Facebook recently rolled out significant changes to the design and layout of the user portal and Pages. For some, these are welcome revisions, and for others—like myself—they're not.
drop.io CEO Sam Lessin wrote an article for PC World with great praise for the new look-and-feel.
Having spent an initial few days playing with and thinking about the changes Facebook is making to their fan page system, I must admit that I think it will radically effect the way in which we as a brand can and will use Facebook--this time for the better.
Like many others, Lessin fails to account for the variety of organizations that were using Pages and the many ways they were used. I had four Pages: two for nonprofit corporations, one for a services corporation, and one more for my music. None of my pages had remotely close to "3,000 Facebook fans."
So my opinion is a perspective from the trenches. The number-one problem with the new design is that the barrier to entry has been greatly heightened. Small organizations, from independent musicians to fledgling charities, will now have a tougher time of getting to the point that drop.io has already achieved.
Lessin actually points all of the main problems out. He just doesn't connect the dots.
Over time, Facebook actually degraded the presence and power of fan pages by hiding individual brand 'fan' status on a secondary tab in the profile, and changing the ability of a brand to even reach out to fans.
Older versions of Facebook did not make heavy use of menus and tabs. You could actually find content easily, such as which Pages your contacts were Fans of, without having to navigate any deeper than one level. Now Pages of which your contacts are Fans are two levels deep not including the scrolling down you have to do with more comprehensive user profiles. Although Facebook has attempted to circumvent the problem by allowing Pages into the Stream, Pages continue to have a degraded presence.
As of the latest change, pages now have a look, feel, and function largely consistent with user profiles on Facebook. [...] While this might sound cosmetic, it actually makes all the difference in the world in terms of how we as a company can and will interact with our customers through the service.
Lessin believes this integration is a positive, and he's right. But he's also wrong. Facebook didn't heed the lesson also ignored by MySpace: people do not like astroturfing. Some companies hired actors to sit at tables in public places and talk up their products. That did not go down well. An infamous Sony-Zipatoni campaign for the PlayStation Portable also received harsh, negative criticism. (Hint: astroturfing is a con.) On the other hand, Pages can interface with constituents on a more social level, but the forced-astroturfing design was completely unnecessary. I unpublished all but one of my Pages as a result.
[O]ur brand not only has static presence on Facebook with the ability to receive wall posts and the odd rating, but we have an active and evolving voice that we can use.
Unfortunately, that active and evolving voice is no longer an option. This is where the higher barrier to entry comes into play. Because Pages are designed to showcase activity, if you're an independent musician who's not an active performer or if you're a startup with not much to say, your Page will appear inactive, unused, and boring. You are now required to have "an active and evolving voice" to grow your fanbase.
For those of you who remain interested in Pages, consider the new changes. In brief:
- Facebook Pages now look exactly like user profiles. Think advertorials. Ick.
- The Wall has become the focal point. Everything else has been shoved under the rug. For musicians, your audience will have to scroll down to find your music because Facebook, in their infinite wisdom, has decided that you should not be able to decide what's important to your audience.
- Expect to spend more time on Facebook. You might want to hire someone to do just that because if you don't keep your Page updated, your Page will end up where neglected blogs do: off the radar.
Good luck to those of you who want to tough out the new ways. I sure don't, not without help.