Today, Facebook announced a series of Platform-wide enhancements at F8, its annual developer conference.

I’m not going to recap all the changes and launches, from Facebook Plugins to the Open Graph. Check out TechCrunch, Mashable, InsideFacebook.com, AllFacebook.com and others for a much better job of that. But I am going to outline what this means for Buddy Media’s clients — the world’s largest global brands and their agencies.

The most important takeaway from today is that Facebook has made two important changes that together usher in the era of what I am calling the branded viral loop. Understanding and implementing these changes will be rocket fuel to accelerate your brands’ fan growth.

The first change is the shift from Fans to connections with the evolution of the “Become a Fan” button to “Like.” This will increase the number of fans for brands by decreasing the friction and perceived user commitment to connect.

The second change is the opening of Facebook’s core social functionality to any web site through the launch of a series of “social plugins.” These plugins will infuse your site with all the personalized social context and social functionality (commenting, liking, sharing, posting, sending and more) of Facebook. This technology will help brands grow their Facebook connections rapidly by turning visitors to their web sites into viral engines.

Fan versus Like

The most immediate change is Facebook’s replacement of the “Fan” concept with a lighter idea of “connections.” Facebook users no longer “Become a Fan.” They simply “Like” a brand.  While the functionality is the same, the connection conversion rate will increase significantly.

“Liking” something is a lighter commitment than becoming a “fan.” Occasionally, I like to listen to jazz, but I certainly wouldn’t call myself a fan (see my personal blog for more thoughts on that subject). Fanning a brand is not natural. Liking a brand, product or service is natural and Facebook wants to facilitate that action.

One important note: No functionality has changed. This is a naming change only and Facebook Pages and the publishing features to fans or connections remain the same.

The Socialization of the Web through Social Plugins

In October 2009, Facebook announced the Open Graph API. Today Facebook provided more information about the API and announced that it will be widely available from twenty initial partner sites like IMDB and ESPN. Why should you care? Simple: you will be able to add a personalized social context to your site.

At the core of what Facebook announced today are several social plugins that can be easily integrated into your site to turn your site into a powerful complement to your Facebook Page. The social plugins announced today include:

• The Like Button: You can include Facebook “Like” functionality in your site so users can easily express that they like you and, conversely, see what their friends like on your site.

• Activity Feed: Just like a custom version of the Facebook newsfeed for your site, the activity feed will show users what their friends are liking and sharing on your site. For the first time, news feeds of social activity can live on your site and not just in Facebook.

• Recommendations: The recommendations plugin shows users of your site recommended links based on what your friends have liked on the site.

• Social Bar: The social bar plugin can be dropped at the bottom of your site and will integrate all social activity into your site. This activity includes likes, activity feeds, chat and more.

• Expanded Login: Facebook Connect pioneered remote login to your site using a users’ Facebook account. The improved login includes pictures of a users’ friends who also logged in, among other functionality.

By integrating social functionality into your site, you’re going to see 3 primary and immediate benefits.

• Engagement: Your site will be more compelling. Facebook and social gaming companies like Zynga have shown us that users like to see what their friends are doing. Surfacing the “friend” information on your site will make your site more engaging and compelling and will increase usage and encourage repeat visitors.

• Viral Traffic to Your Site: Every time one of your users clicks “Like” on your site, that information is published back to the users’ Facebook news feed and profile and appears in search results. Links back to your web site will be included in the viral impressions created by your users on your site.

• Ongoing Communication: Think of users who “like” any part of your site as fans of your Facebook Page. So you can send updates directly into the feed of users who “Like” anything on your site. Integrating social plugins will increase the number of connections you can activate on an on-going basis.

Ultimately, the new functionality announced by Facebook today will help you create a powerful virtuous connection between your web site and Facebook Page. 450 million people use Facebook. Each user has an average of 150 friends. Each and every Like will be distributed on Facebook to the users’ friends, which ultimately will bring more users to your site. These new users may also Like parts of your site, increasing the number of your connections and exposing your site to the friends of those news users. Like Facebook itself, the network effect kicks in – the more connections you have the faster your brand connections will grow. Even better, each user’s profile will no longer be exclusively defined by their interactions on Facebook. If I ‘like’ a movie on IMDB, that action will be displayed in my user profile on Facebook.

Your goal is to shift from an impression-renting, campaign-driven, one-off series of throw-away programs to an always-on, owned-media network that you can program anyway you want to engage and activate fans. The announcements today will make it easier to grow the size of your distribution network on Facebook by allowing you to create a virtuous viral loop between your web site and your Facebook Page.