The pages feature has become a central way that DiY filmmakers promote their films. You can gather a lot of information and interactive media and material all together in one place, and bring everyone to it on a platform they are familiar with.

Yesterday, Facebook changed the way people traditionally interact with these pages by dropping the “Become a Fan” button and adding the “Like” terminology. Users should already be familiar with this, since you can “like” anything you find in your news feed.

The number one change as I see it though, is the connections feature that Facebook is rolling out. Essentially, what you “like” shows up in your profile, categorized by the type of thing you like. As Facebook puts it:

connecting to Pages will now be the main way to express yourself on your profile

(from the Facebook FAQ)

Apparently what this means is that if you like both “Little Timmy’s Independent Movie” and “Star Wars” they are both going to show up as movies you like in your profile. You can edit the order, but they still get lumped into the same pile.

The question I wonder is – will this hurt or help DiY Filmmakers using Facebook Pages to promote their film? Traditionally, users have kept a list of their favorite movies (“The Notebook”, “Star Wars”) in their profile, and then fanned some pages of maybe filmmakers they know or are interested in. When everything gets lumped together, will the user think twice about adding your film to their list of films they like?

I’m not talking about the hardcore independent film enthusiast here, but more about the casual user. We’d all love to have audiences made up of hardcore fans, but lets face it: as a promo tool, you try to catch a wide net with a Facebook Page.

If you have any experiences of how this change has affected your film promotion, leave it in the comments or call our podcast line.