Facebook Updates Company Page Design and Introduces "Pages to Watch"

One of the most annoying things about working with Facebook Company Pages is that each type of post appeared different when viewed on your Page versus in the News Feed. Because of the way it was all laid out, you were never sure that your posts would look great across the platform. 

As of today, you can wave bye-bye to that confusing, cluttered, two-column Company Page design and say hello to a slick, one-column layout. This design is for web only, but it should look familiar -- it's very similar your personal profile layout. Here's a snapshot Facebook included with its announcement post:

Now, because the activity is on one column on the right, posts will look consistent across the entire platform -- i.e. a post will look the same on your Company Page, News Feed, or shared on someone else's Timeline. Since we don't have access to the new Timeline look (it's starting to be rolled out to everyone this week), we can't tell you if image dimensions have changed from the previous design. We'll update this post with more information once we have it. 

Additions and Subtractions to Facebook Page Features

When Facebook switched up this layout, not all features got transferred over. What's missing? If you guessed "Custom Tabs," you'd be right.

From the screenshots Facebook provided, it's unclear where the heck those little boxes went, though folks are speculating they're under "More." Regardless of where they went, they're now not in your Page's prime real estate, so it'd be wise to reevaluate the time you're spending on them. It may not be worth the investment you're putting in if you're not getting any people to view the tabs.

Besides the visual changes, Facebook also unveiled a competitive monitoring report called "Pages to Watch" to all admins, located in the 'Overview' tab of Page Insights. You add the Pages you'd like to watch to that dashboard, and you can see how their Likes and engagement have changed over the past week. Here's what that report looks like:

This report is the most interesting part of this new Page update to me. Having competitor data within Facebook insights could make the data way more valuable to companies looking to go head to head with similar companies. (Noticing that your competitor is getting a lot of Likes this week? See what they're doing, and think about ways you can replicate -- and improve -- on those tactics.)

Some companies may feel uncomfortable that their Facebook data could be available to competitors, but the data is pretty high-level, so I wouldn't get too squeamish about it. 

And that's pretty much it, folks. Nothing too groundbreaking here, but these updates could help give your Facebook Page the performance boost you've been vying for. Adapt your social marketing to fit the new features, and you'll be in great shape.

Do you have the new Company Page features yet? What do you think of them?