February 16, 2011
Facebook Pages
Last week saw Facebook roll out the much anticipated new look Pages. There are many new features: some good, some bad. Here are the main things that you need to know:
Facebook Images
The most striking changes you’ll notice when clicking on to a brand’s page are visual – they now feature 5 photos along the top. You may have seen personal profiles make the most of these by creatively taking advantage of this (as seen in Mashable). However, unfortunately for brands this isn’t possible. Unlike personal profiles which are ordered chronologically the Facebook Pages images are now selected randomly.
This means that brands must use this as a place to showcase images of products or promote themselves in other ways – the new layout provides businesses with the ideal way to do this.
Facebook Tabs & the importance of iframes
The navigation of the Brand Pages has also changed. The content that was previously accessed by clicking the tabs at the top of your Brand Page can now be found in the column underneath your Brand Page profile picture. Tabs have traditionally been central to the user experience. Moving them to the side could be detrimental to brands’ Pages – with the tabs not so prominent it could see a reduction in how many people click on tabs that are not the Wall or the default landing page.
However, it is not all bad news. When news of the new Facebook Pages was announced last year there were rumours that with the change in the style of the tabs brands would no longer be able to create custom landing Pages. However, this is not the case and it is still possible to have a customised landing page that promotes the USP of your business or incentivises people to Like your Facebook Page.
The demise of FBML
There is one significant change, however, that will have a profound effect. The Static Facebook Mark Up Language (FBML) App is to be pulled on 11th March 2011, so tabs will need to be created using iframes, not FBML.
Here’s what Facebook said on their Developer Blog:
With our recent launch of Requests and the support for iframe on Pages Tabs, we are now ready to move forward with our previously announced plans to deprecate FBML and FBJS as a primary technology for building apps on Facebook. On March 11 2011, you will no longer be able to create new FBML apps and Pages will no longer be able to add the Static FBML app. While all existing apps on Pages using FBML or the Static FBML app will continue to work, we strongly recommend that these apps transition to iframes as soon as possible.
This means that if you already have the Static FBML application (which allows you to create customised tabs) added to your Page before 11th March 2011 then they will continue to work – whether you will be able to create new tabs after this date is another question. However, it seems that sooner rather than later Facebook will really start pushing the use of iframes on Pages Tabs.
This will make it a harder to create a tab than it has previously been. One of the major benefits of the Static FBML application is the minimum amount of HTML knowledge required to create custom tabs without having to hire a developer. iframes are a lot harder to use – you need to be familiar with HTML, CSS and be comfortable troubleshooting technical issues that may arise.
Facebook Pages get social
One of the major benefits of the new Facebook Pages is the fact that you can log in as a business rather than a personal profile. By selecting ‘Use Facebook as a Page’ you will be able to run your Page like your own personal Facebook profile. This opens a whole host of new networking opportunities and makes the whole brand experience more social.
What does it mean in actual terms? Well, you will be able to receive notifications for your Brand Page, view a News Feed for your Page and ‘Like’ and post on other Pages as your Brand Page. You can also opt to receive notifications when people post or comment on your Brand Page. This makes it a far better customer service tool than it had previously been.
It also allows brands to become more social. The ‘mutual connections’ function means that when people visit your Brand Page, they will be able to view friends who also ‘Like’ your Brand Page, as well as other Pages that both they and your Brand Page ‘Like’. This enhances a sense of community and broadens the reach of your message. This knock on effect, with more and more people seeing your brand name is invaluable.
In addition to this the opportunity to comment and post as a brand throughout other Pages within Facebook means that you can get your brand noticed by very targeted and niche audiences. It greatly increases your reach by allowing you to take your brand name throughout Facebook, interacting with other brands, ‘Liking’ content and posting comments.
Add to this is the rumoured third party comments platform that can be integrated onto any site. This will provide an additional way of engaging with customers.
What this means for brands
Overall, the changes to Facebook Pages both give and take away power from brands. On the one hand, the changes to the navigation mean that bespoke tabs that have been used to push brand messages will (in all probability) prove much less powerful and significant to their Facebook marketing activity. However, businesses have the chance to be truly social, visit other Pages and get their brand name noticed by targeting brands and users who are interested in what they are saying. On a social networking platform that has over 600 million users this is an amazing opportunity.
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