Are you feeling irritated and fearful of the big changes over on Facebook?  If you’ve just got to grips with how Facebook can help you promote your business it’s natural that you’re concerned how the changes will affect you – but don’t worry, CHANGE IS GOOD!

The main changes are on your Personal Profile – the new Timeline will be rolled out to everyone on 3 October and I think it looks fantastic.  If you don’t want to wait until then take a look at Jo Barnes’ video which as well as taking you on a tour of the new Timeline she also shows you how to get it.  (Note:  You will only see someone else’s timeline if you’ve already activated yours).

So which changes affect you as a business using Facebook?  Here’s the three changes I think are the most useful:

Subscriber Button

   People no longer need to be a ‘friend’ to view your updates.  If you want to be known as a public figure, if you ARE your business, then by activating the Subscribe feature you allow people to subscribe to your updates without you having to add them as a friend.  You still use your business Page to talk about business, share your expertise and engage with your fans but you can use your Personal Profile to let people get to know YOU, the person behind the business.  It’s up to you how personal you want to be on your profile – remember if you make a status update available to ‘all public’ then anyone searching the internet can potentially see it.

Vanity URL

You no longer need 25 likes on your Page to claim your vanity url!  (e.g. http://www.facebook.com/cloudva)  As this is just being rolled out there are still a few glitches and some people are reporting it’s not available to them yet.  From your Page click on ‘Edit Page’, click Resources and them click ‘Select a Username’.

View Shares

You can now see who is sharing the posts you put on your Page.  Click on ‘View Shares’ and a pop up box will show you who shared the post and what they said about it.  An excellent new tool to find out who your influencers are.

What are your thoughts on the changes?  Do you like them, do you think they will help your business?  I’ve love to hear your comments – just write them in the comment box below.