Last week Axiom took big strides to expand its online presence, including an Axiom Flickr account. Apparently we're not the only ones who want to expand, with the British Family creating a Flickr account of their own.
Now to be honest, the Flickr account itself isn't anything special, with picture sets for different Royal Family members and events. However, what is special (and not in a good way) is that comments are disabled on the account.
Actually that isn't too surprising, considering comments are also disabled on the British Monarchy's YouTube account. Also, their @BritishMonarchy Twitter account isn't used conversationally, only being used to publish stories and news links.
I applaud the effort by the Royal Family to branch out into more social media channels, but they are completely missing the point. Social media success or failure depends on the level of engagement you can generate, and eliminating the ability for others to comment eliminates the potential for that engagement.
I understand that the British Monarchy is probably worried about negative feedback or mean comments. But silencing everybody is not the answer, and will most likely only create the negative backlash that they were trying to avoid in the first place.
It's hard to categorize most social media decisions as "right" or "wrong." However, this kind of one-way social media contradicts the transparency and interaction that social media is all about.
