Facebook hasn't exactly been the friend of brands in recent times, considering that it not long ago extended its EdgeRank algorithm to brand pages so that as much as 80 percent of their audience disappeared. Page updates no longer garner the engagement they used to, and certainly don't reach as many eyeballs, which is a problem for any brands, whether it is an internal digital PR team or an appointed social media agency.
However, Facebook has just introduced a new element of functionality that will allow page presences to be tagged in images on the network. For example, a picture of a certain brand of chocolate bar being eaten by a fan could be tagged with that brand's page, or a picture of a celebrity could be tagged with their fan page. Below I've outlined what this change could mean for pages; branded pages in particular:
- An additional outlet for interaction with fans - most brands interact with fans primarily through comments and likes, but the introduction of page photo tagging presents a new engagement possibility. In most cases tagging a brand could illustrate something much more meaningful than a comment or like, that the brand was somehow part of the situation, and is, as such, much more valuable.
- Competition possibilities - it is entirely possible that competitions could be based on the new page tagging element, using the new functionality as part of a contest across the Facebook community. There is plenty of room for creativity here, and the pages that are the most innovative will more than likely reap the biggest rewards.
- Potentially more visibility in fan news feeds and profile pages - more interactions means more visibility, both in terms of the EdgeRank algorithm allowing content to reach more people, and more interactions appearing in users' news feeds. It may be a small factor, but could result in valuable visibility in the long run.
- Page to page collaboration through images - Should a brand or page have some form of relationship in place, for example two brands in a partnership or two music artists who are part of the same group, the new tagging functionality could allow another area for collaboration. This could become a mainstream occurrence, similarly to the way that many pages now reference one another through Facebook's @ functionality.
The change opens up a number of new outlets for brands to interact with their audiences, and also potentially a much more meaningful way for Facebook users to highlight certain brands or pages as part of their lives. It will certainly be interesting to see how the biggest of the thousands of pages on the platform make use of this new functionality.