As some of you know, RealTime Marketing Group presented at the GSMI Social Media Strategy Summit in San Francisco this week. What a great event, with such amazing people. One of the questions that was asked during the “Creating a Personalized Facebook Presence” workshop was what to do about the fact that when a brand connected their place to their page, certain features (such as selecting a customized landing page) were no longer available. It was about this point that I suggested we all break for coffee, because how do you answer that “this sucks”…when Facebook is on stage the next day?
The reality is, this double edge sword was a really bad position for us to be in as marketers. Facebook provided this new ‘Mack Daddy’ service, but only let us use it if we gave up one of our favorite treats. WAIT, I want to have my cake and eat it too! I halfheartedly suggested that MAYBE, since Facebook was making it to the event, maybe, just maybe, they would announce that they were restoring the page properties that we give up when switching to the combined page…but did I truly expect this facelift right after their birthday? Not a chance!
So, what is going on?
Here is the play by play, real-life example:
This will be your introduction…take a tour or upgrade…are you feeling adventurous?
Once you have decided to bite the bullet and step into the new Facebook experience, this is what you can expect.
SHOWCASING YOUR LATEST PHOTOS ON THE FRONT OF YOUR WALL
Use this area the same way that you would the images across your personal page. Be creative…think about spelling the name of your brand, or giving instructions. (ie. Have your employees hold signs that say, THANKS…4….BEING….A…LIKER – you get the point)
NAVIGATION OF TABS DIRECTLY UNDER THE PROFILE PICTURE
If you have taken advantage of the extended profile pic, consider using the profile pic with an arrow pointing to these tabs until people realize they can find things down here.
CATEGORIZE ENGAGEMENT AND INTERACTION OF YOUR POSTS TO PROVIDE MOST INTERESTING CONTENT TO YOUR LIKERS
Facebook also pulled in the ability for the most popular posts to show first…great if you want your fans to actually see engaging content. When you show the top posts, it will allow your fans to see the posts that have gotten the most response from your followers…can anyone say YAY! However, if you have something that is time sensitive, that you really want to make sure people are seeing, make sure you switch it back to standard mode so that your time sensitive info doesn’t get lost in the popular crowd.
BECOME ONE WITH YOUR BRAND
How many times have you wanted to comment on another page, as your brand, but couldn’t figure out how to do so, or you would put the @ sign before the location and not have any luck getting facebook to recognize the page. No more, now switch views between being yourself and being your brand and you are able to leave comments with either thumbnail. Just be careful to switch back, last thing we want is big brands commenting on Facebook feeds of their social marketing manager’s friends and family.
UP TO THE MINUTE NOTIFICATIONS FOR YOUR FACEBOOK PAGE
Last, but not least, we are now able to turn on email notifications when there is activity on our pages (but you don’t need that right, because you are monitoring and engaging on your pages already). I know I joked about 24×7 monitoring, but it sure makes it easier to grab my attention when I have an email popping up letting me know when one of the brands we manage has been engaged with…what better time to respond back!
Okay, okay, maybe one more little tidbit…I also heard that community pages are going bye-bye! THANK YOU, Thank You, thank you Facebook!
Hope this was a useful to everyone…more to come, I’m sure.
