Facebook announced that they are redesigning Facebook Business Pages.
If you are a current Facebook Business Page owner, you may have noticed that your reach has declined rapidly over the last few months. Part of Facebook’s redesign is to help Facebook Pages get noticed on News Feeds but also to become a genuine destination for customers. Facebook is looking to make business pages more user-friendly.
The redesign will be different for each category of the page and will only affect how pages are viewed on mobile. The changes are beginning to roll out this week, starting on August 23rd. Facebook is starting with pages for local businesses and restaurants.
Changes to look out for….
- Call to actions such as ‘make an appointment’ will be given more prominence. The CTA button is “bigger, brighter and directly under the Page cover photo.” Facebook is also rolling out tools for appointments/reservations.
- Facebook is going to make it easier for users to be able to find the businesses they are looking for when searching on Facebook on mobile. New categories are being added for Facebook pages so make sure to keep an eye out to see if there is a new one that is better suited for your business.
- Reviews are becoming recommendations.
Users that are leaving recommendations will now also be able to leave images with the recommendation. Up until now, reviews were text only. Facebook will also analyse previous reviews/recommendations and highlight recurring phrases so they can be easily spotted at a glance. - ‘Related Pages’ will show up on your business profile.
This means that similar business, possibly competitions, will be showing on your business profile. There is no way to turn this off. This is to help users discover other businesses that may be of interest to them.
If you welcome change, why not install the new layout now and be ahead of the game? You can install it now or else Facebook will automatically make the change for you on August 24th.
For many businesses that don’t pay much attention to their social media profile and to conversations they are a part of, this is another reminder of the necessity for businesses to engage with their digital profiles, bearing in mind that content is not exclusively made up of what you put out but also, and sometimes more importantly, what your customers put out.
Make sure your voice is heard on all digital channels and that you are engaging with user-generated content such as recommendations and images