A fan page is how businesses interact with members of the Facebook community. Today, Facebook announced some major improvements to these pages that will impact any business using these fan pages to market on Facebook . Earlier this week, we shared that Facebook started allowing businesses to advertise stories shared on their pages. Today, the company announced some major changes to the page platform.
Pages Become More Like Profiles
A major issue for marketers on Facebook has been communicating as a business on the platform. While businesses could have pages and share updates and get fans, they couldn’t do many of the other activities on Facebook that an individual could do. Changes announced today by Facebook open up the doors to many of these features. Starting today, businesses can navigate and interact with other areas of Facebook representing your business page, not your personal profile. This means businesses can choose to receive notifications about fan activity, "like" and comment on other pages and get their own news feed.
For marketers this is huge! We now have more engagement opportunities across the Facebook platform.
New Page Design
Starting today, business pages on Facebook are going to look a lot more like the new personal profiles that Facebook rolled out recently. As part of this new design, businesses can feature photos at the top of their pages, showcase admins and highlight other pages they are connected with. The new design also moves the page navigation to the left sidebar.
New Filters
With this launch, Facebook has added a new “Everyone” filter that allows users to see the most interesting posts on a page first. Facebook has also created a place for people to discover the friends and interests they have in common with your page.
Marketing Takeaway
The updates launched today to Facebook fan pages will make many marketers happy. The newly launched features include many that have been at the top of marketers' lists for a while. You can click the link at the bottom of the announcement page to take a tour of these new features and to upgrade your page today. Before upgrading your page, understand that the new design may force you to update any custom tabs that you currently have on your page.
Once you have upgraded your page, make sure that the images displaying at the top of your pages are ones that you want to appear. Ensure that the page is displaying the proper admins in the righ-hand navigation. After your page is upgraded and ready to go, explore the new feature that have been rolled out to make pages more like profiles. Think about the new engagement opportunities these new page features enable for your business.
Do you like the new design and features Facebook released today for pages?
Inbound Marketing Blog Feed
H 5:38 PM on February 10, 2011
Anyone know how to undo the update once it has been made to the Fan Page? Or what others are doing to save the custom tabs?
Amy 6:13 PM on February 10, 2011
Will the "like" button still be in the same place?
Kim Woodbridge 6:16 PM on February 10, 2011
The width of the main content area has been reduced yet again - this is a big pain for custom tabs so I would recommend previewing before upgrading. I am also trying to find out the exact size of the new content area - I measured it to 488-490px but am looking for confirmation. Does anyone know?
Sam 6:19 PM on February 10, 2011
We have just changed our page to be the new and improved.
H - Custom tabs are still there and can still be your landing page
Overall i think this is a sweet opportunity for all to be involved in the brand.
Check it
http://www.facebook.com/nightnday.co.nz
Ralph Vugts 6:53 PM on February 10, 2011
I just went thourgh the tour, looks like it dropps off the tabs? I have a landing page for mine if they are not already a fan, does this remain?
CJ 7:10 PM on February 10, 2011
While there are some pluses I would like to see the ability to hide the Page Owners. I would also like the ability to choose which if any other Page Likes are displayed.
The center column is too small, the focus is now on advertising and not the page content which will impact the user experience. At least they could take the ads out of the center if the right hand side is now so big.
Ana Lucia Novak 7:35 PM on February 10, 2011
I was just talking about this today with a client, and wow, did they read my mind? This is great news!
Louis Bina 8:01 PM on February 10, 2011
Love it! I can "Like" my customers as my company rather than myself, post on walls, all that stuff. It does mean that companies will have to chose their admins more carefully though. Forgetting to "switch back" could cause serious damage.
Janet Aronica 8:05 PM on February 10, 2011
Thanks so much for writing this up, it really helped explain stuff to me. It's going to take some getting used to but I think that by utilizing the wall for conversations & news - and not relying on gimmicky tabs that sometimes weren't a lot of substance - turned out to be a good thing. We'll see how I do with it!
Amy 8:20 PM on February 10, 2011
Has anyone upgraded to the new page and received a notification yet about activity on their page? I have received some activity on my page, yet not received a notification for it. I wondering what time of activity they are referring to. Thanks!
Thomas Francois 8:22 PM on February 10, 2011
I just wanted to take a moment and let you know how helpful that your advice has been. Your site is full of fantastic information. Thank you very much and keep up the good work!
Regular reader, first time commenter...
Thomas Francois
Marketing Director
Web Price Right
www.webpricedright.com
Jim Canto 8:26 PM on February 10, 2011
Finally! That's about all I have to say about that. Finally.
Kim Kolb 8:29 PM on February 10, 2011
This is absolutely Awesome!
Maria Sellman 9:03 PM on February 10, 2011
When we started with Facebook Fan pages we encountered these very issues! Thank you facebook team for the improvements.
