What Do Facebook’s Changes Mean for My Business?

By now, you’ve probably seen or at least heard of the new Facebook Timeline and the other changes coming that were announced last week at their annual f8 Developers Conference. Heck, you may even have already signed up for the new profile layout.

We’ve all seen what happens when Facebook makes changes. People take to their statuses, blogs and Twitter feeds freaking out, complaining about the changes and vowing to quit.

This? This is my Facebook freak-out post.

No, I’m not going to go on a rant about how I hate the new ticker or that Facebook is encouraging stalking or that they are violating my privacy. In fact, I don’t really mind the new features. My question is, what does this mean for all the Pages I’ve created? What does this mean for businesses on Facebook?

What will our Pages look like?
Last time they made changes to personal profiles, they eventually rolled them out to Pages as well because they wanted a consistent user experience across the site. Among the design changes, a new large photo across the top of the page (Facebook is calling this image your ‘cover’) and a new format for displaying status updates, photos, videos and other content (or your ‘stories’).

Perhaps the biggest question is, what will happen to the custom landing pages, or tabs, we’ve built? Businesses have spent the last year or so creating custom pages featuring photos, videos, sign-up forms and contests, and there is no equivalent of those pages on the personal profiles Facebook is showing off. Mashable featured some mocked up images of what pages might look like with the new design, but there hasn’t been anything official released from Facebook.

What will happen to the ‘like’?
Facebook is now banishing certain updates to a ticker on the righthand side of the site (‘banishing’ is my word for it, not theirs). It seems to me that most of these streaming updates are simple actions - liking a page, commenting on a post, listening to a song on Spotify - and more involved updates where the user is creating content - uploading a photo, updating their status - is what shows up in the main news feed.

If simple ‘likes’ and interactions are moved over the the ticker, will people even notice them? Part of the allure to Facebook Pages was the idea that someone liked your page, it showed up on their profile and on the News Feed and all their friends saw it. Are actions like ‘liking’ losing their visibility on the site? Are they losing their value?

Facebook is also giving users the option to change the verb- now they can listen, watch, read, eat, etc, instead of just ‘like’ you. But does this action make them one of your Page’s fans? Does it sign them up for your updates? Will Page Insights track these mentions? Is this why Facebook rolled out the ‘subscribe’ option recently? Is that replacing the ‘like’?

Am I overwhelming you with questions yet? I’ll admit, I’m a bit overwhelmed myself. Facebook makes changes all the time, but this is arguably the biggest change they’ve ever made and only time will tell what it means for businesses.

There is one thing we know - Your Page better have great content.

Mark Zuckerberg mentioned in his keynote at f8 that Facebook isn't just about establishing the connections, it is about telling a story. For businesses with Facebook pages, it isn’t just about the number of followers anymore. These changes put more emphasis on creating engaging content for users to comment on, interact with and share with others. It’s more important than ever to make sure you know who your audience is and make sure your content is interesting to them. Keep doing that, and you’ll be fine - no matter what design or technical changes Zuckerberg and crew throw your way.

Danielle Hohmeier writes about marketing and design in the digital world for Atomicdust, with a focus on marketing convergence and social media.