Inside Facebook

When Facebook launched the new home page last week, it created a major new opportunity for Page owners to reach fans: by updating their Page, fans automatically get updates in their home page stream.

However, for Pages users had “fanned” before the redesign, Facebook automatically turned updates from some Pages off by default – presumably to keep the News Feed from becoming too spammy. Not all Pages were hidden, but we don’t know how they were picked – we’re awaiting word from Facebook on how they chose which ones were turned on and off.

Now, Facebook has updated users letting them know that updates from all Pages they become a fan of from here on out will appear in the News Feed, just like updates from friends. Users can hide updates from Pages they don’t want updates from by clicking the “X”, just as they can for friends.

For many Page owners, News Feed distribution is the most important channel for communicating with users in the new redesign. The way that Facebook handles these kinds of settings has a big impact on a large number of marketers. We’ll have more clarity when we hear from Facebook on the default news feed settings, but for now all new fans should be getting Page updates.