Facebook announced some major changes to the Facebook Pages platform last week. Here is your one-minute guide to get you up and running.
Facebook Pages new profile
Page admins can now upgrade to the new page layout voluntarily until March 10, 2011. Pages not upgraded by then will automatically convert to the new profile.
To-do: Act now or do nothing, the result is the same.
Featured Admins
Now admins can feature themselves as a page owner in the left hand column. I expect to see a number of agents doing this to to build their number of friends. Admin staff will probably want to remain anonymous but principals will probably want to go public.
To-do: Go to Edit Page/Featured then choose the page owners you want to feature.
Posting as a person not the page
This is a big one!
One of the complaints agents had with the old page format was that admins became invisible. Posting as the admin meant posting as the page. There was no way out of it unless you created a second personal profile and that breeched Facebook’s Terms of Service. Now admins can chose whether they want page posts to use their profile or the page name. That’s a big advantage for agents wanting to build their personal brand, and especially for agents who chose a generic name.
To-do: Go to Edit Page/Your Settings. Decide if you want to post as your page name or as your personal profile. Make the appropriate selections.
Use Facebook as your Page
Another big one. No, make that really, really big!
Click on Account then Use Facebook as a page. Choose your page and now whatever you do on another page shows as coming from your page, not your personal profile. There’s also an option to do this from the righthand side of an upgraded Page.
To-do: Using Facebook as your page find the businesses related to yours. Hit the Like button. Now click the Home button and you’ll see all those businesses latest activity in your page newsfeed. Add comments to some of those items. That activity will show up in the newsfeed of those fans who like both pages. Newsfeed mentions are always good.
Page email notifications
Yet another big one. Close to the biggest in fact.
Why is it so big? One of the big beefs with the old page style was there was no way to know when someone wrote on your wall or commented on a post or photo without viewing the page and all its contents. It was a pain. Not anymore. Now, whenever someone does anything on your page you’ll be notified by email. Page admins can now respond to comments and posts in almost real time and that increases the level of page interaction. That’s always a good thing!
To-do: Go to Edit Page/Your Settings and make sure email notifications are turned on.
Categories
Page admins can now change their page category. That’s handy if the page was wrongly categorised during setup.
Impact level: low
To-do: Check page category and adjust accordingly.
Photo strip
The latest photos added to the page will be displayed by default. If you don’t want a photo to display hit the ‘x’ button at the top right hand corner of the photo.
To-do: Check photos regularly. Make sure they represent your brand values.
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