Facebook Public Profiles, previously known as Pages, is a profile page that any Facebook user can see and interact with, hence building dialog with them.

Facebook is very excited about the new Public Profiles and especially the new feature they have introduced, called the “Wall Tab”. Based on the “Share” button, the wall tab allows profile owners to post links, photos and news to the profile. But what makes this new feature special is that these posts are then posted on the Homepage of all fans. This is where value of your content becomes integral and sparks a viral effect. Fans then have the option to comment or give a “thumbs up” on the post, once this has been done the post goes to the Highlight section of their respective Facebook friends. If no action is taken on a post by users, but they decide to make a post on your public profile’s wall, this will then show up on their friends News Feed. What this means is that one post on a public profile can be seen by hundreds if not thousands of Facebook users within your fans network(s) through either active or passive distribution. There is a limitation though. When fans like or comment on a text update, there is no viral distribution; only when there is content attached such as links, photos, videos, and notes.

Public Profiles is a great way to get your brand out there or to reinforce its current positioning, depending on your selected online strategy. As a word of warning though, users enjoy relevant and accessible content, not  hourly updates about what is going on in the office, that is what Twitter is for. Spamming your fans this will definitely dilute your brand, reduce your profile effectiveness, loosing you fans and inevitably market share.

“With great power comes great responsibility” Stan Lee.