Facebook Places have been out a few months now and one of the questions we are seeing is whether you want to merge your Fan Page and your Place Page.
Originally this seemed like a no-brainer, that it would be best to merge your assets and have them all together. However, recent experiences by those that have merged the two are identifying that you may NOT want to do this.
Main Reasons to NOT merge your Fan Page and Place Page:
- You cannot set your Landing Tab like you can with Fan Pages
- Top Row Fan Page Tabs are removed. They become smaller text links on the left side.
- Place page widths are narrower than Fan Pages. Fan Page widths are 520 pixels wide, while Place pages are about 490 pixels wide. So if you have custom apps like TabSite on your Fan page and you merge the pages, you have to redo your designs to accomodate the narrow “Place” width that your merged page will use.
- You cannot “unmerge” them after a merge!
***UPDATE: In early January, Facebook created ability to UNMERGE pages. Ellen DeGeneres unmerged her page which is shown as merged below.
There may be more reasons. We’ll keep adding to this list as we get information. Our recommendation at this point is that you keep them separate. TabSite does work on both Place pages and Fan Pages, so you can expand your content on each using the TabSite App.
Both Fan Pages and Place Pages have their value, it’s just that this total value is less when they are merged!
Places are great for offering specials to those that check-in. See what the Golden State Warriors did with a post-game meet and greet Places special with player Monte Ellis. For a full overview on Places, we recommend the Social Media Examiner video with Mari Smith.
Since “Places” are newer and less well known, here’s an image of Ellen DeGeneres merged Place page with a few items pointed out….
So that’s a quick overview on a few considerations for those asking the question as to whether they should merge their fan page and place page.