Facebook Now Recommending Branded Public Profile Pages As Friends
There’s nothing to quite match the feeling of waking up, opening Facebook and seeing that Al Bundy and Virgin Airlines want to be my friend:
All Facebook also commented on this issue here where they mention that there’s been a surge in Fans of Branded Public Profile Pages since Facebook made this change yesterday. Sarah Lacy for example has gone from 1,119 fans to 4,248 fans in just under 48 hours.
As a Marketer, I think this is great. Since Facebook allowed brands to have Public Facebook Pages, it has been easier for brands and consumers to connect on Facebook and also for Facebook to announce updates via someone’s Status Updates stream.
As a Consumer and avid Facebook user, I’m not sure how I feel about this. I was fine with Kenny Powers and other brands having announcements in my ‘personal space’ because I connected with them and allowed it. However, there doesn’t seem to be a way to control how your new friend recommendations work. So, this is already a tad annoying to me seeing that half of my friend recommendations are not in fact friends but brands that are asking me to become a Fan.
I imagine there’s going to be some type of backlash on Facebook as there almost always is with any small functional change on the Facebook users end. I imagine the easiest way to update this is to separate out the Friend Recommendations with Become a Fan Recommendations.
Or you can always play the game I just did and try to guess who’s real and who’s not 
Tags: All Facebook, Facebook, Facebook Profile Pages, Sarah Lacy, Social Media
