by Michelle Conaghan

An extremely excited Mark Zuckerburg revealed the latest evolution of the Facebook platform – Timeline at the recent Facebook developers conference F8. In recent weeks, there have been a number of changes to profiles, including: prompts for recommendations, highlighting of top stories and a new activity feed on the top right of the profile page. Facebook users have taken to the comment boxes and tweeting to either vent their anger over changes or show their happiness with the new additions.

Although Facebook continues to make significant changes and numerous improvements, which often result in a sentiment backlash from users, their continued dominance is not in question right now. Facebook users will not defect to Google’s plus project due to the time and personal equity users have invested into their profiles. However, Google’s latest and serious challenge to Facebook; Google plus went live on Thursday for all internet users, so the social media world will move at the speed of light over the next six months. Flexibility in your approach, staying educated of the changes in the social space, and adapting to these change will mean the difference between staying ahead of the curve in your social media strategy or fighting to keep up.

I have taken a look at five of the most recent changes and how they are likely to affect hospitality marketeers.

1. Timeline

Timeline is a new Facebook profile which allows users to view the story of their life on one page. Timeline is a different type of profile with an exceptionally engaging and interactive interface. Users can add milestones, experiences, applications, photos and life events easily to their timeline. ‘Older posts’ will no longer be hidden behind the dull grey box instead, the activity throughout your life will be displayed for your connections to view, discovery and learn from. The aim; to encourage more sharing, discover and engagement between connections. What does this mean for pages? Will they get the same treatment as profiles? Not yet it appears. News from Facebook’s press site reveals they intend to make pages more consistent with Timeline. Currently there is no estimate of when that might be. Hotel’s will need to ensure they engage their audience, post quality content and use the right applications to make sure they benefit from Timeline.

To view Facebook’s video introduction to Timeline click here.

2. Ticker

Ticker is a new activity stream which appears on the top right hand side of your profile and is quite similar to a Twitter feed. This addition Ticker is fantastic news for hoteliers and their pages as Ticker allows users to view real-time posts from your page and gives you an opportunity to re-engage fans who have become inactive. This was previously possible through the news feed, but a change made by Facebook to profiles a couple of months back, resulted in your fans only seeing activity or updates from friends and pages they had recently engaged with. This meant on average only 10-15% of your fan base would see your wall updates in their news stream. To see all your hotel’s updates a fan would need to access their wall settings and undo this option. However as most users didn’t realize this change had taken place in the first instance, few were likely to make the change.

3. Applications

Timeline’s arrival places a large importance on applications. Zuckerberg highlighted the potential possible through the next version of Open Graph for Facebook and developers to create a’frictionless experience’ and real-time serendipity’ through more integrated applications. The change in the Open Graph means a redesign to the traditional permission pop up you normally receive when accessing an application or trying to perform a share action. No more pop ups or prompts means light wait activity, such as shares, will be a seamless experience. Zuckerberg remarked on the more the simplified developer platform that has been created, which makes identifying patterns in application user behaviour and Open Graph statistics easier for developers. Timeline’s potential reach is to make the connection between users and applications more visible and help new users discover applications through their connections. The key to success is using social applications that suit your industry.

4. Say goodbye to ‘Send an update to fan’

From the 30th of September, you will no longer be able to send an update to fans from your page. This message would normally sit in the folder marked ‘other’ in a Facebook users inbox. Users widely regarded these messages as spam, so for the most part these updates trigger little or no engagement. According to Facebook’s site, they are working on ways to help you connect as effectively as possible with your fans. Their advice is to post to your wall or used their advertising platform to reach existing and new fans.

5. Recommendations

When a Facebook user clicks the ‘Like’ button for the first time on your Facebook page, they will be asked if they would like to write a recommendations for that page. The power of the social graph comes into play here when they write a recommendation, as this will be seen by their entire network. These recommendations are visible on the right hand side of your page so it is important to monitor and respond accordingly. I expect more developments will emerge on recommendations and reviews over the coming months as we know the importance that is placed on peer to peer recommendations. Google’s recent move replacing third party reviews with its own may be another catalyst.

In summary, what do these changes to profiles mean for marketeers?
Page engagement is paramount and central to your success on the platform. Marketeers need to concentrate on creating engaging andhigh quality content, use applications that drive growth and interactions , and most of all, be adaptable to change.