Hilinsky Consulting Social Media Blog

Most of this information was found from one of my most trusted sources on all things Facebook: www.insidefacebook.com

After reading through a series of their posts this last month (and feeling slightly overwhelmed myself) I’ve decided to put together a simplified post regarding some of the more important changes.

1. News Feed Distribution has changed- Facebook has created a new algorithm that takes engagement into account when placing status updates into your fan’s news feeds. This new algorithm takes into account how much the fan engages with the page, how many of their network are also fans, etc.

This means there is no more guaranteed exposure in news feeds- take this into consideration when analyzing your page insights and creating/implementing your marketing strategy for 2010.

2. Back in October, Facebook announced the creation of a new API which will enable the opt-in newsletter function to become a 1-click process for fans who are willing to share their email addresses with brands.

3. Tab widths have NOT changed - well, not yet anyways. Facebook has announced that they will be changing tab widths in early 2010 from 760 pixels wide to 520 pixels.

4. Extended platform policy enforcement- This basically means two things: all apps will now need to be verified and the quality of apps on Facebook should increase.

Obviously, this means a bit of trouble for developers that now have to follow the rules listed here, but this also potentially means that as quality goes up Facebook apps will gain a better reputation, which is good for the brands they are being developed for. This change should provide a much better user experience for everyone on Facebook.

This will also weed out the bad seeds that do not create quality apps and in turn hopefully generate a better reputation for good brand marketing agencies and app developers.

5. The Open Graph API- this is still a few quarters out, but I agree with insidefacebook.com: this is an important development to pay attention to so you can work it into your strategy for next year.

To read more about the Open Graph API and get more detailed information on the rest of these changes please read the original article here.

Here is a list of even MORE recent updates:

1. Contests are now only allowed in the form of applications and must be pre-approved by Facebook. This basically means that status update, picture upload and comment generating contests that could potentially spam a users news feed are no longer allowed. All contests run by 3rd party applications need to be approved by Facebook atleast a week prior to going live.

2. It’s still okay to require a user to become a fan in order to participate in a contest. Here is the updated statement from Facebook as of December 22: 4.2 In the rules of the promotion, or otherwise, you will not condition entry to the promotion upon taking any action on Facebook, for example, updating a status, posting on a profile or Page, or uploading a photo. You may, however, condition entry to the promotion upon becoming a fan of a Page..

This has always been the case and has not changed. This clarification was simply made to lessen confusion.

For more on this please click here.

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