What’s New on Facebook

When Facebook launched its “subscribe” button last month, many users overlooked its beneficial features, such as allowing users to follow public updates and customize news feeds. This could not be more advantageous for financial professionals interested in getting their content and messages out on the network. How, you ask? Well, there are a few different options depending upon how you decide to post your content on Facebook. Let’s take a look at the choices.

Profiles. If you utilize your profile to post updates and content, the first thing you need to do is actively opt in to allow subscriptions to your profile. You can then choose to allow subscribers to comment on your updates and control your notifications. This is the first step to allowing other users to follow you and your content. The next step is to continue to post quality content from your profile that your subscribers would like to see. It’s also important to set the privacy setting to public when composing updates that you’d like your subscribers to view.

Depending on the brand image you and your organization are attempting to get across, you may need to broaden your focus. If you are trying to brand yourself, then you definitely need to take advantage of your personal profile to post content, due to the rise of the subscribe feature. If you think this is a reason to steer away from the fan page, think again. Fan pages continue to be essential for companies, brands and products to get their message across and grow a following. The characteristics of the profile feature are very un-individualistic, which emphasizes the importance of continuing to keep up your organization’s fan page. There are other reasons, too; let’s take a look.

Fan pages. If you utilize a fan page to post updates and content about your brand, don’t stop. Regardless of the new subscribe feature, fan pages will continue to be the primary and ideal way to get your brand’s message across. Not only do fan pages better guarantee that most of your audience will see your updates, but they also allow for custom tabs that can better expose and market your brand’s message to its audience. Think iframes and personalized applications. Additionally, fan pages allow for analytics, multiple administrators and targeted updates. However, just as with your personal profile and the subscribe feature, it’s crucial to continually put out quality content that your fans would like to see.