mariare Facebook’s new pages and other changes have made quite a stir lately across the blogosphere. I don’t have enough time to explain to you why Facebook’s recent changes should be of no surprise or even why everyone is sensationalizing them as if they are ground-breaking. Here’s what I think matters, now let’s get on with business.
What Really Matters For Your Business
Twitterish stream. Every user now sees a Twitter-like stream of every other user’s activities, relative to the entire social graph. Everyone is encouraged to share and publish – it’s all about user-generated content, including yours. The new home page affects how users will see what you publish and how you participate with them and in the social graph as a whole.
Don’t just sit back and publish updates, share content (yours and others). You’re going to have to engage and have others engage with you. Participate in streams and updates as a user, not a mass marketer. Personal and public profiles both have the opportunity to do this equally – leveling the playing field for brands and businesses to get in there, at the user level.
Public profiles (pages) get personal. There is much more opportunity for businesses to play on the same playground with personal profiles. While still separate, companies and professionals now have more ability to humanize their presence and really participate for more visibility and branding opportunities – by using public profiles (formerly pages) as the hub of your Facebook presence.
Because business pages are now more like profiles, you’ll have an easier time engaging on a human level with your audience. Relevant, timely, and consistent participation is the key.
Users can also view a public profiles only stream, with one click…
Within this stream, there is logo placement and possibilities for increased visibility and branding…
They can also view the streams of personal profiles in their geographic network, a great opportunity for local business owners and solo-professionals…
Tabs gone wild. The new tabs feature on the public profiles side will allow you to control how users navigate your content (you could get really strategic and creative with tabs).
Each tab now has its own URL – so you can send users to specific tab pages within your profile – instead of dumping them on the home page… More importantly, you now have the ability to control where “fans” and “non-fans” land – customizing the experience for each.
Get in the spotlight with highlights. All activity, including events, groups, profiles, and beyond – that has been posted, shared, and commented on is aggregated and showcased. Again, it’s all about consistent participation for more visibility…
More insight. Along with all the changes to the profiles themselves, they’ve also added more ways to understand engagement and traffic on your profile. For those of you (…us) who obsess over marketing data, the additions to page insights is great…
Bottom Line
More opportunity for real interaction with your audience. Most of the changes Facebook is making will help your business interact with your audience on many different levels. Your business now has even more opportunities for branding and visibility than ever before.
More opportunity for reach. Your page updates and content published can now be shared deeper into the social graph of your fans. They can share and interact with you at every point that you participate and publish.
More ways to communicate directly with your audience. On top of fan updates, which can be as ineffective as obtrusive email marketing – fans will now be able to see your updates in their Public Profiles stream (news feed), allowing you to communicate quickly and easily – for increased engagement and user contribution.