Last week I had the opportunity to attend an informative briefing on Facebook’s new additions, hosted by the CATO Institute of Washington, D.C. The discussion was led by Katie Harbath, Facebook’s Associate Manager of Policy, who outlined Facebook’s newest features on community and corporate pages and how to make the most of them for a deeper audience connection.
The discussion took a lot of different directions in a short amount of time, but here are some of the new and improved features on Facebook community pages ‘power users’ should be educated on:
- Facebook Timeline: Facebook is launching its new platform called Timeline within the next few weeks. Already available to a select few in the app development world, including Spectrum’s own @KellyAlysia, Timeline gives your visitors a holistic snapshot of your history on Facebook and how have portrayed yourself or your company. The advantage: it allows you to create a more personal connection with your audience.
- Facebook Insights: In short, it’s like Google Analytics for Facebook allowing you to officially track your Facebook ROI. There are two benefits to be taken from this feature. First, it tracks who is sharing your posted content and how often. Second, it provides a unique tool which enables you to export a variety of statistical content reflective of your page’s popularity and impact on your audience. It provides you with all the information you could want, and more!
- The Power to Subscribe: Now you can be friends with someone from your company’s page, subscribe to their page, or do both! By subscribing to a person’s page, you will only receive the content which they make public. Conversely, you can choose which posts are seen by friends and which posts are seen by your subscribers. In other words, you can separate your professional life from your personal life on Facebook.
- A More Organized News Feed: Facebook is dedicated to tailoring your news feed to what you’re interested in. You’ll notice your newsfeed will contain posts from people you visit most often online or that you have visited most recently. In addition, you’ll notice at ‘Ticker’ box in the upper right corner of your home page, providing you with the most up-to-date posts among your friends.
- New Age of Advertising: Facebook is now giving you more opportunities to benefit from your social advertisements. Before, social ads before, your friends would see the ad if you decided to click on it. Now with the new ad unit, visitors can comment on the ad and see other comments that others have said. The idea is to rev up more conversation amongst friends and subscribers on your advertisements, and thus giving you that deeper connection to your audience.
These are just a few of the ways Facebook continues to make audience connection more effective and enjoyable. So check them out, and stay tuned for whatever Facebook comes up with next! Check out some of Mashable’s blog posts on Facebook tips & tricks, new feature outlines and advertising strategy.
Have more questions on what I heard at the briefing? Shoot me a comment.
