Upcoming Facebook Changes- Listen Up Marketers!

12/08/2009
Facebook is one of the largest social networking sites in the world. This past week, Facebook announced it supassed the 100 million-member mark in the U.S. and has 350 million members worldwide. The United States is the first country to reach this threshold.

What does this mean for businesses? Think of the reach Facebook has for potential customers. By building a presence on Facebook, a business has access to the world’s largest advertising market. Also, with Google’s move to begin including status updates, video and other content from Facebook, a company also stands to help increase traffic to brand pages.

It is important to note that Facebook is constantly changing. Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, posted a letter regarding the future of Facebook back in October. The upcoming changes are very important to marketers and businesses that use Facebook as a primary presence since the upcoming changes are directed towards how brands can leverage Facebook.

Currently, posting content on the Wall of Facebook Pages is the customary way to spread a branded message by allowing Fans to comment, share, or like the content. With the upcoming changes, businesses will need to further adapt by adding custom content to the Page to highlight promotions, applications, and links.

A second change will come with the News Feeds. If a business were to update content, it appears in the Fan’s feeds section. The change will be that content will be surfaced based on a Facebook algorithm. This algorithm will factor how people connect with the content that is being published. If people frequently visit a Page, leave comments, or even like the content, the more Facebook will place your updates into their feeds. Just publishing content, like the majority of businesses do now, will no longer be enough to get ranked on Fan’s Pages. Facebook will be putting marketers in a position to strategize more and engage their audience.

Another change that is in the works is with email. Facebook’s new email will have the capability to build direct communication channels with Facebook fans outside of Facebook.  Businesses will be able to collect email addresses from Facebook users through Facebook Pages and application, which will allow marketers to build email lists much easier.

With the changes that Facebook is looking to implement, innovate marketers will be able to connect with their target market more efficiently. Businesses will still be able to set up their business page, market their presence, and take advantage of the new changes.