I think Facebook did a great job with “pages” and what you can do with them is really interesting, particularly for brands. The sad thing is that most Facebook brands’ pages suck. Really.
They suck because they fail to understand the core concept of social media and that providing value is not an option. I’m just going to throw random stats here, but I wouldn’t be surprised if 95% of Facebook pages were just a boring copy of the brand’s/person’s RSS feed. Then, social interactions are mainly sales pitch or self-promotion.
I’m sorry, but I need more. I need more than an additional feed of your content: for that there’s RSS and email. I need social interactions and content that is not necessarily about your brand, but that still can be of interest to me.
So, if your Facebook page looks like a RSS feed and that your logo is all over the place, it might be time to re-think your strategy.
Too true – I would have to agree with you on this one – it really does not offer a great deal of "value" that is for sure.
The worst thing that a brands creator can do is to make it unclear, and these ones are so muddy that I can barely say what is "inside" of one's account. This is a common mistake for many web developers. I must say that I always found US sites a little bit unclear. The macros that are included to home site often look like put accidentally, main titles are not referring to what you can find inside. When I go to US site I almost every time feel uncertain (will I find anything in this jungle?). The mistake is also to put a lot information on one site instead of giving people just the main topics and leave some links that conduct to more information. That is my opinion.
It's not surprising that everything that is just copied from some brand is boring. And those things happen not only in Facebook but in every in-web and out-web thing, same cars, same advertisements, same clothes, blah. I don't like ordinary things, maybe someday original and unique items will be available to purchase (mass production of unique things – I know, it's utopia).
A Fan Page is your company’s presence on Facebook. It’s the commercial version of a personal profile page that establishes your company, celebrity image, product, or organization as a social entity, capable of reaching and engaging customers, both on Facebook and off. Personal social connectivity provides outreach, and endless possibilities for convenient content publishing and social interaction make effective and lasting engagement possible.