New Facebook Feature - Use Facebook as "Your Business Name Here"

I'm sure everyone's aware that facebook has rolled out the new Business Pages look along with some really cool new features. One that I'm really impressed with is the ability to interact within facebook as your business.

New Facebook Feature - Use Facebook as "Your Business Name Here"

This in my opinion is going to big win for dive shops that are using business pages correctly on facebook. Here's why...

Once you've upgraded your page to the new layout. You'll see a Use Facebook As Option on the right hand side.

This enables you to "Like" another business page and then comment and interact with them as your business rather than as yourself. This is a big plus in my opinion as it lets you give relavant comments and automatically links to your own page while showing exactly who you represent. Instead of introducing yourself and it also lets you keep your personal account that much more separate.

See how I left a very nice comment on the PADI page?

This opens up many possibilities such as cross promotion of complimentary businesses if used correctly and not just for selfish promotional spam. It's really big plus if you're in the B2B area. (Scuba Manufactuers Take Note)

I'm really hoping that this will cut down on the posts that always end in: "and check out our page too" with a link to their facebook page.

Once you've gone through and "liked" more than five other business pages you can make some of them "sticky or featured" and they will rotate through your liked pages that is shown on the botom left hand side of the page.

Set it Up Here

Now, I've made eight businesses featured. These will rotate, the other likes won't be shown unless you click show all.

Although I've currently liked 17 businesses, only these eight will rotate through my business page where it shows on the bottom left. Your featured likes area will only show 5 at a time.

Another thing that Facebook has added to your business page when using facebook as your business is a "Feed or Stream" Of all of your liked businesses just like your personal page has of your friends by clicking on home. This should encourage you to interact with these other businesses and also serve as a another form of competitive intelligence.

I hope this feature alone is enough to convice the dive centers and other organizations who are using a personal account for their business (Violating Facebook's Terms of Service) to bite the bullet and do things the correct way. We'll see...but I doubt it.

I'm sure there's lots more to dig into with this feature alone, but this is more than enough to get you started. For me, I've always used my business page as a live playground for different designs and experiments area. But if I'm going to be using this feature I need to get my act in gear!