Yesterday I thought I saw a change in Facebook, but it was so subtle that I didn’t fully pay attention. My friends at Associated Alarm & Camera invited me to join their Facebook Fan Page but there  was no “Become a Fan” button. Instead, I was asked to “Like” their company.

Peter and I are customers, and I happen to like what they’re doing, so I selected “Like” without further thought. (This brings me to a pet peeve. I hate it when someone invites me to become a fan of their business when I’ve never done business with them, or in some cases, never heard of their business. For me, it’s an integrity issue.)

This morning, while I was on Facebook, I noticed Chris Brogan “Liked” someone. Sure enough, a quick Google search revealed that while I was hitting the reset button, Mashable reported that “Facebook Wants You to ‘Like’ Brands.”

Personally, I think this makes a lot of sense for both brands and individual Facebook users. It actually solves the problem one very wise Marissa Hyatt addressed in a recent post, and I can’t help but wonder if Facebook isn’t far from changing “Fan Page” to “Public Profile” or some other less egocentric name.

It’ll be interesting to see how this progresses. I have a couple of key takeaways:

1. For Individual Users: Be careful what you “Like” now on Facebook. Previously, a simple “Like” meant nothing, really. Now it means you receive updates in your Newsfeed. More noise. Make sure you want to hear what brands have to say.
2. For Brands: Here’s hoping you didn’t just print a few thousand brochures with “Become a Fan on Facebook!” Change the wording on marketing messages to “Find Us on Facebook” or “Like Us on Facebook.” (And never have more than a month’s worth of print materials on hand. Times they are a changing.)

What do you think of the “Like” change? Does this make it easier for people to interact with brands? And does it make it more enticing for people to create pages for their personal brands? What other implications do you foresee?