by Michelle Lentz
Facebook is making changes all over the place. Let’s start with your personal profile page, which will see some changes in the very near future.
As a user, you will now have more control over what you see. You can institute filters (right-hand side) and choose not to see stories from that high school acquaintance you barely remember, but see more stories from family members. You’ll also be able to see what’s happening on your favorite Fan pages right within your stream. You can currently tour the upcoming changes.
Now, if you happen to own a “Fan Page” or brand profile, those pages are changing as well. They’ll now have all the same options as a personal profile page. As far as I can tell, the huge advantage to this is that your fans will now see your updates in their own stream. Yesterday, a number of big name brands went live with their pages, including U2.
You can see the new use of tabs, as well as the Stream tab. There is also a publisher option, which includes status updates for your Fan Page. Soon, the brand profiles will also have the ability to have more than 5,000 friends. You can add tabs to your brand profile. For instance, I added Events, Photos, and Discussion tabs to a non-profit page I run. Updates are becoming real-time, as Facebook is also speeding up the information that fills everyone’s news feeds.
In the past, someone would join a Fan page, but that was often the end of the interaction. With the new ability to have Fan Page activities streamed into a live feed, marketers have a new and authentic way to communicate with, well, Fans. According to Facebook, “Facebook users can easily make connections, comment on posted content and join the online conversations with the famous via their public profiles – just as they can with a family member, friend or colleague.” Hmm … that sounds very Twitter-like to me.
Public (Fan Page) changes aren’t live yet, but you can go ahead and implement the changes in your own brand profile if you have one. If not, Facebook will make the changes for you in the near future.
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Contact Michelle with news, stories, events, and more.
Email: michelle[at]writetech[dot]net
Twitter: @writetechnology, Friendfeed: michellel
Blogs: Write Technology, Wine-Girl.net
