that the queries on the page were unanswered. The admin has commented only twice in the page. So, by taking a look at the page I didn’t get any clue whatsoever if it was SBI’s official page. The info section was not much of help as well.

• With an unbridled frustration I clicked on the 3^rd result and saw that the page had just 8 posts and one of them was promoting a page named Darshan Caterers from Rajkot. Now. What’s the connection between RBI and Darshan Caterers? Don’t ask me!

So, after all the maddening search for SBI’s official Facebook page I returned to my profile with a SIGH and a few quetsions.

My questions –

1. Why do people join unofficial pages? (knowingly/unknowingly?)
2. Is Facebook ever going to do anything like Twitter verified accounts?
3. What can brands do to prevent such by-blows?
4. On web do brands really control their brands?
5. Will the majority win (Will the page with maximum fans become the official defacto)?

Update – Bhanu of bhanusmita.com has pointed out “http://www.statebankofindia.com/ its official website doesnt show any link to Facebook…so I dont think it is there in FB.”

BTW SBI had other non Mark Zuckerburg  by-blows as well. Check out http://www.seoforclients.com/blog/marketing/website-development/sbi-mutual-fund-online-transaction-please-grow-wrt-web.html