Facebook announced, rather quietly, that they are no longer allowing organizations with Fan Pages to use customized Facebook Welcome Pages (unless you have 10,000+ fans and spend money on Facebook ads). Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations have been using customized Facebook Welcome Pages to display branded information to new visitors to their Facebook Fan pages. Without any fanfare, Facebook made this announcement in their developers forum, see below:
If your organization was not using a customized Facebook Welcome page this may not seem like a big deal. It is an important reminder of the dangers of trusting your branding to a website you do not control. In particular, many small businesses have used Facebook Fan pages and custom Facebook Welcome pages as a significant part of their online branding identity. Each of these businesses now needs to go back to the drawing board and come up with a new plan, all because Facebook made a change.
What can you learn from this change on Facebook's part? Simple. . .
- Trust your branding and marketing to your own website.
- Use your website as the hub of your marketing efforts and use social media, including Facebook, YouTube, Linkedin, Twitter, etc. as parts of your marketing wheel.
When your marketing strategy revolves around your website you maintain the control of your brand. When you base your marketing strategy on a platform you do not control you are at risk.
How do you feel about this change on Facebook?
PS - To learn more about how to make your website the hub of your marketing efforts feel free to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
