New Facebook feature a help to spreading your message...sort of

I wrote a couple of months ago about some elements of fail in Facebook's Pages feature from a marketing standpoint. A recent new feature at Facebook solves the main gripe in that post...sort of.

Facebook now allows users to "tag" other users or Pages by name in a wall post or status message. Similar to Twitter, the feature uses an @username nomenclature. A very nice addition is that once you enter @ and start typing a name, a dropdown appears suggesting all possible matches among your friends. Any post or status you tag will appear in the notifications of the friend or Page thus tagged. This is similar to the tagging already allowed in Facebook for pictures, videos, and Notes.

This goes some way toward addressing one of my major gripes with Facebook as a means of spreading your message and brand: if someone clicks "share" on something you posted, it shows up in their Wall and their friends' newsfeeds, but with no link or attribution back to the original. At least now you can encourage visitors to your page to provide a direct link, but they will still have to do this manually by typing in your @Pagename. You might want to include a line in your posts something like "If you share this, please add credit and link back to our Page by adding "@AcmeWidgets. Thanks!" (Of course, subbing your Page name for "AcmeWidgets."

I'll really sit up and pay attention the day that Facebook makes such linking automatic.