SEO Toronto: The Face of Change

On 9th Sphere's blog (SEO Toronto), there’s an interesting posting by Lorne Fade about Facebook's much discussed (and debated) "Timeline" format.  Since the day news of the new format was announced, I've heard a variety of emotions expressed by the Facebook user community.  Many users jumped at the chance to update the “look” of their profile.  Others took time to update their status proudly proclaiming (with unintended irony) how much they couldn't be bothered.  Fair enough.  Not everyone likes change.

Facebook Chart

The focus of Fade’s post is Facebook extending the Timeline format for actual pages (as opposed to just user profiles).  Taking an internet marketers view, he discusses how the new format also allows businesses to measure the effectiveness of their branding efforts in the Facebook environment with analytic tools designed to report on the “virality” (I love that word) of shared content.  One such tool is an automatically generated chart showing “Weekly Total Reach.”  

Fade concludes:

"I feel like the new Timeline  is a great thing for Facebook as brands will have a chance to show off their creativity and uniqueness, while at the same time measuring performance to ensure their marketing efforts are having a positive effect."

This is great food for thought for those companies who think that their internet marketing efforts are complete once they simply create a social media account.