Friday, October 9, 2009 Facebook: Don't Expect A Lot Of Warm And Fuzzy
We admired Vanguard on Tuesday for raising a "yellow flag" on how far the markets have come and specifically for commenting on the year-to-date returns of four of its funds.
"It is important to note that Vanguard is not making a call that these funds or any particular market segment are headed for decline," the Web site article said. "Experience tells us, however, that 'hot' markets eventually cool, and thus we encourage investors to have realistic expectations for both risk and reward going forward."
It's the kind of move that inspires brand fandom, and in fact 23 users gave the article an aggregate of four stars on the Vanguard site. Nice.
But then we checked out Vanguard's Facebook page, where the $1.24 trillion investment management company has 3,500 fans. (That's off the charts for the few investment management companies that have a Facebook page but ridiculously low for a top brand.)
Nope. There was no reference to Tuesday's article, and that makes sense since Facebook isn't where an investment manager would comment on its products. Maybe it was a lot to expect comments on Vanguard's warning. Even though the statement was reported on in The Wall Street Journal.
But what we saw instead is what we'd recommend any asset management company review prior to launching a Facebook page with comments.
