What The New Facebook Changes Mean For Your Fan Page
If you have a Facebook Fan Page for your business, you’re probably scratching your head right now with all of the changes Facebook released to the site. Many changes have already been put into place and many more changes are coming within the next several weeks. So how do you ensure your Fan Page still receives the impact you have worked so hard to achieve? No worries, we’ll help you out…
One of the bigger changes put into effect by Facebook last week is centered around the News Feed. Previously, when you visited your Facebook profile you would see posts and status updates from your friends in chronological order. Some posts you would find interesting, but others you would just skim by like your friend’s status update of “Captain Crunch for breakfast…mmmm” [full disclosure: I love Captain Crunch and probably would have ‘liked‘ that status update]. Facebook’s solution to this is with the creation of “Top Stories” so that the News Feed acts “more like your own personal newspaper. When you pick up a newspaper after not reading it for a week, the front page quickly clues you into the most interesting stories” according to Facebook. So if you haven’t checked your profile for a couple of days, you won’t have to worry about missing important posts and information shared by your friends. The first things you will see in your News Feed are the top stories, photos and status updates posted while you’ve been away which are marked with a blue corner. This kind of acts like the front page of the newspaper.
If you check Facebook several times a day, you’ll see the most recent stories first…
So how do you ensure posts from your Facebook Page are deemed important by Facebook and featured as a “Top Story”? The answer is Engagement. The more your fans interact with your page, via ‘likes’ and comments to your posts, the more prominence Facebook will give you. Here are a couple of ways to create engagement with your Facebook Fans:
- Share great information. Posts that gain comments and ‘likes’ will become must see news for your fan’s.
- Ask questions. The more responses garnered, the more weight Facebook will assign to the post.
- Create conversations with your fans. Having a conversation within the comment stream will create relationships and Facebook loves to see brands creating authentic relationships with their fans.
- Share photos. Facebook is giving more prominence to photos in the News Feed now to improve the look of the platform. Photos are a great way to showcase your business, but the way you present them will have a big impact on how your brand is perceived. Ensure your photos are great looking. This doesn’t mean you have to higher a professional photographer, but make sure the photos are consistent with your brand image.
Facebook will be announcing more changes over the next couple of weeks so check back in with us to get updates.