Facebook fan pages (also known as public profiles) have gone through some significant changes in the past few months, so I thought it would be a good time to review the Good, Bad and the Ugly of the pages. Overall, I think that fan pages have gone through significant changes for the better, but have some significant limitations. Here are my thoughts:
The Good
- Status update – A newly added feature is the ability to update your fan page’s status. This is a great way to stay in contact with fans by
using a less direct method than sending an email. The status update can be used to post new news, articles, happenings, events, etc. - Page recommendations - Facebook now recommends fan pages to people based on their other interests, and based on other people they know and what pages they join. This allows your fan page to reach new people who might not have otherwise known about your business or page.
- Targeted ads – Facebook pages can be advertised using very targeted ads on a pay per click or pay per impression basis. The ads can be targeted based on demographics, keywords, company name, job title, etc.
- Inline fanning – Newly added, this feature allows you to add an option to your Facebook ads, that allow people to join your fan page directly from the ad, without even clicking through to your page. (bad because they don’t see your content, but good because they can join more easily)
- Various landing pages - Based on where and how you are promoting your fan page, you can direct people to various landing pages. For example, if you are targeting marketers with your ad, you can direct them to a page speaking to marketers. And you can direct everyone else to a different landing page.
- Applications - There are a lot of applications that Facebook developers have created to make your fan page more dynamic and interesting.
- FBML (Facebook Markup Language) – Facebook’s version of HTML, allows you to create boxes on your page that are more tailored to your needs. For example, you can create an RSVP form or an email registration form.
- Insights – Facebook Insights show you how much your fans are interacting with your page, what the demographics of the fans are, and your overall “post quality.”
The Bad
- Inviting people – The only people you can invite to your fan page directly through Facebook (other than sending them a link) are your current friends. There are many people I know through networking that I would like to send an invitation to my fan page, but I cannot unless I am friends with them. Seems to be a disconnect to me. (UGLY)
- Contacting people – There is no way to email all your fans. The only way to contact all your fans is to send an “update”, which a lot of people ignore. (UGLY)
- Events – There is no way to create an event from a fan page. You can create one from your personal profile, but then there is no way to invite the fans from your fan page. This is a HUGE limitation in my mind… as a business, why wouldn’t you be able to create an event to invite your fans to?? (UGLY)
- Notifications - Facebook doesn’t notify you when there is a new comment, a “like” or fan on your page, so you need to check back frequently to ensure you don’t miss what’s happening on the page. This seems silly, as this functionality is available with personal profiles, so adding it to fan pages should be easy, and certainly useful. (UGLY)
- New fans – The fan pages don’t tell you when you have a new fan on your fan page. You can also not even view your fans in the order they have joined, to be able to contact new fans.
- Source - There is no way to find out how people came across your page. Having something like Google Analytics on a Facebook page would help businesses make better use of the fan pages.
- Contact - There is no way for people to contact the Page Admin automatically through the page, unless you have listed your contact information on the page. There should be a button to click to contact the Admin directly.
- Connect with Twitter – There are now applications that allow you to update your Facebook status from Twitter (Tweetdeck, Seesmic Desktop, etc.), but those applications can only update your personal profile status, not your fan page status.
- Blog posts – On a personal profile, you can connect your blog to your profile so it creates a new note when you add a new post. This acts as a status update to your friends. However, there is no way to do this on a fan page (you can connect your blog to your fan page using Social RSS, but it doesn’t appear as a note/status update, so doesn’t update your fans).
If it weren’t for the ability to update your fan page status, I would prefer groups over fan pages. The “ugly” items are too limiting.
What do you think of Fan pages? Anything good or bad I missed?
