Business Implications of Facebook’s New Page Features

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Posted on March 10, 2009 under Social Media

Late last week Facebook announced some new changes to how their business pages look. I was skeptical at first about some of these changes, but now that I implemented them on Addicott Web’s Facebook page, I’m sold. What I want to do today is help people understand the business implications of these changes.

The best way to sum up these changes is by saying that they let you better communicate with your fans and non-fans alike. You’ll see what I mean when I go into more detail about what’s new. So without further ado, here are some of the biggest changes that have been made, and how they can benefit your marketing on Facebook.

Change #1: The improved wall is more prominent

Before these changes took place, Facebook pages used to look like the old version of a profile, where everything was on one page. You had to scroll down to see everything; on my old Facebook page, the wall was much further down the page and difficult to see.

Now, the wall is the first thing that people will see when they visit my page, and I think that will be a big benefit. Why? Because as someone who writes new content quite often, it will make it easier for people what I’m creating.

A great example of this is my RSS feed, which I currently import onto the Facebook page through an application. I write on this blog at least once a week, so with the greater prominence on the page, people who are fans of my Facebook page but who aren’t subscribed to my blog are now going to be more likely to see what I’m writing.

Other things relating to this change that I like include:

  • Status updates – I can now give people a status update about what’s going on with my business, although this does seem very Twitter-ish in nature. As a business owner though, this might be a great place to do some informal polling by asking people some questions for them to comment on.
  • Shared links, photos, etc. – I can use this as another way to keep people updated on what I might be reading or find interesting. It might also be used to share resources with fans that they might benefit from. Again, very Twitter-ish in nature.
  • Comments on RSS feed updates – I’m sure people could do this in the past, but I might just not have noticed it. In any case, it’s another way for people to interact with what you’re writing. Does it really make a difference if someone comments to your post directly on your blog or on Facebook?

Change #2: Tabbed content makes for easier browsing

It’s almost counterintuitive that spreading your content out over a few tabs will get it more visibility than having it all on one page, but I think it is definitely a change for the better – much as was the case when this format first appeared for profiles. And the nice thing about these tabs is that people will see them right away, since they’re at the top of the page in a very noticeable location.

Why are these tabs an improvement over the old page format? In most cases, you don’t want to make people scroll down too much on a website to find the information they’re looking for, because they generally won’t. On the previous page format all you could do was hope that people scrolled down to see your content. But with the placement of these new tabs, it makes it easier for them to find your content.

This change leads me right into…

Change #3: Multiple landing page options

Now that Facebook pages have a tabbed layout, you end up getting unique URL’s for each tab. Why is this a good thing? Because you can now send people directly to specific information on your Facebook page, rather than sending them to the page as a whole and hoping they find the information..

As another added benefit, while your fans will see your page’s wall as the default when they visit, you can edit the settings to specify what you want non-fans to visit when they visit your page. This might be useful if you want to have, say, your Extended Information set as the first thing that people see. I’m personally debating whether I want non-fans to see the “Boxes” tab as the first thing they see – since it’s on this tab that I have reviews from former clients – or if they should be directed right to my wall.

Change is good, but…

Overall, I think the ways that these changes make the pages more dynamic is a good thing. But at the same time, with them there also come a few points you should be aware of:

  • Keep your content fresh – Because people see the wall tab as first, you want to make sure that you post new content here on a regular basis. Otherwise, it will start getting stale quickly – and if people don’t think your page is worth becoming a fan of or visiting, then they’ll stop coming to it.
  • Make guidelines for status updates – If you’re a small business owner, you might want to consider setting yourself some guidelines about what should and shouldn’t be posted in these updates, as well as how often you want to make a status update here. Again, you want to keep things fresh, but you also don’t want to write something inappropriate.
  • Set permissions – Because fans can now share something on the wall, you need to monitor what gets posted there carefully and set your permissions accordingly.

Thoughts?

You can see all of this in action on Addicott Web’s Facebook page. Facebook has also published a document detailing all of the changes that might be worth reading even if you’re a veteran user of them. If you’re new at using Facebook pages, then I would definitely recommend reading through it.

Now some questions for you. If you have a Facebook page of your own for your business, what do you think of some of these changes? Are they an improvement and you plan to take advantage of them, or do you wish you could stay with the old page format? Share your thoughts by using the comment form below!

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6 Comments

  1. Reply
    Joannah wrote on April 1, 2009:

    I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

    Joannah

    http://myscones.com

    Posted at 6:44 am

  2. Reply
    Paul Holmes wrote on June 14, 2009:

    “A great example of this is my RSS feed, which I currently import onto the Facebook page through an application.”

    Would you be kind enough to tell me what application you use to import your RSS feed, so it appears on your wall. I’ve been searching like mad for a month for something that works properly.

    Posted at 8:15 pm

    • Reply
      Addicott Web wrote on June 15, 2009:

      With the new Facebook pages you don’t need an application like you used to – you can import a blog feed quite easily. I don’t remember how I did when I set up my page, since I had created it prior to the new look and functionality, but here’s simple instructions from eHow on how to import your RSS feed onto your page.

      Posted at 10:20 am

      • Paul Holmes wrote on June 15, 2009:

        Thanks anyway. What I want is the ability to important a specific RSS feed to a specific Facebook page, and to do this for a few pages (different pages, different RSS feeds). The notes feature only allows you to import one feed, and, unless I am mistaken, it doesn’t post them to your “Facebook Page” as an article.

        Of course, I search for “Adding RSS to your Facebook Page”, but every article I get information back on talks about your “Page” as in your “Profile” page. I sure wish that Facebook hadn’t named them “Pages”, because it makes finding any information about them impossible.

        Posted at 1:21 pm

  3. Reply
    Stephan Rasmussen wrote on May 27, 2010:

    I fully agree with Paul Holmes and I must say the original article contradicts itself. The RSS feed that facebook provides imports blogs to the “notes” part of your facebook page. And as the original article says then users start out by seeing the “wall ” page. Many users will never get to see the articles that are imported through the RSS feed that way.

    Furthermore it would be nice with an RSS feed that imported to the “wall” section of a FB page AND with the option of having the headline clickable so you could direct the user to the original website for the article.

    Right now RSS feeds seem a little unusable as I understand it.

    Posted at 9:08 am

  4. Reply
    Faith Woziak wrote on July 20, 2010:

    Hi, a client of mine is very worried about negative comments being posted on a company facebook page, so much so they don’t want to do it unless they can prohibit negative material showing up on the wall. Is there something else I can suggest to them, I read about permissions, but is there a way they can post video and other materials without any social comment or is it not worth it!

    Posted at 9:56 pm

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