Yesterday we told you about the latest change to Facebook brand Pages with the roll-out of Timeline. It is a significant move from Facebook, but it wasn’t the only announcement made at the Facebook Marketing Conference. There’s more to the story than just Timeline for Brands.
First, the bad news. With the launch of Timeline for brand Pages, one feature no longer available is the option to specify a default landing tab for pages. It was very common for Page owners to create a custom application and tab in the previous version of Pages. By selecting it as the default landing tab for non-fans, you could require them to “like” your Page as well as promote special offers or contests. With Timeline, fans and non-fans alike are going to have to actively click around the new app tiles below the Cover photo, which they might not. That sign-up form or contest might get less traffic then before.
Page admins can still make custom apps, but will have to highlight them in different ways. It appears that you can edit the small thumbnails that appear for apps, so marketers should find ways to make those stand out. Also, special content and posts can be “pinned” to the top of your Timeline for 7 days. This pin will stay above all other content. In the end, all this really does is create a greater emphasis on quality content instead of “like-gates.”
Now, some good news. Marketers have always been able analyze the performance of their Facebook Pages with the great Insights tool, but competitive benchmarking as been limited to just public data of Likes and People Talking About This for other Pages. Yesterday, Facebook also announced expanded public Insights data for Pages. As you can see below, there is still the two standard metrics but also a graph of those metrics over time, their most popular week, city and age group as well.
These new public Insights can be accessed by clicking the Likes tab on any Page. Pages that focus on a location will also have three additional metrics including for tagged Photos, most visited week and the highest number of check-ins in a single time. This public Insights data will help marketers better analyze their competitors. Although not announced yesterday, reports indicate that Facebook is also working to release real-time Insights for Pages. This would be a significant improvement over the 48 hours time lag currently in Insights.
Finally, some more neutral news. Also announced yesterday was an expansion of Facebook’s Premium advertising options. The new “Reach Generator” ad distribution platform is designed for the significantly large brand pages (think Coca Cola, Ben & Jerry’s, Nike). With direct, fixed pricing Reach Generator will distribute a Page’s storied in one of 5 locations: Page Post, Right-hand Side, News Feed, Mobile News Feed, and Logout page. That’s right, Facebook has officially announced mobile ads and has also added ads to the page you see when you log-out of Facebook. While great for large brands, this simply means more ads for Facebook users to see.