It’s getting down to the wire and any brand who hasn’t
switched over their Facebook pages to the new brand pages will be forced to at
the end of this week. Facebook didn’t give brands an incredible amount of time
to shift strategies and figure out their next moves, but some of the biggest
and brightest brands have already taken first steps in the right direction.
It seems Facebook’s main reason for making this move is
because they want brands to look at their Facebook fans as more than just
someone to sell to – and I appreciate that. This move gives brands the
opportunity to show the “softer” side of their companies with more stories,
real photos that give a “behind the scenes look” and just helps to humanize the
brand a bit more.
Anyone who’s a
community manager has probably hit a creative wall at one point with
their Facebook posts and can sometimes forget that it’s not about SELLING when
posting, it’s about story-telling and interacting with fans who already enjoy
your brand.
Brand managers will also have to choose their tabs, photos
and posts to highlight wisely. The initial fangate that fans click through to
visit your page are now gone, so that cover page, highlighted content and tabs
are more important than ever.
The milestone is a feature I really enjoy. It’s especially
interesting to see Facebook pages such as Ben & Jerry’s who’ve added a
variety of milestones featuring older ads, how they got started, etc – it’s an
easy way to tell a great story and share the past everyone else may not know
about.
It'll be really interesting to see who's going to do well with these Facebook Timelines and how brands will get creative with all these new features. What brand is your favorite Facebook Timeline page right now?