Kapil 11:55 PM on February 10, 2011
This is really going to add some spice to overall Facebook strategy of businesses. With this desired freedom, business users can do lots of things that they wanted to do.
It's really exciting...
Rob Willox 5:43 AM on February 11, 2011
Kim, the width is now a max of 492px (had to reduce a couple of custom tabs as original width was 520px). It doesn't break the tab only cuts it on the right-hand side.
Then new format maintains your custom tabs so welcome/landing pages are not effected. The only difference is that the navigation for them is now in left hand column.
Given the short time to evaluate it looks like one of the more beneficial updates made for business users.
Melanie 7:34 AM on February 11, 2011
Just upgraded - it'll be nice to comment on other posts as your fan page. Other changes look promising too! Thanks for the tour.
Serena Snoad 8:22 AM on February 11, 2011
This is a useful summary thanks. I blogged about this earlier, how it will help the charity I work for interact with supporters
Ryan H. 9:08 AM on February 11, 2011
Been waiting on this for two years - Thanks Mr. Zuckerberg!
Paul Hunt 9:35 AM on February 11, 2011
We like the new design and garetful for your post Kipp which puts it into better human language than Fb use !
However being a fb newbie and having just about mastered how to build friend connects/fan base with the old design we've noticed the process in the new design is not clear. So our burning question is when importing email address book contacts do we stil have to select just personal friends or can we ask everybody to Like us now ?
scott 2:47 PM on February 11, 2011
Sadly, I think many facebook users will begin to "Hide All by..." as our Newsfeed just turned into spam.
Andrea 12:28 AM on February 12, 2011
One downside I found out - if you have FBML on your existing page then you are fine, but if you don't, or don't have an existing page by 3/15, then you will be out of luck, as FBML is going away at that time. iFrames are coming to Facebook. Something new to learn!
Mark 1:14 PM on February 12, 2011
These changes answer some of the frustrations we have had since starting on Facebook. Overall, I think it will improve the way we can interact with fans and potential fans of our page. Thanks Facebook.
Cassy Mantis 1:21 PM on February 12, 2011
This sounds like a great innovation and I look forward to being able to do business soon on Facebook. It has a huge potential for everyone. The better the products and services offered, the better Facebook will become.
Cassy.
Don Klassen 7:31 PM on February 12, 2011
As an 'about to be' new user of Facebook (business) I'm wondering if there is a danger in 'getting started' prematurely with a Facebook account before learning the 'ropes' or can I simply refine the page as I go?
In other words, "Will I risk scaring away potential fans because of the amateurish layout, graphics etc.?"
Many thanks for your opinion.
Mark - Largest PLR 6:38 AM on February 14, 2011
The new changes looks really helpful and better in terms of spreading pages links. However, I heard that this isn’t official until March 1, is it so?
Nicole 8:42 AM on February 14, 2011
Wow! This is a very nice improvement, I could really use something like this... Thanks for sharing this information...
Sterling McKinley 2:00 PM on February 15, 2011
The new design is just ok in my opinion. I'm not too big on the new look. But take a look at my website and see if we can help you with social media needs.
Giulia 10:13 AM on February 16, 2011
Hi, I don't understand how the admin showcase works.
I understood that now FB user can see page admins but if logged out I dont see my fan page admins.
Or maybe I just misunderstood and for "admins showcase" they just mean that now admins can see clearer and faster all the other page admnistrators?
Thank you for the support
Brindey 5:06 PM on February 16, 2011
So, I upgraded my facebook page right away, took the tour, drank the kool-aid. Then I tried to switch back to being "brindey" on facebook and the "identity-switch" page is blank. It won't let me switch back to me. Have you encountered that?
AiDASiNC 7:35 PM on February 16, 2011
Hey, that is already working wonders...for your clients...
Thanks for bringing them out better than Facebook's tour itself.
Small is the New Big
AiDASiNC
SEOTool 7:24 AM on February 17, 2011
Great post, I also found it worked fine for a moment then you switch identity and get a blank page, also this morning the Like button doesn't work as a page. Tried in IE, Firefox and Chrome all the same.
Mark 10:19 AM on February 17, 2011
It has allowed me to like certain pages as my page but not others. I was also hoping to be able to send invitations as the page, but you have to switch to do that too. However, I still think it is an improvement.
www.HomeCompostingSolutions.com
Paul Hunt 6:10 PM on February 17, 2011
@Brindley .... yes I've started to get the same problem when switching identity from Page back to Profile and also when clicking to use the Page as myself .... have you solved it yet ?
Pat Andrien 8:13 PM on February 24, 2011
why am I seeing some comments in my email inbox that I'm not seeing on my page?
Dawn Leahey 5:47 AM on February 25, 2011
I would love to know the reasoning behing the ordering of comments on the wall of the new business profile page. No longer latest at the top, but seemingly not the most popular either? Can anyone tell me why that is, please?