Jeff noted that fan pages have change dramatically recently and demonstrated some of the new features using the Triangle Social Media Club group and fan pages as examples. I had not tried the FB tagging at this point, but I use it all the time on Twitter. Tagging on FB works very well with a nice drop down menu to select the person you want to tag. But tagging also works with fan pages. For instance I posted from my profile and tagged a friend that was also at the meeting and the group as well.
One of the interesting discoveries in doing this was learning that my post would show up in the fan page news feed. However it would not be visible to other users unless we are FB friends. This is due to my permissions which I had recently restricted to just friends. Had I posted it from the fan page then it would have been visible on the fan page news feed to all. This is dramatically different from Twitter where a basic reply to a person is public.
Fan pages do have a nicer layout than the group pages and have tabs to group information at the top of the page. There is even a custom tab that allows you to paste HTML code that is converted to Facebook Markup Language (FBML). A great example is Threadless T-shirts that used the custom tab to create a simple storefront for their fan page landing page.
As much as I hate to admit it these new features may be what FB needs to win the battle with Twitter. Twitter’s great for short messaging and conversations, but it’s getting clogged up with spam and junk these days. Many people don’t understand Twitter and there is a learning curve to it. FB’s clean and easy to use interface allows users to connect and communicate faster with rich media storage and integration. It is a platform more so than a toolbox that Twitter is along with add-ons for images, videos and links.
