What Facebook Interests Mean for Your Business Page

The Facebook Interests feature presents a new opportunity for business pages to gain exposure to more than just those who like their page.

We know Twitter has Lists, Google+ has Circles, Pinterest has Boards and now Facebook has Interests. Most users should now see "Interests" on the left side of their News Feed. These Interest lists are a way to tidy up a user's News Feed and isolate a particular topic or grouping. When I click on my Photography Pheed list shown above, I see only posts from those I've added to that list. I have control of that list as I created it. The interesting thing here is that users do not have to Like a page or be Friends with a person to add them to the list. Will we see Likes becoming more and more unimportant to pages?

Users don't have to Like your page to see your content in a feed

The Like Button on pages is new and improved and caters to these Interests lists. When a user Likes a page and hovers over the button it gives choices to add the page to lists the user has created, or start a new list that includes the page.

Users can add your page to a list right from your Like button

Facebook provides pre-populated lists users can subscribe to (most right now were created by Facebook employees). But when a user creates a list they control who's in it. They can share the lists and encourage others to subscribe to them. Oh, and maybe businesses can/should encourage owners of popular relevant lists to include them.

As users subscribe to lists made by their friends and others, your posts will be more visible = more chances for engagement

With the ability to view only posts for a specific topic, in other words a topic a user is truly interested in, there is a chance that they will spend more time looking at posts. Also, without all the "noise" from the rest of the stuff in the News Feed, users are less likely to miss one of your posts. So it will be really important to focus on content development and provide a lot of relevant subject matter pieces to appeal and engage them.

Businesses can secure listings when they provide unique content for a niche

When a user views an Interest list's feed that they created, Facebook is constantly showing suggestions of other pages and people to add to the list. Yay, yet another chance for your page to be added to a list!

Facebook Interests Means: A business now has the ability to extend its reach beyond its fan base and increase exposure to their content

Start putting together your plan now for using Interests to your advantage; you have some time as the adoption rate is usually slow with new features on Facebook. Should Twitter be worried?