FaceBooks new changes and what they mean to Internet Marketers

By now I am sure that you have heard of FaceBooks new changes that they recently made, but what do you really know about them? The changes they made aren’t all glorious for everyone. So in this post I want to briefly cover the Good and Bad. How we can use this in our markets to make more money and what we should watch out for!

FACEBOOK CHANGES:

Universal “like” button: One of the major new changes that users will see is the “like” button which will be shown on Web sites outside of Facebook. The “like” button on Facebook broadcasts what comments, photos or posts a user likes. These like buttons are already showing up all over the web and it enables users to share items with friends even when they’re not actually on facebook.com.

As an example if you went to IMBD.com and clicked “like” on “The Matrix”, that movie will automatically show up in your movie interests section of your Facebook page. Liking a football player on ESPN.com will put up-to-date information about that player in a user’s news feed.

The “Become a Fan” button has been changed to the “like” button as well.

FaceBook is even expanding their reaches further with a new developer tool bar you can easily add to your site. This “social bar” allows third-party web sites to access some FaceBook features without even leaving your site. With this bar they can even chat to their FaceBook friends right inside your website.

Facebook is also changing users’ profile pages so that the “pages” section will no longer appear in a separate section on the bottom of the “info” page. Those pages will be brought up to the “interests” section.

Users will be asked to convert their interests into fan pages: Is one of your interests “Green Day?” Well, now you can become a fan of Green Day in a single click. By default, users will receive notifications from their fan pages in their news feed.

Facebook also added new privacy settings that allow a user to control who sees all of these connections.

Community pages: So what about interests like “Martial Arts,” “SEO” or “Cooking,” which don’t have Facebook pages? Now they do.

Facebook unveiled about 6.5 million new “community pages” this week, which take the “fan page” concept and apply them to ideas, locations or interests.

Currently, community pages are pretty lame. A user can see posts from friends related to that topic as well as what the overall public is saying about it. There is also a link to a Wikipedia article on the subject. Users can’t yet add any content to these pages, but that ability is believed to be on the way.

Real-time search: Also among the biggest announcements is real-time search on third-party search sites, similar to Twitter’s service. Facebook announced that users’ public posts will be available for search on sites like Google and Bing.

FACEBOOK AND THE BAD:

Many of the changes take advantage of big revisions that Facebook made to its privacy settings in March. Those changes opened the door to allow select third-party Web sites the ability to access and store some users’ personal information.

Those sites can use that information to show what a user’s Facebook friends have been doing on their sites. CNN, IMDB.com and ESPN.com are just a few of the sties who have already signed up with this feature. So if you’re a Facebook user reading CNN.com, you’ll be able to see what all your Facebook friends are looking at, view recommended stories and see which friends liked which stories.

But even before the announcement, critics expressed concern about the privacy implications of such a service. A similar program called Beacon, unveiled in 2007, caused such a stir among users that the company removed it last year. FaceBook is moving forward strongly with these new updates and are acting quite confident learning from their mistakes with Beacon.

From a user standpoint this is a bit annoying in my opinion. You really can’t even make a joke in your interest section anymore without having a “Community Page” dedicated to it. All FaceBook is doing is lumping users into marketable bins, so advertisers and app developers can poke and prod you to buy something with more efficiency.

Also with the live search feature you will need to be more careful what you post to your FaceBook account more than ever. I have already heard of one story where a person was turned down for a job because the company looked them up on FaceBook and found some pictures they didn’t’ believe to be appropriate or aligned with their business. So if you are in the job market or if there is a slight chance you will be returning to the job market in the future watch what you post and adjust your settings in your profile.

However, If you think everything you do on the internet is “private” to begin with, you’re in for a big surprise. If you truly don’t want your information to be out there, stop using the net all together. You just need to be smart, educate yourself on how to navigate the settings you desire and use common sense before freaking out. Because ultimately these changes could mean a lot more money to be made for you and I!

FACEBOOK AND THE GOOD:

FaceBook Advertising just leapt to a whole new level! FaceBook overnight is offering the best targeted marketing you can buy. It’s not just targeted marketing but UP TO DATE targeted marketing!

As human beings our interests often can change quickly. Six months ago I was interested in snow boarding but now my hobby and passion is Martial Arts. So as my hobby has changed so has my web surfing. I will be visiting more martial arts sites and of those sites that have like buttons to FaceBook on them…there is a good chance I will be clicking those like buttons and my profile will be updated automatically. Now a savvy Martial Arts supply advertiser could easily reach me on exactly what I am looking for with ads right in my FaceBook profile.

So as from an advertiser standpoint using FaceBook has just become very powerful!
If you have never looked into FaceBook for advertising in the past NOW is the time to start looking into it!

Even if you are not interested in advertising with FaceBook that doesn’t mean you should ignore these changes. I am sure you all have seen those share buttons on every blog post all over the internet. These share strategies are great for a blog, but now they are all being creamed! If you could have only one share option it should be a FaceBook Share button! Go look for your self! I just looked up one video and captured the results which are displayed below.

Nearly anywhere you go now you will see FaceBook share beating out all the other types of share buttons. Obviously more people are using and want to share on Facebook than any other social media plat form. There are over 400 million active users on FaceBook currently and that number is still growing. If Facebook were a country it would be the 3rd most populous country in the World!

The good news is with FaceBooks new changes it is easier than ever for us marketers to get people to follow us on FaceBook. With a single line of code you can now add a like button to your website. Trust me this is going to make your sites more viral than twitter, buzz or digg ever could!

I will be shooting a video and uploading it soon on some of the techniques to help protect your information and how to add these lines of code to your website!

As Mark said in FaceBooks F8 conference….Google knows about phrases but FaceBook knows about people and what they like!

Michael R Roberts