Facebook has done it again. They’ve changed the way their interface looks, acts and the way you interact with your fans and friends.

As Facebook “improves” their platform, it becomes more difficult for organizations to manage their social media presence. In this post we’ll single out the Facebook changes to Pages that affect your organization and how to use these changes to your advantage!

 

No need for 25 Likes for a Vanity URL

What this means:

You can now market your page easier! The biggest problem most organizations had is that they could not effectively market their Facebook page due to the 25 fan restriction required to get their www.facebook.com/username vanity URL (ex. www.facebook.com/campaignbuilder). This change seems to be a one-time pass though, so if you have multiple pages only one of them can bypass the need for 25 fans. Once you use that up, it’s back to 25+ fans for other pages.

How to take advantage of it:

Visit www.facebook.com/username to set your page’s username / marketing alias. You can select any of the pages you are an administrator for and set the page name. Take time when thinking of your page’s alias, as you can only change it once! Also, once you put in a name, that name is forever reserved, so if you change it afterwards and want to go back to your original name – you’re out of luck!

Pages no longer require fans to “Like” the page to read content. 

What this means:

Facebook has made your organization’s content more accessible. The downside is that there is no exclusivity for your “fan club” – anyone can see your content whether they “like” your page or not.

How to take advantage of it:

Provide value through content, engagement and special contests to entice users to like your page. Each like is still valuable as it allows you to continue to engage fans through their newsfeed, which is the default starting point for all of a user’s Facebook activity. By creating value through content, you change your Facebook page from a stale “wall” to being a microsite and a hub for conversations. Many organizations (such as Jupiter Medical Center) have started providing engaging content in the form of video, e-mail contests, and microsite content through Campaign Builder.

New way of displaying image albums in the news feed.

What this means

Image albums now show up in more visually attractive and engaging way by stacking 3 images. This makes photo albums really stand out in the news feed.

New Album Display

How to take advantage of it

This step is the easiest of all – just post more pictures to highlight events, staff and services!

Now that you know the most important changes that affect organizations, you can adjust your social media strategy accordingly. Also, there are a number of other changes to personal profiles that I haven’t touched upon here. If you are interested, you can read a review of all of the new changes, including personal profiles in Mashable’s Facebook Changes article.