What You Need to Know About The New Facebook Pages for Your Brand

I’ve been reading about the new Facebook pages a lot since yesterday. There is a lot of chatter over new strategies. Your strategy shouldn’t change, however there are a few things that you need to know about the changes that you should take note of.

The most significant changes are all on the backend. If you are a page moderator, you’ve been waiting for this for a long time.

• Facebook now gives you the ability to log in as your page and use it to comment on other pages. Up until now, you could only post as your page on your own page and your admins had to post elsewhere. That is no longer the case. This is great for posting on events, interacting with other brands, and more.
• Facebook send updates for interactions. One of the frustrating things about dealing with a Facebook page is needed to check it all the time. Some of us found tools to use (like Hyper Alerts), but now Facebook is making that obsolete and sends you updates via e-mail. Your prayers have been answered.

The most obvious change is that the new pages reflect the same layout that user pages have. This means Facebook removed the tabs and moved them to the left and added the recent tagged pictures to the top of the page. This means 2 things really:

• Pay more attention to the pictures you are posting and what is shown on the top of your page. They will now be front and center. More importantly, do something creative with them. Mashable had a great article about how to use your photos to make a larger picture for the new user profiles, there is no reason you can’t do this for your brand and it’s still so early that it will stand out.
• Make sure your tabs still look right in the new format. Facebook said the size hcange some people are reporting is a glich, but it’s still good to take not and make sure your tabs still look right. Also, users will adjusting to the new format at different paces. If you use a landing tab, be mindful that some users might be confused how to get to the wall at first.

There are some portions of the page that are different than traditional user pages as well.

• The most important part is the feed. The feed is now organized by interaction. Posts aren’t shown in chronological order. This is very important because a post that has a lot of traction (maybe even a negative one) can stay high up on your page and not fade away with time. Interaction is now more important than ever , hopefully your posts are getting more interaction than what your fans are posting.
• The top right hand corner displays which of your friends also like this page. This used to be on the left hand side, but this makes it more visible, which is great for you. On a side note here, on your page it will show the admins. As the Hitchhiker Guide says, Don’t Panic. Only the admins will see this when logged in.
• Below your friends, photos are displayed from those friends. I can’t figure out if there is a rhyme or a reason to this, since they seem random. The only element that ties them together is they are from your friends who also like the page.

So that’s the top level important changes to pay attention to. There are a few other changes as well, but these are the things that will have the biggest effect.

What do you think of Facebook’s new fan pages?