What the Changes at Facebook Mean to You

Facebook has slowly been rolling out two major changes that will probably reach all users in a week.

The first being the change to Pages, now termed — the rather generic — “Public Profiles.”

Pages, if you recall, were basically profiles for entities such as celebrities, brands, companies, and the like.

They allowed people to easily separate their personal lives from their professional ones.

That ability still remains, however, there are a few noteworthy changes to that concept worth mentioning. Now, the Pages (Public Profiles) pretty much mirror the design of regular Facebook profiles.

There really isn’t a discernible difference apart from a few icons and other minute details. But, what’s perhaps, the most important change is the way owners of the Public Profiles interact with their “fans.” Now, information is steamed and disseminated in the exact same way other content is.

In other words, if I’m a fan of Whole Foods, their profile activity will show up in my News Feed. If they upload a video of a new store debut and post a few photos of enthusiastic shoppers, I’ll see that information in my stream.

That is a HUGE difference and departure from Facebook’s old way of allowing Page owners to interact with their fans. Initially, those updates (videos, photos, etc.) would have been relegated to a lonely and hard-to-find place called, you guessed it, “Updates.”

This was a major disadvantage of Pages and it was one of the reasons I favored groups (at least in the beginning) over them.

However, with this recent change, celebrities, public officials, companies, and anybody else with a Pubic Profile will be able to interact and share information in a more intimate, one-on-one fashion.

It promotes a deeper engagement level and, obviously, will have a higher reach just by sheer virtue of being seen by more people. The benefits of that should go without saying.

The second major change that’s being rolled out across Facebook concerns the Home Page. Now, it will sport a cleaner look as well as enhanced functionality. These include “filters” which will allow you to segment the information you receive and from whom.

This is highly useful and something that I certainly encourage using. Being able to separate information — for example — by friends, family, business contacts, and clients is incredibly helpful from an efficiency standpoint.

Information from your friends will now be streamed in real-time, giving you a more up-to-date feed of your friends’ activities. You’ll also be able to publish your own information directly into the stream.

All of these changes will allow you to, not only, reach more people in a faster way — but also, to receive information from your friends (and from the Public Profiles you’re a fan of) in a more efficient manner, as well.

This means your information and message will be viewed by more people then previously possible (hooray for unintended alliteration). Whether you’re aiming to attract more blog readers, gain more subscribers, or get more visibility as a recognized expert, these changes will serve you well.

About The Author

Carol Hansen, a Twitter specialist focusing on building and monetizing your network. You can connect with Carol on Twitter or Facebook and follow her latest projects, blog posts and cool tips on building and monetizing your Twitter following.

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