So Facebook has launched a page for PRs – about time! It’s quite staggering that we have been creating and community managing pages for clients for the past few years and yet it is only now this channel of support/advice appears.

With the rapid monetisation and policy changes of many of the tools/services that used to be available for free, this should hopefully provide a useful resource covering new policies, design features and sharing tools (I’m hoping in the same ilk as development blogs such as All Facebook and Inside Facebook – two sites that should be regularly looked at by anyone managing community pages).

Where this page should be generating food for thought is around integration with clients’ other digital assets, content generation and analysis, rather than just focusing on what to post and how many people have ‘Liked’ that post. I’m regularly asked questions around editorial content and how to keep community pages fresh and engaging but these are always asked in isolation without thinking about the other digital touch points out there – ie: how could activity on facebook translate to useful content to use elsewhere or at least for informing future PR strategies…. with the mass adoption of facebook’s API this should be the question being asked because we all want (and need) to become more efficient in the practical day to day running of these channels.

Facebook’s PR page is still in its infancy and seems unclear on positioning (posts for journos and random/poor tips on directing media to screen grabs). If it continues to posts tips there will undoubtedly be an issue with numerous PR perspectives from around the world/cultural differences. However, if it continues to push updates on developments and provide useful reading (see below) whilst garnering support from PRs where they can share issues and start discussions, this can only be a good thing. It should be forcing the industry to get more digitally and technology aware – whilst getting them to think of wider digital and PR strategies.

Useful read below via the PR Page on facebook marketing (stats, case studies) by Jeremiah Owyang