Last week Facebook went and… wait for it… updated things again. So just as you were starting to adjust – or not – to all the personal profile changes that were made in the past month, you now have a whole new set of similar transformations to get used to on fan pages. No worries, we have broken down Facebook’s latest upgrade to show what’s changing and how it can benefit you.
Before you can fully dig in, you may want to go ahead and upgrade your fan page first. Might as well, since the new format will officially switch over on March 1.
Okay, now that you have opened a world of change let’s break down the new visual layout of your profile.
- One of the most obvious, and aggressive changes is that the tabs have been removed from the top and have been replaced with photos. This is a great opportunity to display some catchy imagery above your wall. To edit pictures, just click on the top right corner of the image you want to delete and a new one will pop in. If you want to get really creative, try creating a cohesive image out of the five picture slots. We’ve seen a few examples of this already that look really cool.
- The tabs are now located below the fan page profile pic and are, consequently, a lot less visible – something to keep in mind if you have an application or contest running.
- Your fan page can now ‘Like’ other pages – the results of which will be displayed on the lower left side of your fan page under a new section called ‘Likes’. This is a great opportunity to give a little love to partners, clients or other brands in the family.
The next big set of changes that took place is to the administration and communication settings, which have vast improvements.
- One update that we’re really excited about is that you can now comment as both the page and yourself! Anyone who’s accidentally commented on a post thinking they were posting as themselves when in reality they were posting as the page probably feels our pain here. Just go into the fan page settings and you’ll see an option to select how your comments will show up.
- You can add featured page owners, which helps if you want to establish a point of contact or give yourself credit for managing the page. Just click edit info and select Featured.
- You can receive email notification when your page gets a post or comment – just opt-in under Settings. This can help create a better, more responsive dialogue between your page and fans. Of course, if you get hundreds of comments per post, you may want to opt-out of this setting.
- Your page can now comment on other pages, which can be a great tool for expanding the reach of your page without affecting your personal profile!
One final change we want to mention at this point is especially important for advertisers. If you’re running an ad on Facebook you can now select specific landing tabs that ads will drive to – giving advertisers a new opportunity to craft custom pages for different ad campaigns, while running them simultaneously. Previously, ads would only drive to the default landing tab on your page, so we see this as a major improvement.
This is just the start of Facebook’s total fan page revamp, so stay tuned for more updates! Which do you prefer now, the old or new look?
Tags: Facebook
