Social marketers have been abuzz today about Facebook’s surprising new update. It’s been a turbulent first quarter for marketers as Facebook adjusted its algorithm to decrease overall brand reach, but this latest update will give pages more reach than ever before.
As of this Tuesday, when a page tags a separate page in a post, that content may surface for followers of both pages. So if Google created a post on its Facebook page tagging Yahoo, that post may show for fans of both Facebook and Yahoo. On its own, this is a great idea with potential to connect fans of a particular page to related pages that may have an interest in. It can also foster local business cooperation and encourage partnerships, jointly done business contests and all types of creative endeavors that lend themselves to this type of behavior.
Before everyone rushes off to take advantage of the new feature, be warned: There are obviously going to be caveats.
While Facebook has been upfront in how beneficial this can be to brands, the potential for abuse can be spotted a mile away. Lazy page administrators are going to start “tag bombing” – finding cheesy ways to tag the Facebook pages for Facebook, Google, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Katie Couric, the Today Show, and whatever other pages they can find in single posts.
Facebook hasn’t gone into details about preventative measures, but if you read between the lines, that approach isn’t going to work. Facebook’s own article on the subject implies that it’s only going to show to users when there’s a high percentage of people who have already liked both the posting page and the tagged page. Jon Loomer has already reported that it only appears to impact brands with larger audiences (at least right now).
By all means, test the feature. See how your reach is affected when you connect with other pages in your industry and other businesses in your community. Don’t forget to do what you should doing most of all: Providing killer content that makes people want to click like, comment and share. Reaching other pages’ fans doesn’t mean anything without instilling passion in your existing fans!