Facebook changes are happening at the speed of light – and you need to keep up, or you’ll miss out. Today’s post examines what has changed already – and it reveals a VERY important piece of news about your business fan page. All of the changes affect your marketing strategies in 2012, so keep reading!
Courtesy of socialtechpop.com
Mandatory Personal Timelines for Everyone
Facebook has finally made the new personal timelines mandatory for all users. This means if you haven’t switched over yet, you only have a few more weeks to do so – or it will change on its own. Timelines allow you to create a profile of your life, that your friends can interact with.
It also documents everything you publish – like a running story that never ends! So far, it’s encouraged a lot of users to put more thought into what they publish on Facebook – which has elevated the content value of the site. Hide the stories you don’t want people to see, and create a multimedia portrait instead.
Applications Add a Fresh Dynamic To Facebook
The Facebook applications that were released a few weeks ago, will really start to change the way people use the social network. The applications are refreshingly personal, and encourage real sharing between friends. The foodspotting app for example, is geared towards finding unique dishes, using the recipes, trying the food and sharing your views on the outcome.
We can look forward to engaging with people on a more personal level – sharing experiences and hobbies. Right now, these apps are for personal timelines only, but we have a feeling that they’ll have a lot more relevance to businesses, once Facebook changes our business pages.
Look Out! Business Pages Will Change!
The big news is that Facebook is planning to launch timeline for business fan pages. Marketers and small business owners are hesitant about the kind of interaction they’ll get from this HUGE change. It will restructure everything. Exactly how Facebook plans to do this and succeed – is as yet unknown.
Hopefully, you’ll still be able to add special sections onto your page, to attract fans. But this radical change may mean that the functionality we’re used to is thrown out of the window. Whatever happens, we just have to trust that Facebook has our best interests at heart.
Right now, many small business owners are creating second Facebook accounts – for professional reasons. The new timeline functionality allows you to set up a professional profile that will document your progress as an industry leader. You should think about doing this if you want to harness the power of Facebook for ‘celebrity’ reasons. Niche experts are getting a lot of success from this move.
Hold off on the application development for Facebook, until it’s clear what their intentions are for the business pages. Once they’re released it will be easier to chart a way forward. Until then, explore the features of your personal timeline.
Timelines for business pages? What do you think of this bold move by Facebook, and will it work? We want to hear from you!
