14 Comments »Back in November Facebook released a new product called Facebook Pages. What I believed was the most important feature was the ability to add applications to Pages. Since then thousands of pages have been created and everyday I see another friend that has become a fan of a product, person, or service. There are still some serious issues with the Pages product though. I experienced these first hand while launching the inaugural Social Ad Summit.
Can’t Send Messages
This has to be the most significant problem facing pages: you can’t send messages to fans! Rather than using messages Facebook opted to use an alternative messaging system called “updates”. The only problem with notifications? In any given day I get about 20 notifications. The other problem? Most users don’t read them.
If you create an event for your fan page, you can’t send messages to them either! Instead, if you create an event for your fan page you will only be able to send them notifications with event updates. This has to be the most backwards system ever. I understand why Facebook doesn’t want to let fan pages send unlimited messages but they should at least hold the same standard for events whether created by a fan page or a user.
Paid Promotion Only
Facebook encourages owners of Facebook pages to promote their page by purchasing Facebook advertising. This contrasts Facebook groups in which any user (depending on group restrictions) can typically invite their friends to join. This in turn contributes to groups growing virally. Unfortunately for pages, the only viral growth comes in the form of newsfeed notifications.
It is an awkward balance that Facebook has for groups and fan pages. Fan pages appear to receive a higher priority when it comes to news feeds. Why is that exactly? Well Facebook arbitrarily decided it. This model is also somewhat of a conflict of interest. They want to make it easy to spread information but they want companies to pay for some of that promotion.
Ongoing Conflict
While Facebook needs to adjust their Pages product, it’s clear that Facebook still has a lot of changes that need to be made. As I said earlier, Facebook’s model presents somewhat of a conflict of interest. Imagine if Google was in the business of charging for placement of actual search results and not just ad words. Facebook has an unbalanced emphasis on paid promotion and this is something that will have to be resolved as the company works out their monetization model.
Facebook should promote their advertising services equally throughout the site. Whatever model Facebook plans on using for monetization, the most important thing is fully functional products.
The Fan Page messaging system is actually called “Updates”, not notifications.
They also need to format pages to match the new layout. I hate the cheap fix they have for it at the moment.
Also… when you get kicked off facebook, your page disappeared. I lost one with over 1000 fans.
i've written extensively on this and am an expert in facebook's need for “Poupfiles”
something that combines the functionality which is still disaggregated across pages + groups + profiles.
this is not a high priority for facebook and is massively frustrating.
the ONLY viral activity that shows up from Pages is becoming a fan. That is weak and is worse than nothing because it drives people to become fans (wow, look how many of my friends are fans of Visa Business Network!) then NOTHING HAPPENS.
If you are the fan, the only thing you might get is an “update” which is basically an email that gets put into some ghettoized spam type folder you'll rarely if ever check.
if your friend writes on the wall of a page, you don't know that
if your friend comments on a video on a page, you don't know that.
pages, from a “facebook” perspective, do not exist, and it's a shame.
now if you are the page owner, you're worse off because you may have thousands of “fans” but you have no way to entice them to engage. It's funny, the page has a minifeed of activity showing when you add a video or photo or install an app.
but NONE of these actions are visible to your thousands of fans.
Facebook is very unintelligent on this point. They are so paranoid about spam, they forget that people OPTED IN to be your fan. If someone says they want to be my fan, you think maybe they want to see a notification that I added a new video of my standup or an event or a photo?
of course they want to know.
Facebook has crippled what should be a great product, and it's just plain dumb.
i get really frustrated with the lack of thought and communication around these products.
GROUPS are better because their activity is viral, but groups have limits.
Groups are better because you can send a REAL message not some bootleg “update” to people which ends up in their inbox
Facebook is so busy reinventing basic functionality (like email) it can't see how crapped up and conflct-ridden many of its services are.
I could go on forever. i must sleep now.
if you are looking for expert analysis of what's wrong with the page/group/profile world i really am your guy. i experience these frustrations (and sometimes promises) on a daily basis.
it's sad.
A previous commenter here claimed that “If someone says they want to be my fan, you think maybe they want to see a notification that I added a new video of my standup or an event or a photo? of course they want to know.”
I couldn't disagree more. As a “fan” of 300+ Facebook Pages, by default I do NOT want to receive updates of any kind, thank you! This is partly because, from the recipient's point of view, Facebook Updates have issues with their usability. For instance, I can't just “mark all read”, I can't delete an individual update from a particular sender, etc.
The same commenter continued that “Groups are better because you can send a REAL message”. He might want to think again. Groups are WORSE exactly for that same reason. As a group member, you're forced to choose between these two alternatives: either be a member and receive all those (often irrelevant) messages in your Facebook Inbox, or leave the group entirely. The Inbox is a problematic place, because its usability is very poor. For example, you can't create folders, and you can't filter messages by sender.
Another problem with FB Groups is that you're not allowed to be a member of more than 300 groups (which is really lame IMO).
Just recently I've become a fan of tens of Pages. While doing that, I noticed that “became a fan of” news items are not clustered on my wall - unlike pretty much all other types of activities. This smells like spam-like force-feeding to me.
Regarding virality of Pages: Even from a fan's point of view it's disappointing, that you can't invite your friends to be fans. Why can't we just have things work in the same way as they do in groups?
i meant notifications. not updates. notifications via newsfeed, the same way you get notifications from groups and friends. what exactly is the point of declaring yourself a fan one time never to return or have ANY kind of contact or relationship?
you need to fix your disqus CSS. the reply button is in white, and thus not visible
All great points Nick! I found your piece as when you type in Facebook Pages into Blog search in Google you are no 1. Here is no 2, an equally excellent piece on FB Pages from Mari Smith http://www.new.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=79...
Some people just want to be fans without receiving messages. You need to accept either that ,or a reduction in the number of fans. People who want to force other people to receive messages are called spammers. Spammers don't have a lot of fans
i'm not sure how this came down to messages only. you seem to have
ignored my other points about notifications and the newsfeed.
most importantly, facebook should create choices and trust its users'
discretion more.
many people DO want messages
many DO want notifications
they want more than a token one-time act declaring their fandom.
maybe you should accept that and facebook should let you have your
experience and me have mine!
PROBLEM SOLVED!
YES! I think you should let Facebook hear about your visions
Sometimes, it would be nice to receive some information about activities within a group, too. But just like in other forms of communication, the group members should be allowed to opt out, if they want to.
There's certainly room for improvement in both Pages and Groups.
Until Facebook addresses this issue, lots of organizations will continue to build user profiles instead of Pages. Here in Denver, I can't think of a single local business that has used Pages to market itself. I have received dozens of requests from businesses who have set up user pages, though.
I have set up a couple of pages for businesses, and find it frustrating that I'm unable to post items to the wall/discussion, etc… as myself, but can only post as the Page.
There is a lot of work that needs to be done on pages for them to become effective for mainstream business use.