Facebook. We know it. we use it. Unfortunately, they seem to be doing everything in their power to stop us from using it as a tool to promote ourselves, our products or services.
Last year, they removed boxes and shrunk the size of profile and fan pages. Then they destroyed revised the “group” functionality so many had invested time and money setting up, and replaced it with new functionality that is confusing and leaves two systems in place for group administration.
They recently forced redesigned profile pages on everyone (again) that remove quotes and other personal information from your front page. And now, they’re taking away the “suggest to friends” capability for fans of pages. Administrators can still see this feature, but any of your pages fans cannot.
From what I can tell, this feature was “temporarily removed” due to a bug when an announcement was released that the feature would simply not be put back for fans. Similar to how custom fan pages broke when they changed the width, profile pictures that have “suggest to friend” call to actions are now useless. It now points to an option to “subscribe via SMS”.
This is a huge blow to anyone who has a fan page, as this feature was a powerful way to gain new fans for your page. Any visitor could suggest it to all their friends with just a few clicks.
Facebook is likely banking that administrators of these pages will turn to Facebook PPC to support growth, however if they keep taking away key features that allow users to express themselves and share interesting pages, they may find themselves angering many who use the service legitimately.. Or, they may just make a heck of a lot more in advertising. Only time will tell.
