Reports began popping up today that Facebook is about to change the “Become a Fan” button on Fan pages to the popular “Like” button.

‘Fan Pages’ are free pages generally used by businesses and brands who want to create a social media presence. Currently, a Facebook user clicks ‘Become a Fan’ when they want to follow the brand.  You can become a fan of McDonald’s or Britney Spears. Becoming a Fan of a brand or business is very similar to adding someone as a Friend on Facebook. The brand status updates begin to populate in your newsfeed, the brand has the option to send you messages, and depending on the specific fan page settings, you can post on the brand’s wall.  Fan pages that a user has ‘Become a Fan’ of are also displayed on their personal profile.

The ‘Like’ feature, however, is quite different. A user can ‘Like’ someone’s status, photos, wall posts, etc. It’s a simple way of giving approval or a thumbs-up. Depending on privacy settings it’s possible others can see items you ‘Like’ and you’ll be notified when someone else ‘Like[s]‘ or adds a comments to that item.

Understanding the difference between ‘Become a Fan’ and ‘Like’, it makes sense that Facebook is reporting users click ‘Like’ almost twice as much as they click ‘Become a Fan’. It’s much easier to ‘Like’ something. It’s quick and easy. After maybe another comment by a user, in a couple days that item you ‘Like[d]‘ has disappeared. Becoming a Fan is saying you want to stay updated. You want to regularly see more about this brand or business. These two items are not the same and should not be interchangeable. That’s why I feel this switch won’t be positive.

Changing the language is not going to cause users to ‘Become a Fan’ of more fan pages.  Users click ‘Like’ more often than ‘Become a Fan’ not because the word is more appealing, but because the act is simpler. There might be an increase in clicks at first, but once a user’s newsfeed is populated by more businesses and less friends, users will revert.

Photo courtesy of Bing

Bing has had a deal in place for the last week to integrate Facebook status updates and tweets from Twitter into Real Time Search Results.  Google announced their deal with Twitter last week as well, also announcing that Facebook updates would also be made available soon.  However, today Google released their deal with Facebook and revealed that only status updates from Facebook pages would be available in their search results (ie: not personal pages, but company pages).  Bing will also have the personal status updates, not just public Facebook pages.  The reason?  Facebook says, “The terms of the Google deal were specifically related to public updates on Pages. But our conversations with both companies are continually evolving regarding ways in which we might work together in the future.”

Sources: Search Engine Land, Bing.com

Photo courtesy of greatdance.com

In case you were wondering, Social Media is taking over the world.  Facebook statistics are astounding!  Over 350 million users with 50% of them logging on daily.  What does this have to do with marketing? Well, the fact is simple.  If you create a Facebook Fan Page, you are sure to promote your product or company in an organic way (through people “liking it” and sharing with others).  Facebook is comprised of the younger and older, friends, siblings, parents, grandparents, colleagues, students, and the list goes on!  Essentially, it reaches everyone.  With people actively using it every day, it is easy to see why it would be a great marketing tool.  Visiture can help you create profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or help you optimize the ones you already have.  Because these sites have so many pages pointing to them and are being updated so frequently, they are often at the top of the natural results on Google and Yahoo!.