“Become a Fan” is Old News for Facebook Pages

As of this afternoon the words “Become a fan” don’t mean much on Facebook anymore. Rather than becoming a fan of a page, you will now “Like” the page, the same way you can like a friend’s status or a posted link. Facebook says they did this because they found that more people are more likely to say they like something; an organization or a brand rather than become a fan of it.

So what does this mean for your Facebook page? It now looks a little different – with a box that says how many people like the page, and a new box that lets you know how many of your own friends like that page. Fortunately for those of us who have been working on our “fan” pages for a while, the number of “fans” that you’ve gotten hasn’t disappeared but has switched over to how many people like the page.

The new box that shows you how many of your friends like the page could be great for the page itself – when someone visits your page for the first time they could be positively influenced to like the page themselves if they see their friends already like it. The other visual change is that the “Become a Fan” button has changed to a “Like” button.

From what I’ve seen so far from my friends on Facebook and Twitter, they don’t seem to like the Like button… hmm, there’s really no way around that pun. I’ll have to hold judgment until I see what actually happens to my pages and get back to you. I feel like much of that attitude comes from dislike of the change itself. How many times have we seen pages and groups created because of a change Facebook has made? Give this one a chance everyone… it may end up working for you better than you might think. So, your thoughts for now? How do you think this will affect your own pages?