Facebook gets rid of ‘fans’
The recent anticipated change of ‘fan’ language on Facebook fan pages was actioned yesterday. Now instead of ‘becoming a fan’ you ‘like’ a business in order to connect with it. The word fan has been completely eradicated. Many speculated that although the button language would change, all other fan language would remain and be gradually phased out – but it’s gone for good it seems!
Apparently, changing the language used from ‘become a fan’ to ‘like’ will encourage users’ engagement with businesses. The like feature is already being used on Facebook where users can ‘like’ posts and status updates with a quick click, and figures show that users use the ‘like’ feature twice as much as opting to become a fan.
What are the implications of this? On one hand if Facebook is correct, people connecting with brand fan pages will increase. However, as people become more aware that the ‘liking’ action means something new-will they be as keen to hit the button? Psychologically speaking clicking ‘like’ does seem easier than clicking ‘become a fan’ as it seems a less strong statement, at least in my mind. The word ‘like’ although quite weak a word, does seem to be more realistic and familiar to apply to the millions of different types of brands, businesses and services using Facebook. Could they have taken this one step further and asked people to ‘love’ a business? They obviously wouldn’t have been able to use words like ‘follow’, ‘connect’ and ‘subscribe’. I suppose Facebook had limited choices for a new word that could apply to all.
Nothing has changed with how fan pages operate except the language. Three areas have changed: the joining button, the wording around the fan box and the wording on the wall.
It seems a little bizarre that the word ‘others’ has crept in on the wall to refer to fan posts not by the page owner. ‘Others’ seems a very impersonal name for people who have opted to be part of your page. Another problem is how will we refer to fans now? ‘Likes’ just doesn’t sound right, ‘others’ certainly isn’t appropriate. Although the language on the pages has changed, it’s going to take everyone else a while to catch up!
