Facebook Mixes Up Fan/Brand Pages
Posted on February 23rd, 2011 by EliciaBasoli
If you or your company has a Facebook “Page”, you’ve likely heard about the new changes that will be implemented for brands (the official launch date is March 10th). These changes will require some adaptation in the design of your page, and possibly the administration of it as well. In a nutshell:
- Tabs are now gone and have been replaced with a list of content categories below the profile image. This means content previously viewed in tabs is now less prominent to visitors. Moving forward, brands should prioritize what content they want to appear in this content list and how to leverage other new elements – profile image, etc. to draw attention to certain content.
- A new photo strip appears above the Page wall. Brands should keep a close eye on these photos, to ensure that they display content relevant to the desired message. This is going to be challenging to adapt to, as the photo strip is now so prominent. Check out this article on Journalistics.com, which calls this change “Fan Page Photo Roulette”.
- The wall will now feature content from either you only, or from Everyone. And, posts will be organized by the most popular content, as opposed to chronological content.
- Brands can now “Like” more Pages and comment on those Pages, as the brand (instead of the individual).
- Brands can now subscribe to email updates, when new content is added to the Wall. And, more importantly, brands can subscribe to email alerts when any profane language is posted by fans. This is particularly helpful for Brands that frequently have content like this to moderate.
When you play in the social media realm, brands loose some of the control that they have with their own websites, for example. It comes with the territory! Facebook is constantly keeping brands on their toes – whether they are revising their contest guidelines or mixing up brand page designs.
How have these changes impacted your Brand Page?
I like the new design and layout – just wish we had more control and customization options for the new picture reel. Maybe Facebook will make that a new update?
Thanks for the update on these changes, Elicia! The pages definitely look different without the tabs across the top but the look is clean and I like that the re-design still allows for tabbed content (even if it is in the sidebar). I’m sure that there are many more changes yet to come!
I think it’s great that Facebook has gone from a social media tool primarily to find friends and post photos, to companies using it to reach out to customers. So many people have a Facebook these days, so it’s good that businesses can use the site to customize a page and promote their brand.