How to Disable Nested Comments on Your Facebook Page

By: Mary Ellen BostOwner, Savvy Social Media Marketing

 Just recently- Facebook launched a major new feature for Fan Pages called the "Reply Button.”  (Pictured Right)  Amongst a few things-, the feature gives Facebookers the ability to reply directly to a Fan's Comment.  

With the reply feature enabled - users have the choice between posting a comment under the main thread...or reply directly to a specific comment (known as "Nested Comments".  The ability to reply directly to a comment is something that Facebook Page managers have been wanting for some time.  

However, when the feature is enabled- comments do not appear in chronological order of the time that they are posted.  And therin lies the confusion.  See below.

According to Facebook, an algorithm of sorts determine which comments will appear first, second...last and so on.  Here is how it was explained it on the Facebook Blog:

"Conversation threads are re-ordered by relevance to viewers, and may appear differently to each person based on their connections, specifically:

• Positive Feedback: the amount of positive feedback based on the total number of Likes and Replies in a conversation thread, which includes Likes or Replies by the Page owner.
• Connections: connections to participants in a thread may move the conversation higher. For example, conversations with Comments left by friends may appear at the top.
• Negative Feedback: the total number of spam reports in a thread, as well as marks-as-spam made by the Page owner.  We also may down-rank comments made by frequent spammers."

In other words- to the average reader- there is no real rhyme or reason where a particular comment will appear.  Moreover, it can be downright messy and confusing.

Regardless of what you think- if you have enabled the "reply button" to your Facebook Page and need to disable it...here is the quick trick to do so.