If you've got a Facebook business page, you've probably heard about Facebook Timeline. Whether loving the new Facebook Timeline or absolutely despising the fact that Facebook made yet another change to their social platform, you're going to love this new feature!
According to an article on Business Insider, Facebook announced yesterday that it has added a new simple social networking feature called Action Links to Facebook Timeline.
In basic terms, when a user 'checks in' to a location or 'likes' a product there are only two existing action links currently available on Facebook Timeline: To 'like' the action or to 'comment' on it.
The new Facebook Timeline feature has provided developers with a third action link option. An option that they can designate themselves for any action that they define.
For example, users can click 'save place' for locations that other users have checked into, 'save this recipe' or 'fave this product'.
For Facebook business pages what exactly does this new feature mean for business social networking on Facebook Timeline?
- Increased user interactivity with brands, companies and products
- Developers have the freedom to become really creative with these action links
- Increased traffic to your company pages with fewer clicks
- Increased sharing amongst each users' connections
While certain action links have been available on Facebook for some time, the announcement of this update to the action links feature is a prime example of where Facebook Timeline is intending to take interaction in the future.
It's important to not that these action links are currently not available in mobile view.
Key takeaway: Facebook is always making updates to the popular social network and these are not necessarily for the worse - especially when these updates increase user-interactivity and sharing.
This is an awesome infographic if you're hungry for some Facebook stats.
The infographic, created by Statista, is based on facts and figures that Facebook released as part of its plans to raise $5 billion in an initial public offering of stock (IPO).
Some of theses stats are scary, for example:
- There are 2.7 billion Facebook likes + comments taking place every day
- In 2012 Facebook expects to reach nearly half of the US population.
- Facebook revenues have surged from $777m in 2009 to $3.7bn in 2011.
See the infographic for yourselves:
These stats point to a massive user base that no business or brand can afford not to tap into. If you have a product or service offering, chances are that in this massive user bases, there are thousands of prospective customers of your business.
So, what are you doing about it?
Any business can create a Facebook page. It's free. And it's a opportunity
Marketing takeaway: If you're not yet using facebook as part of your online strategy, it's time to catch a wake-up.
Up until now, a limitation of using facebook for business was the lack of publicly available data. Apparently, according to Facebook, that's all about to change.
Why?
Well, facebook yesterday announced its new subscribe button for profile pages. This new addition allows facebook to support and provide even more publicly available content - something that facebook has always been criticised for lagging behind in. Google - here we come.
What does this new subscribe button do?
It has three main functions:
1. Users can now choose precisely what they want to see in their news feed. We're talking choosing to the point of how much they want to see and what type of content what they want to see. Talk about the user being in control.....
2. Users can now subscribe to people who aren't even their friends. This has advantages both ways. Firstly, for users who now have access to people they previously didn't, and secondly for those people who actually want to get their content out there - for example bloggers and journalists.
3. Users can now allow other people to subscribe to their updates. So now you can share your message with more than just your friends.
How to embrace this new facebook feature for business
You must ensure that when you're sharing your business content on Facebook, you make it publicly available. In this way, it can be indexed by Facebook search, and this casts your net of reach further.
There's also talk that this new feature will have implications for business pages in the future and that it will affect Facebook's advertising platform. We're not sure how it, but we know it's only going to make Facebook more powerful. If that's possible. For business, that's immensely exciting.
How will this new feature affect your marketing efforts?