Facebook introduces Facebook Pages: for artists and businesses
Facebook is beginning to test Facebook Pages, clean looking business pages that embrace elements of viral marketing. With the expandability of Facebook Applications, any business can setup a Facebook Page with elements that best suit their needs. Facebook Pages are accessible to anyone, not just Facebook members.
Artists have the option to set up an individual artist page. The built in applications include: photos, events, music player, videos, comments, fans, discussion board, short bio, influences, website links, products, and contact information.
When signing up with a business page, Facebook will review your business, and within 48 hours your page will be accessible to anyone at: http://facebook.com/yourbusiness. The application process is to ensure that you really represent the band or business.
Page Manager will be added to your Facebook Applications sidebar, to give you access to edit your Page, and an overview of Page Views.
Facebook users become fans of a band by click “Add to my music.” Any time that the artist updates their page, fans will receive notifications. Users have the option of adding the artist’s page to their music profile. Unlike being someone’s Facebook friend, the artist “will have no access to your profile information beyond your name and profile picture thumbnail.”
Artists have the option of adding Applications to their profile page. For example, they could add an RSS feed from their website so that updating their actual website will add a link to the Facebook page.
Ad Campaigns provide a unique opportunity to place targeted ads, where you can “target by age, gender, location, interests, and more.” You can pay for these ads by purchasing “clicks” (CPC) or purchasing a number of ad impressions (CPM).
Facebook Ad Campaigns are powerful when you consider how targeted you can become. If your band sounds similar to Bloc Party and you are releasing a new album, you could place an ad that will target Facebook members that list Bloc Party in their music profile. Planning a tour? Narrow the targeted ad campaign even further by the location of the places you are touring.
Facebook is also introducing Facebook Beacon:
“Enable your customers to share the actions they take on your website with their Facebook friends. When you send an action to Facebook, the user is immediately alerted of the story you wish to publish and will be alerted again when they sign into Facebook. Stories of a user’s engagement with your site may be displayed in his or her profile and in News Feed. These stories will act as a word-of-mouth promotion for your business and may be seen by friends who are also likely to be interested in your product.”
We decided to create a Facebook Page for Puddlegum. Since Puddlegum is a music blog, we chose to categorize it under Communications. We added our image, information about the blog, and tweaked with the applications. We found that the number of applications that are ready for Facebook Pages is somewhat limited yet, but this is sure to change. Once Facebook approves our page, you can access Puddlegum’s Facebook Page at: http://facebook.com/puddlegum.
Visit Dubious Ranger‘s artist page on Facebook.