Facebook is currently in the process of rolling out a number of physical and stylistic changes to their Business Pages. These changes impact the pages’ public appearance, and how Admins interact with page functions.  While many feel that these changes make Business Pages look more like a personal profile, the essential page controls and functionality should remain relatively unchanged.

Here are a few of the changes:

Outward Facing Changes

Appearance

Both Admin functionality and overall design changes available with the new Facebook Business Pages.

The new pages use the same size photographs as existing Business Pages, so you won’t need to resize all your photos as you did with past updates. However, the new layout features a left-justified profile picture, which may impact clients whose pages are designed to have a purposeful contrast or relationship between their cover and profile photos.

Additionally, the new pages display the Page name in white text on the cover photo, so clients may want to update any light-colored cover photos to provide a better background.

Page Design

Most business information appears on the left side of the new pages, (under the profile picture), while the news feed and wall postings are combined into a single-column stream on the right. The left column information includes phone number, website, photos, videos and a map showing business location. The new design prominently displays total number of Likes, along with thumbnail links to friends of the viewer who also like the page.

Facebook Apps are prominently accessible on the left side of the page, underneath the business description and above page photos. Three thumbnails get main-page treatment, with a “See all” connection option for app-heavy pages.

The right-side column displays all news-related content like status updates, wall posts and comments.

Scrolling ‘Like’ Bar

One of the more exciting additions is the scrolling ‘Like’ bar, which should help increase engagement. Visitors who haven’t yet liked a business page will see a small white “header” row that stays on the top of the page, prompting the visitor to Like the page, and allowing him or her to do so without scrolling all the way back to the top. This should hopefully help increase likes and engagements as more visitors interact with content. Once the visitor likes a page, the scrolling bar disappears from his or her screen.

 Inward Facing Changes

 Authorship Attribution

When viewing a page as an Admin, you can now see which Facebook admin posted each previous update. For Engage121 users, all updates made through the Engage121 application – regardless of who actually makes the post – will be attributed to the Facebook user who connected the page to the Engage121 application.

In the example shown here, a post is attributed to “Ryan Hayes” – who connected the page to Engage121 – even though any number of other users with Admin privileges could have made the post.

The quick takeaway here for users is that “Posted by” lines, for at least the moment, will continue to be associated with the user who originally authorized a connection, regardless of whether a different authorized user actually posts the content. Remember, this information can only be seen by users with admin access.

Appearance

Admins will also notice a new column on the screen’s right side displaying readings for Page Likes, the number of active ad campaigns, Post reach and notifications. This column provides Admins a quick snapshot without making them dig for the data.

New navigation controls at the top of each page also make it easy for Admins to move between views of their Page, Activity, Insights and Settings tabs.

Advanced Insights

The new page design also expands Facebook’s “Pages to Watch” feature, which allows Admins to compare key pages of interest (i.e., competitors and industry leaders) against their own pages’ performance. These aren’t detailed analyses, but help page admins gain quick comparison insight.

How to Get the New Page

At this time, there is no way to proactively opt-in to the new page design without being invited by Facebook. Keep your eye out when you log in to your Facebook account. If you haven’t already been invited to join the waiting list, you will be. Facebook plans to continue rolling out new pages over the next several weeks.

To see a recently updated Business Page, check out Engage121’s new page at www.Facebook.com/engage121. To see Facebook’s announcement about this change, click here.

Let us know when these changes hit your business page. We can’t wait to see!