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Facebook Announces New Design and Upgrades to Fan Pages

 

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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


Facebook Admin resized 600

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


New Facebook Page Pictures resized 600

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 Facebook Nav resized 600


New Filters


New Facebook Filters resized 600

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?

An Introductory Guide: How to Use Facebook for Business

Free eBook: How to Use Facebook for Business: An Introductory Guide

Let's face it: your prospects are on Facebook whether you like it or not.

Download the free eBook and learn to use Facebook in 2011 to achieve your business goals!

Posted by Kipp Bodnar on Thu, Feb 10, 2011 @ 04:00 PM

COMMENTS

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?

posted on Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 4:38 PM by H


Will the "like" button still be in the same place?

posted on Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 5:13 PM by Amy


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?

posted on Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 5:16 PM by Kim Woodbridge


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

posted on Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 5:19 PM by Sam


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?

posted on Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 5:53 PM by Ralph Vugts


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.

posted on Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 6:10 PM by CJ


I was just talking about this today with a client, and wow, did they read my mind? This is great news!

posted on Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 6:35 PM by Ana Lucia Novak


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.

posted on Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 7:01 PM by Louis Bina


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!

posted on Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 7:05 PM by Janet Aronica


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!

posted on Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 7:20 PM by Amy


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 

posted on Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 7:22 PM by Thomas Francois


Finally! That's about all I have to say about that. Finally.

posted on Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 7:26 PM by Jim Canto


This is absolutely Awesome!

posted on Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 7:29 PM by Kim Kolb


When we started with Facebook Fan pages we encountered these very issues! Thank you facebook team for the improvements.

posted on Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 8:03 PM by Maria Sellman


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...

posted on Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 10:55 PM by Kapil


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.

posted on Friday, February 11, 2011 at 4:43 AM by Rob Willox


Just upgraded - it'll be nice to comment on other posts as your fan page. Other changes look promising too! Thanks for the tour.

posted on Friday, February 11, 2011 at 6:34 AM by Melanie


This is a useful summary thanks. I blogged about this earlier, how it will help the charity I work for interact with supporters

posted on Friday, February 11, 2011 at 7:22 AM by Serena Snoad


Been waiting on this for two years - Thanks Mr. Zuckerberg!

posted on Friday, February 11, 2011 at 8:08 AM by Ryan H.


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 ?

posted on Friday, February 11, 2011 at 8:35 AM by Paul Hunt


Sadly, I think many facebook users will begin to "Hide All by..." as our Newsfeed just turned into spam.

posted on Friday, February 11, 2011 at 1:47 PM by scott


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. <sigh> Something new to learn!

posted on Friday, February 11, 2011 at 11:28 PM by Andrea


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.

posted on Saturday, February 12, 2011 at 12:14 PM by Mark


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.

posted on Saturday, February 12, 2011 at 12:21 PM by Cassy Mantis


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. 

posted on Saturday, February 12, 2011 at 6:31 PM by Don Klassen


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?

posted on Monday, February 14, 2011 at 5:38 AM by Mark - Largest PLR


Wow! This is a very nice improvement, I could really use something like this... Thanks for sharing this information...

posted on Monday, February 14, 2011 at 7:42 AM by Nicole


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.

posted on Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 1:00 PM by Sterling McKinley


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

posted on Wednesday, February 16, 2011 at 9:13 AM by Giulia


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?

posted on Wednesday, February 16, 2011 at 4:06 PM by Brindey


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

posted on Wednesday, February 16, 2011 at 6:35 PM by AiDASiNC


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.

posted on Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 6:24 AM by SEOTool


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. 
 
<a>www.HomeCompostingSolutions.com<a> 

posted on Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 9:19 AM by Mark


@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 ?

posted on Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 5:10 PM by Paul Hunt


why am I seeing some comments in my email inbox that I'm not seeing on my page?

posted on Thursday, February 24, 2011 at 7:13 PM by Pat Andrien


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?

posted on Friday, February 25, 2011 at 4:47 AM by Dawn Leahey


Comments have been closed for this article.