Facebook recently rolled out the new profiles over the weekend, and thus far, the reception hasn’t had status messages complaining. Generally, whenever Facebook makes a change there will be a multitude of ironically, Facebook statuses to complain. Not this time.
The new profiles were explained by CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a 60 Minutes interview:
“You can see all the things that you have in common with that person, it gives you this amazing connection with that person in a way that the current version of the profile that we have today just doesn’t do.”
We mention it, not because this really changed very much- it didn’t. The new profile pages, in our experience are okay but not really all that stunning in difference to what they were. Paying attention and waiting, the usual trend of seeing the complaints didn’t come to pass- but here is what did:
If you haven’t seen it yet- you will.
But what does Instant Personalization really do?
It actually only uses the information that a Facebook user already makes public. No Big Brother Bing scare, there- if you already have the information out there, anyone can access it, anyway.
What does this mean for businesses using social media?
That depends. For businesses that utilize social media in an appropriate way that isn’t spammy or annoying to the user? It will probably incentivize things a bit more- because it will become much more visible when a Facebook friend “Likes”, comments or otherwise engages with a business on Facebook. That is a part of the new profile change- which incidentally, though is opt-in at present, will be another one of the changes where you wake up, and your Facebook page is different in the future.
In terms of Instant Personalization- businesses would be wise to pay attention to what the social aspect of social media is saying, however slightly paranoid it may seem. Users want to interact with businesses on their terms, not on the terms of the business. In other words- if you market your business the way you have always done, you will miss out on the chance to truly engage the users, which is what social media is all about.
