Facebook Fan Pages: Subscribe to Get Notifications In for Good!

Facebook has indeed proved that it is truly a big player when it comes to social media marketing. Recently, the social networking giant updated some features in Facebook Fan pages as a way of getting businesses hooked up to using the platform as a tool to reach out to their target audiences.

But then, there was a problem – Facebook discovered that its Fan pages were being abused by most businesses around the globe!

As a response, Facebook rolled out an option to have fan pages configured with the ‘subscribe to get notifications' feature. Now, Facebook fans can now click on this if they desire to be notified on new posts from businesses they are following.

In this article, we will talk about the effects of this update on the business fan pages.

Impact of the Update:

1. Display of Information

When you hit the subscribe button, you are subscribing to notifications of all updates of a specific user or page. This is very similar to Twitter and Google Plus’ follow feature. Serving as a new engagement opportunity, the “Subscribe to Get Notification” function guarantees that users will keeping seeing all updates of Facebook pages not only through the regular new feed but also through notifications. By default, notifications are off. So marketers will need to make every effort to communicate it to their fans why they should check the notification button and allow them to send notifications any time.

2. Tweak on the “The More Likes, the Merrier” Drift

Subscribe is the new Like. Facebook fan page “likes” now do not necessarily mean subscription to feeds. So if your page happens to have a million likes, this does not necessarily entail that this huge number of fans will receive notifications. Facebook now favors a healthy dose of comments over likes and shares. People will not anymore see notifications if they're just ‘likers' and not ‘subscribers'.

3. Edge Rank

Designed to control the volume of feeds people see as a mess, Edge Rank will act as a filter. To have a high Facebook Edge Rank, marketers are compelled to use Promoted Posts to have their post stay on top of the new feed. Else, several posts will be like the millions of others—pushed down to the bottom and remain unnoticed. Problem here would be the cost. You have to pay a certain amount up to $4,500 to have one promoted post.

4. Less Clutter for Users’ Views

Use of Facebook is for free and so everyone can make an account as many as they want. With so many people now taking action, Facebook develops this new function to sort the news feed. Rather than seeing a whole stream full of trashy posts which are not entirely relevant to the users, Facebook aimed to have cleaner news feeds for users. They can also choose not to see all of the updates of these pages by simply un-checking the ‘Get Notifications’ and ‘Show in News Feed’ under the Like button.

5. Real Engagement

The Facebook algorithm change may be attributed to the fact that there are quite a number of exchange services available on the net wherein marketers can buy points or credits and get fake likes and shares in return. What Facebook encourages is organic reach to posts. The highlight is to earn the credit naturally without having to get an audience be blitzed with pages having more likes. In the long run, your business should have real fans instead of made-up ones who don’t have actual interest in your products.

Conclusion

Bottom line is that as a marketer, you don't have to be worried about your Facebook page no matter the rules, features and quality controls of the site if your content is strong and engaging. The most important thing in Facebook marketing, aside from knowing the tools to use, is extensive writing and building relationships with fans. Get your message sent across to as many fans and catch their attention by consistently providing them with valuable information and promotions.

What are thoughts on the new ‘subscribe to get notifications' feature of Facebook? Share with us in your comments below.