New Facebook Profile Changes

Wondering how to give your Facebook profile a facelift? The latest Facebook changes announced by Mark Zuckerburg on 60 Minutes last Sunday take a much different strategy compared to what the largest online social network has done in the past – this time it’s opt in.

How to Bring the New Design to Your Profile

Surprisingly, I had a hard time finding where to access the new Facebook Profile. It wasn’t visible on my news feed or my wall, which is really strange that Facebook wouldn’t actively promote such a major site overhaul. My only guess is that this is an experiment to see how well these changes spread word-of-mouth through the Facebook News Feed.

What New Facebook Profiles Mean to You

It’s apparent that the new profile changes are Facebook’s way of allowing each profile to take on a narrative. Personal biography information like your job status, education and home town are clustered together and bumped to the top of the page. Also there is a much greater emphasis on photos, with a new stream of tagged photos appearing directly under the bio section. Even the stupid (not to mention creepy) poke button made a comeback in the top right-hand corner of the page. Seriously, when was the last time you said, “I haven’t seen Jim in a while. He deserves a good poke.”

The new profile also gives you a greater ability to highlight your interests with sections dedicated to work projects or co-rec teams, to common interests like sports teams or brands. Last but not least, the pages give you the opportunity to list meaningful relationships like friends and family, bringing back the notion of exclusivity that we yearned for with the original Facebook.

What New Facebook Profiles Means for Business Pages

The most significant change between the new Facebook profiles and business pages are the removal of the tabs section. I find that most Facebook users rarely click on any of the tabs (besides photos), and most rarely know tabs even exist on business pages. I’m guessing over the next few months we might see the same removal of tabs from Facebook business pages soon, which might have a dramatic affect on FBML and the placement of content.

Let us know if you’re an early adopter to the new Facebook profile, or if you have any questions or ideas.