Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’

Recently I wrote a post about leveraging Facebook’s new Timelines layout for business. I described several ways companies can use the new features to their advantage, including tips on using the cover photo and pinning posts.

I still believe Timelines can help businesses build community around their brands, as long as they are willing to try new tactics and keep an open mind. However, according to Convince and Convert’s Jay Baer, Facebook has betrayed small businesses through the sweeping changes brought on by Timelines. After reading his argument, I’d have to say he has some good points. Let’s discuss.

Some of the new Timelines features require a big-business staff.

If your small business lacks a social media department – or even a dedicated social media staff person – you might find some of Facebook’s features to be overwhelming to use effectively. Baer definitely sees these features as potential roadblocks to keeping up with the bigger guys. For example, although the new cover photo is a great space to highlight products or recent events, it requires a staff person with the time to take cover-worthy images and format them correctly for the space.

Then there are the new pinning and starring features. Being able to highlighting important and relevant posts adds a handy promotional tool to your Facebook page, but someone has to track these features and be sure they don’t become dated. If your community starts relying on pinned and starred posts for the latest company information, you could miss out on communications opportunities if you can’t stay on top of it.

Similarly, Timeline makes it obvious if you haven’t updated your page in a few days because the activity stream leaves large spaces where your content should have been. So, once again, if small businesses are stretched for resources, any gaps in posting will be displayed, front-and-center.

Finally, Facebook has tweaked the direct messages feature to keep up with Twitter’s dominance of the social media customer service space, which is great. But, for small businesses, that just means one more inbox to check, on top of an ever-growing to-do list.

Facebook marketing is getting more expensive.

While Facebook has been viewed as a place where limited marketing budgets couldn’t hold you back, Timelines has introduced some pricier features. According to Baer, if you want to keep up with bigger companies, it’s going to cost you.

The “old” Facebook’s landing tab gave small businesses a chance to drive fan behavior – using affordable software – by creating custom micro-sites within their Facebook pages. But Timelines eliminated the landing tab, which isn’t good for businesses of any size. However, larger companies have the budgets to create plenty of other custom solutions, on their websites or blogs, to drive fans to their Facebook page.

Especially frustrating for small businesses, Facebook is now selling the opportunity to expand your “reach” on the network. According to Baer’s article, Facebook estimates that only 16% of your status updates are ever seen by your fans. However, for a limited time, you can buy the opportunity to reach around 75% of your fans – that is, if you can afford it.

Finally, Facebook advertising is heading beyond the budgets of many small companies because premium ads are getting very expensive. These ads will be sold through cost-per-impression deals, which are more profitable for any online advertiser. But these pricier ads will reduce the inventory of the small business-friendly cost-per-click Marketplace ads.

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After examining these features that are SMB-unfriendly, I’d have to agree that small businesses are at a disadvantage on the “new” Facebook. What do you think? If you own or work at a small business, do you feel betrayed by Facebook’s recent changes?

Image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com