Thanks for letting us know about that. I had seen it pop up under the “edit page” section but must say I hadn’t noticed it disappear from the original place.

Also great to hear the click through rate has increased since the changes of the inbox. I will now start to use them again!

Especially handy if your updates don’t tend to appear in the default news feed display.

Thanks!

Thanks. This is helpful.

I think that the “dramatic increase” is probably gone since they started hiding the updates from users last month. Users no longer get a notice on their home page when an update comes in - they have to check their message Inbox and notice the updates there. Perhaps as equally important on the positive side is that Page Status updates can now be customized for geography.

Yeah, I tried sending out a fan update in the past week, but it’s basically useless if it only goes to the Updates area, which is buried from most fans’ view.

Thanks - I was wondering where that went!

i like the ability to target users through updates, although i’m finding that the message all members feature of groups to be way more useful!

thanks from me too…your blog always helps me with all the facebook changes.

Hi gang,

I didn’t realize fans had to check their message inbox to see updates. I sent a message out last night to announce my blog going live, and found it very odd that not one person responded, however, now I know.

Why even have this functionality if your fans do not see it in their updates? It defeats the purpose of sending out a mass email.

I try to have faith in this application, but it continuously leaves me scratching my head.

Hi gang,

I didn’t realize fans had to check their message inbox to see updates. I sent a message out last night to announce my blog going live, and found it very odd that not one person responded, however, now I know.

Why even have this functionality if your fans do not see it in their updates? It defeats the purpose of sending out a mass email.

I try to have faith in this application, but it continuously leaves me scratching my head.

http://italianscene.net/

I agree that the updates are very difficult to find for most viewers. I have asked several “fans” who are friends of mine and none of them has noticed the updates I’ve sent over the past few weeks! I think it would be good to show a number in the inbox (like it shows when you get a message) so that people know something is in the inbox, whether it is a message or an update. I also agree that the geography is a cool addition - except that my country does not show in the list (Belize), so I basically cannot use it…

Hi guys, anyone knows how to invite the fans to an event created from a bussines pages.

I don’t understand why you can invite from a group and not from a profesional page.

Thanks

Yeah, I have to agree, these changes seem to have taken the usefulness of this application in the wrong direction. At minimum, may I make a request that fan updates be changed back so that they appear in the user notifications? Since the ostensible purpose of notifications is to ‘notify’ users of events that concern them, this change actually strikes me as a mistake rather than an intended change…

I also just noticed that fan updates do not register as new items in the Inbox menu item! Surely that’s an oversight, no?

I’m having the same problem. I’ve sent the update (twice!) but where is it supposed to show up for my fans? It isn’t in their email or facebook inbox - it is only on my admin page as an update! Any help?

I thought my eyes were deceiving me, I could’ve sworn it was on the top left menu of my fan page, thanks for pointing out the change.

OK, so NOW I´ve found that the update will appear in the updates section of the inbox, but I´ve never noticed that there before, so I don´t think my fans will see it. Is there anything else that I could try so my fans will actually read my update?

Thanks bunches for this!!!! I spent half an hour looking everywhere trying to remember where the update button was and thought I’d lost my mind!!!

So there is basically no way to communicate with all the fans… My guess is that the feature has been removed to prevent us from reaching the users email box, as messages coming into to FB inbox also generate a notification email.

As group/fan page administrators, that’s what we would like, but I would say that FB is not too keen on sharing that privilege.

I just set up a fan page a couple of weeks ago, and I don’t get what the usefulness is at all. Posts on the wall don’t go out to fans. New discussion topics don’t go out. What does go out to fans, only updates going to their inbox but not showing that anything is there?! Really, what is the useful purpose of a fan page? The way it functions is beyond me.

If we are building online communities around shared goals, we need to communicate with our fans. I agree with the previous post. Are we better off to create a “group” page instead of a “fan” page? Can “group” pages be linked to a “cause”? Does anyone know what functionality we lose by creating a group page instead of a fan page? Thanks.

You mean to tell me that fan page updates aren’t seen in the timeline? Just in the fans inbox? What a waste! Then there really is no reason to have a fan page. I don’t want to clutter fans’ inboxes.

I believe if your fans click on “live feed” rather than “news feed”, they will see your fan page updates.

Thanks for the info. I’ve been wondering where the update button went.
Now after reading the comments, I wonder if it is worthed to maintain a page…

My fan page update is not showing up. How long does it take for an Update to post on a fans live feed? It’s been a couple of hours and I don’t see anything. What’s the deal?

I found the “Send an Update to Fans” link and have been sending update after update for several days. THEN NOTHING HAPPENED! None of these updates showed up on my fans’ news feed (I asked some of them). What’s going on?

I’ve invested so much time building up the Facebook Page and it is now a complete waste. It is essentially impossible to communicate to fans because 1) no one knows when an update has been sent to them and 2) the default settings now only show 250 friends in a given user’s live feed.

The application had so much promise, but is now worthless.

Me too

Hi all, at iFan Design we manage a create a large number of custom Fan Pages for multiple clients. We honestly believe as Fan page administrators you would be better off using the Notes application to Post a Fan Page announcement. As the post is generated from an application it will automatically get fed into the newsfeed of all of your fans meaning it is much more visible on each of your fans homepage rather than being hidden in an obscure location.
Regards Tony - iFan Design
http;//www.facebook.com/ifan.page.design

Hi.
So just to make sure I understood properly, everyone can confirm that now, when the Fan Page functionality “send an update to fan” is used, the fans do not receive an email anymore?
I don’t even see where the update goes ! What’s the difference then between this and simply posting a message that will show on the fan news feed???!
Any idea if FB will put this emailing functionality back?
Tx
Yawye

For some reason, I still don’t have the “New” look. So… for what it’s worth… “Fan Page” updates do not go directly into the Fan’s “Inbox”.

However… Fans WOULD need to go to their “Inbox” in order to find a link called “Updates” located on the left hand side of the page. And I’m there’s a high percentage of “Fans”, in general, that wouldn’t know this unless they stumble upon it while looking at a message in their “Inbox”.

William

Thanks William,
I still dont have the new look either.
Let’s hope it will be better then, because I agree with you, right now, it’s unlikely that fans will actualy dig in their accoutn to find the updates…
Regards
Yawye