25 Mar What You Need to Know About Facebook’s New Pages Redesign
Facebook recently announced a new streamlined look for Facebook Pages. The new Pages design mimics that of the existing personal profiles layout in look and feel. However, it is a bit of a shift from the current Pages design, with a few major updates outlined by Facebook.
Following the announcement, admins everywhere had a number of important questions, and yesterday Facebook answered the top 5 questions about the new Facebook Pages design. One of the biggest questions we were asking here at Ignite Social Media was, “what about custom tabs/apps?” It seemed at first glance that this precious real estate might be hidden away in a ubiquitous drop-down menu. Fortunately, Facebook shared that Apps will now live in two locations in the new layout: 1) in the left-hand sidebar and 2) in the top navigation menu. There, we can all breathe a collective sigh of relief.
So, what exactly are the biggest changes in the new design? And what are the answers to admins’ burning questions? Here’s a quick synopsis:
Updated Facebook Page Timeline
Much to the frustration of admins, the current two-column layout of a Page’s Timeline has proven clunky and unreliable when it comes to scrolling and viewing all of a Page’s posts. The new design features a single-column feed of posts on the right-hand side of the Timeline. Hopefully this means no more mysteriously disappearing posts between September 27, 2013 and October 4, 2013. (Yes, it happens. Yes, it’s frustrating.) On the left-hand side, you’ll find sections ranging from “About” to “Location” as well as a Page’s “Apps,” “Photos,” “Videos,” “Likes,” and more (basically, these are your new “tabs”). Admins will have the ability soon to customize the order of these left-hand sidebar sections.
Easier Access to Admin Tools
The new layout will allow admins the ability to access notifications, ads, etc. from anywhere on the page. This also means that if a Page has the “Message” option enabled, an admin will be able to view those messages from fans within the “Activity” tab in the top navigation menu (another mystery solved by Facebook in yesterday’s Q&A).
Pages to Watch
Last year, Facebook rolled out a limited competitor monitoring tool for some page admins called “Pages to Watch.” With this new Pages layout, they’re officially opening this up to all Pages. It looks like they’ve also added more metrics to the Pages to Watch, so there may be some value in creating a list of key competitors to keep an eye on. The concern by some that a Page would receive a notification not only that their Page had been added but by whom has been squashed. You’ll receive a notification that your page is being watched, but you won’t know who’s watching.
There are still a few unknowns. What, if any, changes to existing Facebook specs will come with this new design (cover photos, page post photos, app thumbnails?) How robust will competitive monitoring be with the new Pages to Watch? Will the new Timeline feed reliably display all of a given Page’s posts? Will people even notice our Page’s fancy new design if they aren’t even seeing our content in their News Feed? We shall see.
