posted by Public Relations
This week, Facebook implemented new community pages and phased out the “Become a Fan” option to a “Like” button.
Community pages allow users to connect on general topics, interests and brands and will be updated by importing information from user updates. Facebook users will now be able to link the information in their profile pages to community pages related to their interests.
Facebook pages will still be managed by brands, organizations and personalities. To join a brand or organization’s page, you will now select the “Like” button instead of becoming a fan. Facebook made the switch to the “Like” button because users are familiar with the “Like” feature when reviewing their friends’ status updates, photos and links. According to Facebook, users select “Like” two times more than they click “Become a Fan” every day.
While Facebook continues to innovate, brands and marketers must keep up with the changes in the platform and page structure to effectively communicate online and interact with users. However, this recent change leaves thunder::tech wondering how the new like feature will affect a brand’s social media presence.
As consumers, we “Like” many products, restaurants, companies and causes. However, acknowledging yourself as a “fan” of a particular organization, event or product allows you to express stronger commitments or feelings toward it.
As a marketer, do I want to connect with users who simply “Like” my product or do I want to connect with a passionate group of consumers and brand advocates? Will a “Like” button encourage a user to become more active across a wide-range of brands, providing even more of a challenge to reach top of mind presence?
Will consumers want to receive updates and information about all of the products they like? Will Facebook innovate functions which allow users to express levels or degrees of feelings around pages?
It will be interesting to monitor the new features and updates as we learn more about online user behavior.
What do you think about Facebook’s new features? Do you think it will affect your company’s presence? Do you “Like” the new changes?
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3 Comment(s)
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Evan Roberts said:
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| I agree, I think "Like" will definitely water down the ability to tell how passionate a person is about a brand or even whether or not they use the product. I the "like" Marc by Marc Jacobs but as a broke college student, I won't be buying it any time soon. And there is still room for improvement with "liking" brands and products. Right now, Facebook doesn't give you the ability to express a degree or even an opposite opinion other than "like." It's either you like the page or you ignore it. That finality really makes it hard to gauge where you stand with customers. I'm not a fan.
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| April 22, 2010 aP 2:10 PM
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Robert Neel said:
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| Truly. Removal of “Become A Fan” and replacing it with “Like” causes a deep blurring of the implication of the Members' action. At least it should, to the serious owners of Pages.
As you've noted, choosing to be a “Fan” implied a level of knowledge and engagement far beyond “Like.” Becoming a “Fan” made a statement. And it implied an agreement by the Member to host visible messages and updates from the Owner of the “Fan'd” Page. The simple ubiquitous “Like” gesture, while signaling approval, means little more than a transient smile flickering within a milling crowd.
Now that it is merely a “Thumb Up” gesture I am not sure Members will expect a responsive backflow of content when they “Like” a Page. It will be like flashing an appreciative smile at that smoking ace babe in the end of the bar (because you appreciate their artful taste and style, of course) and then suddenly having them in your face asking about when you last had your Life Insurance coverage reviewed. You might see more people blocking updates from Pages, or even “Un-Liking” Pages. (Something I didn't know could be done, until today. I wonder the stats on that activity.)
On Other Fronts:
The implication that the change was made because people click on “Like” more often that “Fan” is probably disingenuous and maybe a little insulting to the Members. If that's true, changing the name to increase the number of clicks seems a little weird and makes me squint at FB's motivation. Is FB becoming the Fisher-Price® Activity Center of the 21st century? Click, Clickety, Whirrrr! Whee! (Heh! The jury is out, or, more likely, it is as one, head-down as if in prayer, sneaking status updates via cellphone.)
What FB was probably doing was responding to the way the Members have been using Pages. A glance shows that Members are using FB Pages more as quick and easy pin-on “badges” (“Hey! I like this! And lookee me now! I'm with you!”) than as clean-edged Product/Service affiliations. In this regard, a lot of the current Pages should be considered more as Groups. But, under Mob Rules, the genie is out of the bottle, and, because of that, we have the situation where, for instance, the Oreo Page, a real life redbrick Food and Beverage with considerable marketing concerns, is held in the same likeness as, and usurped by, the airy light bright saffron of the “I Hate Waking Up During A Good Dream And It Won't Come Back!” Page, cast as a Local Business. Noise like this is “fun” for the Members, part of the kaleidoscopic shimmer. Miserable for distilling meaning and strategic action.
And more:
The idea that FB could provide a graduation of “liking,” and the complementary “unliking” makes me smile grimly. Beyond the ultimate “no-no” of injecting negativity into the party, as a developer of such systems, I would want to take you up to your lovely 6-story rooftop and throw you off, asking you to use your arms as wings and swoop down on over to that nice independent coffee shop on E 4th to freshen my cold and empty cup.
Changing the (expected) Like/Fan boolean type (True/False) flag into a linear integer type (say, -3 to +3) was something you should have asked me for way back at the beginning. But we were just fooling around back then, weren't we? Not cobbling together a 200 million visit-a-day sea-change juggernaut?
No, actually, I'd have a solution for you. I already do. But I'll make you sweat a little while. And you still have to get my coffee, too, just this once, just to show you mean it.
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| April 23, 2010 aA 9:58 AM
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Jason Therrien said:
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| Evan and Robert, great comments! I share many of your views and concern that "like" will dilute a "fan" status with brands. No doubt there will be more evolution in this space as Facebook needs brands to pay attention to their platform and use them to generate more revenue streams from. The social media space is changing so quickly that we'll just have to stay tuned...
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| May 03, 2010 aA 8:28 AM
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