The social media firestorm ignited by the decision by more than 100 sponsors to pull their ads for Rush Limbaugh’s radio talk show has finally begun to burn out. After an action-packed few weeks that brands like the usually-quiet ProFlowers and Sleep Number Beds shot to the top of Media Logic’s Retail Social Juice Index, scores have started to normalize.
Facebook made a big announcement yesterday. Brands can effectively turn off the familiar wall and switch to Timeline. (Don’t know what Timeline is, here’s a good overview from Mashable). Many major brands have already made the move, including Macy’s, Walmart, Sears, Puma, Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co. and American Express. Should you?
So here we are at the beginning (the most recent beginning, anyway), and Facebook’s listed three huge benefits of its new pages: branding your page, highlighting what matters and managing everything in one place. Lots of brands were invited to set up their pages early, and others are working to publish as quickly as they can, so we already have dozens of examples of what can be done. Let’s see who’s already taking advantage of what Facebook has defined as the focus.
Facebook Timeline enhances the overall experience for me. It creates a scrapbook of the community I have created, logging when I liked or friended someone, posted pics, updated my status, etc., but it also improves the reach of those communities by facilitating connections to the things that matter to me. We haven’t stayed the same since we started our pages -- why should our profiles?