Page Admins: Don’t Bother Sending An Update To Facebook Fans (Or Whatever They’re Called Now)
Tuesday, 18 May 2010OK, I’m calling it: marketers should probably give up on mass messaging people who “Like” their Facebook Page (Facebook users formerly known as “Fans,” who, coincidentally, Facebook still calls “Fans” in the admin section of all Pages).
A few months ago, I talked about how Facebook moved the notifications for Page updates to a subset of the Facebook private messaging system. Basically, they buried them. Go check your Updates Inbox; if you’re anything like me, there are a lot of “unread” blue dots in there.
Page Updates Moved to Messages
These mass messages sent from Facebook Page Administrators to the entire group of people who “Like” a Page used to have their own little icon indicator at the top left-hand side of the Facebook navigation bar, where Messages, Notifications and Friend Requests still live. Now, the only way to access these updates is from the messages section; it almost looks like they are a subfolder of these messages. And while you can choose to get email alerts about a lot of site goings-on, Page Updates are not one of these options. And so, most people never notice them.
We can guess about why Facebook has devalued these semi-private updates, but given the recent roll-out to a much more open and accessible site, I think it’s
pretty clear: Facebook wants all communications to take place in the open, where they can be searched, crawled and categorized. Page Updates that are sent to users’ Inboxes don’t help Facebook index more content, and so they are slowly making them harder to find, and therefore, harder to read and follow the Page Admin’s call to action.
Stick to Status Updates
If you also consider that asking users to “Like” instead of “Fan” a Page is a lower-commitment action designed to increase the number of Pages a user identifies with, it seems likely that even if users are in the habit of checking these Inbox Updates, they are less likely to read any one message very carefully. As the threshold for connecting to a Page is lowered, users will “Like” more Pages (as Facebook hopes), giving more Admins access to send them Updates. This will lead to Inbox overcrowding, and reduce the already slim chance that your message gets read.
My advice? Don’t hang your hat on mass updates. Sure, you can include them as part of your strategy, but in this Twitterific era, longer communications don’t work. Stick to short quick, updates on your Page’s wall, and be sure to include links and an image thumbnail.
When Facebook buried them I realized they become kind of pointless. I admin a few pages and barely ever find myse checking the updates in my own inbox. They’ve lost most of their value.
The alternative for me if I need more text (I usually try to keep status updates to around 140 characters) is to utilize the Notes feature. It posts as a status and still allows for a full fledged “letter” of sorts.
Glad to hear someone else noticed as well.
While I’m not a big fan of the mass update, one of the best things I’ve seen giving them value is consistently providing download links in the message – in the form of e-books, music, whatever.
The audience becomes accustomed to regular updates and free content and so your message becomes more likely to be opened.
By the way I would also love to find out what you call the ex-Facebook “Fans” as I’ve been calling them page members (boring).
If people fine-tune their messaging settings or are very selective of the pages they “like,” it’s possible they will look forward to certain inbox updates. But I doubt it. Most people don’t take the time to opt-out of updates; they just ignore all of them. And the whole idea of “liking vs fanning” was to get people to subscribe to more pages. So while I like the idea, I’m skeptical that it will pan out.
As for what to call these people, I think “page members” is the correct term, according to Facebook, although it’s somewhat cumbersome. “People who like this” or “people who like the page” also work, but are ever longer.
Thanks for the post, Alison. And as for mass messaging in general, I agree, it will certainly get lost in an already over-crowded in-box. However, and I know this is going to sound hypocritical of my last statement, but I’m interested in sending fans an invitation to an event. When I do that, it seems to me that those I can select to send it to are my personal FB friends as opposed to fans of the page I administer. Any thoughts on how to create and send an event to fans?
-Jeff