Facebook recently changed not only how news and updates are delivered to users, but they’ve also implemented a formula for deciding which news is delivered. When you log into Facebook, you will most likely first see “News Feed.” (Unless you’ve moved Status Updates to the top of your left side menu, in which case, you will see just the Status Updates from your friends.) What shows up in your News Feed is determined by Facebook based on their own formula.  The News Feed typically will include content from your Friends and from the Fan Pages that you belong to. However, unless you click on view “Live Feed,” you are only going to see the content that Facebook has decided you might be interested in.

This means Facebook now takes into account what Fan Pages your friends like, or what Fan Page stories they are commenting on, which fan pages you interact with frequently and which fan pages you visit most often.

What does this mean for Facebook Fan Page Administrators?

It means that engagement and interaction on your Fan Page just became much more important if you expect to get your Fan Page to show up in your fans’ News Feeds. No longer can you just post on your Facebook and expect that it will get seen by your fans by showing up in their News Feed. It will still show up in their Live Feed, but the Live Feed is not the default and we have no idea how many users are actually moving from their News Feed to the Live Feed.

Fan Page Administrators will now have to work to earn a spot in their Fan’s News Feeds. While this might seem like this approach works against small businesses and works more for big brands with a huge fan base and tons of interaction, it really just means that Facebook is working towards keeping content in user’s news feeds that is relevant and interesting to the user. Fan Page should be places where fans come to interact with a brand or business. It’s never been the intention that Fan Pages should just be advertising billboards who can blast out marketing messages to anyone who becomes a fan. As a social networking platform, Facebook is a place where people go to network and socialize either with people, brands or business which they have *chosen* to interact with.

Next up…How to Keep Your Fans Engaged.

Image by J.Rio via Flickr