Get on the fast track        

 

Mar 2, 2012    Uncategorized

Facebook’s Transformation, A Marketing Perspective

ALL POSTS

If your business is anything like ours, we know how you feel. You’ve been waking up in cold sweats from nightmares about losing your “Like”-gating (exclusive content only your fans can access) and stressing about the death of your welcome page. Or, maybe worse, you haven’t started looking into it quite yet, and March 30th is slowly creeping up on you to take over your brand with the infamous Timeline.

But we figure, if you can’t fight em’ (and you can’t…just ask the Winklevoss twins!), you may as well join ’em. So let’s go over a few key points for moving forward as a brand in the new world of Facebook. We’ll start with what we think are the most important things for you to know before the big transition.

First off, the best news we have for you is that, with the new Facebook, you can interact with fans privately, instead of just on your wall! That means you can contact contest winners more easily, deal with inappropriate or negative comments instead of just deleting them from your wall, and really engage your fans at a more personal level.

Secondly, you should know that your fans and non-fans alike are now all going to be directed to your wall when they visit your fan page, instead of landing on a homepage you can entice them with. This means your wall needs to be current, your timeline photo needs to be eye-catching, and most importantly we think…your application icons need to speak for themselves.

So what exactly does that mean? Currently, your applications, such as a shop page, a testimonials page, and any other extra content you’ve included on your fan page show up alongside the left of your content and are somewhat understated – that is, it’s not a main focus of your page, nor is it much of a design element.

But all this is changing now. With the onset of the more prominent app buttons featured just below your main timeline photo, these little icons have just been shoved into center stage. And while this is all new and overwhelming for a lot of people right now, it is also a good opportunity to make something of the new layout.

You want people to click through your tabs to reach your content, so the new icons need to draw people in. And you’ve got the opportunity to customize, so you need to make the app buttons a part of your brand. Staying in tune with the rising hype over pinterest, you can think of the new app layout as a very focused and limited pin board. These little images should fit your brand’s sensibility and get people interested in what’s behind the button.

We bet you’re wondering what we have planned for our brands’ new Facebook Timelines. So here’s a little something we’ve put together for our Rock Candy Life Timeline…

Check out our application icons. While the Photos and Likes categories remain un-editable, the rest are open opportunities for you to reach your audience. We’re keeping our icons up-to-date with images of our current curtain prints, mentions of current promotions, and little tidbits that should keep our Rock Candy Life fans interested.

We’d love to know what you have planned for your brands’ Timelines or what you are hoping to see from the brands you love. And, as always, we’re here to help with any customization you don’t want to tackle on your own.

Enjoy the last month of your current fan page, and keep on movin’ forward, folks!

Let Your Curiosity Take Control