In terms of when conversations are happening on Facebook, the biggest spike in activity is at 3PM EST. Activity is noticeably higher during the week than on the weekend with Wednesday being the most popular day for activity. Additionally, posts made at the top of the hour tend to see more interaction than other parts of the hour.

Why is this data important? When brands post content on Facebook, they want it to be seen and shared by as many fans as possible. Therefore, knowing the times when fans are most active can be extremely helpful to a brand’s posting strategy.

What do you think of this data? Any surprises?

The Page Browser highlights Pages based on which are popular in your country, amongst those in similar demographics, amongst your friends, and are similar to Pages that you’ve already “Liked” (which are highlighted in blue). If you want to “Like” a Page, just mouse over the icon itself to see a Like button for that Page. You can sort pages by categories (sports, movies, TV Shows, etc.). The right sidebar contains a list of your 25 friends who have the most Likes in common with you (See screenshot below).

The tool is currently available to all users. I’m a little surprised that a tool like this took this long to be available, considering the growing popularity of Facebook Pages. It’s always been a chore to try to find new pages and searching for them can be a nightmare. (Yeah, Facebook Search needs a lot of work.) I imagine this catalog of Pages will help increase fan growth, but probably will aid more in the growth of pages which already have a large number of Likes.

What do you think of the Page Browser? Will you use it? Is it helpful?

According to Facebook’s Developer Blog, below are the details of the changes:

• Boxes. We will notify users via messaging in profile boxes and in the Help Center that the “Boxes” tab, boxes on profiles and Pages, and application info sections will be going away.
• Application Tabs. Next week, we will give Page admins the ability to preview their custom tabs in the new 520 pixel width so they can modify their layouts as needed. All profile and Page tabs will be resized automatically beginning the week of August 23.

This news is important to developers and admins that manage Facebook Pages. It’s important to be ready for these adjustments and avoid elements of your Facebook Page being broken.

The new version of the Insights dashboard has several new features that weren’t available previously, including analytics on your Page’s tabs, referral sources, and the ability to track Facebook sharing and Likes on your own blog or website.

There have been several updates to Facebook Pages recently, including the update that will reduce the size of custom tabs. It makes sense for Facebook to give Pages more attention, especially as more and more brands are utilizing Pages to market to their fans.

Back in October, Facebook made the announcement on their Platform Roadmap that the dimensions of custom tabs would be changing from 760 to 520 in early 2010. However, that date has been pushed back several times, probably due to the fact that Facebook is still trying to get the word out about the size change.

Why is Facebook shrinking custom tabs on Facebook Pages? Facebook has yet to provide an explanation for the change, but I think it’s so that Facebook Pages will be easily seen on a mobile device. Most Pages have already converted their custom tabs to 520 pixels. Below is an example of a custom tab at 520 pixels from the Starbucks Facebook Page.

From my experience, I’ve had some success posting content during the week, particularly later in the day between 7 PM EST and 10 PM EST. This allows those users who couldn’t access Facebook during the day and those on the west coast the opportunity to see the content. I’ve noticed several brands posting content very early in the morning, which almost guarantees none of the fans on the west coast will have a chance to view or even share the content.

What’s your experience with posting content on Facebook? Do you see more activity during the week or on the weekend?

From the study, a total of 71% of the users looked at advertisements on their Profile pages while 31% of the users looked at advertisements on their news feed (i.e., on the Facebook homepage). However, when it comes to Page updates versus advertisements, users pay more attention (53% vs. 31%) to page updates in their news feed rather than ads on the side of the wall.

What do you think of these results from the study? Do you pay attention to ads on Facebook? Are you more likely to pay attention to a wall post that appears in your newsfeed versus an ad on the right side of the page?

Facebook has recently released a new feature that automatically suggests Facebook Pages for new users to “Like” when they are creating their profile. This step called “Choose your interests” is the second step when a new user completes their profile.

As an admin of a several Pages, I’ve noticed a significant increase in fans over the past few days (more so than usual). I speculate that these suggestions/recommendations that Facebook is providing is the cause of the jump in fans.

On one hand, as a marketer, I think these changes are great for brands. More exposure = more fans = more impressions (i.e., more fans see your content). However, as a user, my news feed is filled with as almost as much brand content as it is content from my friends. Maybe it’s just because I’ve become a fan of more Pages than the average user, but I can see where this could become an issue. What do you think of the increased exposure for Pages? A good thing?