Facebook just changed the way they handle Facebook Pages in a major way. According to their Facebook Pages Product Guide, “Facebook is unifying and simplifying the way people interact on the site by making Pages similar to user Profiles.”
Stuff you can now do on a Facebook Page includes (quotes pulled from the Guide):
- Posts by the Page will start to appear in News Feed, giving Pages a
stronger voice to reach their Fans - Posts by the Page will start to appear in News Feed, giving Pages a
stronger voice to reach their Fans - In addition, Pages now have the flexibility of multiple customizable tabs previously
exclusive to user profiles - Like a user profile, your Page can now update its Fans with statuses—short
text-only messages. Soon, these statuses will appear in Fans’ News Feeds - The Facebook Pages Insights tool will include new data on Fans’ engagement with posts from your Page. You’ll be able to see how many comments Fans make on your posts, and you’ll also be able to track how many Facebook users start and stop viewing your posts in News Feed.
- And the list goes on. Go read the product guide (it’s a 10-page pdf file) for the whole scoop!
Why do I think this is cool? Until now, there hasn’t been much interaction allowed on Facebook Pages. Any interaction and conversation was essentially relegated to discussion group Q&A and to Wall-type comments.
But now … those of you who are heavy Facebook users … how do you use Facebook? Because you’ll be able to do that stuff. You’ll be able to send daily statuses reminding fans of important stuff happening at your library. I’m hoping this will have the ability to be tied to your organization’s Twitter account … to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.
And a couple of tiny warnings:
- Facebook statuses allow comments – so you’ll have to check those comments AND respond. Yes – it’s another thing you have to check. Which I find AWESOME.
- Some of you heavy Facebook users LOVE those silly “throw an egg at a friend” type activities… and you participate multiple times each day. My guess? If you do lots of those things with your organizational account … you will be unfriended fast. So – think twice, throw once 🙂
What do you think? Anyone else excited about these Facebook Page changes? Anyone have some fear and trepidation about it (sorry – I just wanted to use the word “trepidation”)? Discuss.