The Subscribe Button: All new on Facebook

What’s new at Facebook this week? The arrival of the all new “Subscribe” Button, announced with much hoopla.

What is “Subscribe?”

“Subscribe” essentially gives people the option to view ‘public’ posts on your Profile without having to become your friend.

I have quite a few people waiting in my friend request queue. I’ve hit the limit and can’t add another friend or LIKE another page without first unfriending or unliking someone or something.  You can see my issue, right?

Or maybe friend limits aren’t your issue. Some Facebookers just simply don’t want to be friends with the whole world, but are interested in what a few non-friends have to say. Subscribe helps you follow along.

So I really like the new SUBSCRIBE option and have enabled it on my Profile .

NOTE: Adding the “SUBSCRIBE” option, doesn’t mean you are going to lose your page.

In fact, you’ll still probably need a Page.  Here’s why:

While the Subscribe button does lower the access barrier between you and your next client (no friend request and acceptance required), your profile is still a Profile.

Profiles are limited in few critcally important ways when it comes to real estate:

Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS)

Profiles are not indexed by search engines – Your Page is.  Want to be found by long-tail searches in Google?  The SEO of your Page is your friend.

Commercial Content

Facebook’s Terms of Service state you cannot publish anything of commercial value on your Profile. That means no selling. However, you are encouraged to do so on your Page.

Your Name

Your Profile must be your real name i.e. ‘Mike Mueller’.  Profile names like ‘Mike Mueller, Sunny Acres Real Estate Agent’‘ are not allowed and may be deleted. Your Page can be any name you like, ‘Mike Mueller, Your Super Sunny Acres Agent’ or even “Living the Sunny Acres Lifestyle’ are perfect for pages.

Your Team

Only you should be signing on and posting to your Profile – Pages, in contrast, can have multiple Admins.  Have a team?  No one else is allowed to sign in as you and Facebook is tracking your logins by IP addresses.

Analytics

Profiles get no Insights (Facebook’s version of Google Analytics) – Your Page has analytics.  You can see which posts are liked/shared and what demographics are doing the liking and sharing.  If you haven’t poked around the new Insights they are simply amazing!

Default Landing Tab

Your Profile can’t have them. Meanwhile, your Page can!  Remember a Default Landing Tab is the first thing anyone viewing your Page sees if they have not clicked “Like” or aren’t signed in to Facebook (for example: Someone sent to over via a Google search).

Moral of the Story

I really like the ability to subscribe to people (like Robert Scoble who I’m still waiting on to accept my friend request).  And I love that you can now get all my ‘public’ posts in your stream.  I’ll still do my best to add you all as real friends, but the absolute truths remain:

Subscribe is a great feature and real estate agents still need Pages.

Mike Mueller

Mike is a former Mortgage Banker, Mortgage Broker turned “Tech Geek” who specializes in Social Media. He is a builder of engaging Custom Facebook Business Pages and WordPress blogs. Mike writes areweconnected.com, a blog dealing with social media and technology as it pertains towards real estate.