Facebook Unveils Big Changes for Pages
Yesterday Facebook began rolling out a series of changes to its Pages. The latest changes include updates to the overall layout, navigation and management options and are meant to allow Pages to look and feel more like the “new profiles” which rolled out earlier this year.
We see all of the changes as a positive – and not to worry – the overall screen size stays the same with this round of updates, so all your custom HMTL tabs will not be affected. You can manually upgrade your pages now; all pages will automatically upgrade on March 10.
Here is a quick summary of the changes:
Photos Move to Top of Page
Each page will now have a “photostrip” at the top of the Page, showing the five most recent photos that have been added to the Page. Like the photostrip that appears on personal pages, this will allow fans to quickly view recent photos. By bringing photos to the forefront, brands can now better manage what fans see on the homepage of their Page, instead of worrying about photos being lost in the news feed, or “hidden” on a tab.
Good news for brands, fan photos will not appear in this strip unless a Page admin tags the photo as the brand.
No More Tabs
Instead of the row of Tabs, which previously lived at the top of brand Pages, Facebook is moving all navigation to the left, similar to how it appears on the new personal profile. The navigation will appear under the brand logo, where the information box used to reside and the information box will now live under the Page title. The admin will be able to edit the order of the tabs, but this does mean that special content or custom tabs now blend in with a longer list of navigation options. Brands may have to rethink how they get fans to this custom content.
Other things to note:
- The profile picture is changing from 200×600 to 10×540
- Admins can choose to “hide” links from the left hand navigation
- There is a new “admin view” option (more on this below)
Ability to Use Facebook as a Page
This is big – for a while now, brands have wanted to leave comments for other brand, either by liking another page or commenting on that Page’s wall. This has been largely impossible until now. With the new Page, Facebook will allow admins to log-in as the brand Page and comment as that brand. Not only will this give brands more options for engaging with other brands, but it will allow the Page admins to better monitor the activity of Pages their own brand Page “likes”. For example, if you saw a photo on another brand’s Page, before you could only comment as your personal profile; now you will be able to comment as the brand you represent. Likewise, if you are logged in as your Page, you will see activity from the other Pages your brand likes.
More Admin-Friendly Features
Facebook has given admins a lot more functionality which will come as welcomed improvement for most Page managers. These upgrades will allow admins to:
- Get notifications when fans interact with their Page or post on their Page
- Like other pages and feature them on your Page (this is not new, but Facebook has made the functionality more user friendly)
- Utilize increased moderation controls for automatically blocking swear words and manually blocking other words and phrases
These changes come on the heels of other recent changes meant to improve the Facebook experience for brands. This includes better analytics and the move to “liking” a Page, versus being a “fan” (part of a global shift towards “liking” a variety of content). Unlike some of the previous roll-outs, which didn’t seem to serve any greater purpose and tended to temporarily disrupt the user experience, all of these seem thoughtful and well intended.
We upgraded the Pages we manage earlier today, feel free to take a peek:
