Facebook is back at it again, changing things up for businesses and marketers everywhere!

On January 6th, it was announced that a new business pages experience would be coming to the platform. The changes are big, including a roll out of new designs, layouts, and features, namely phasing out the ‘like’ feature we associate so distinctly with Facebook and keeping only the ‘follow’ feature instead.

Currently, business pages on Facebook have both likes and followers, allowing users to ‘like’ a page and show support, while also opting in or out of seeing the page’s posts on their feed (aka ‘following’ along with them). Once your business has switched to the new setup, Page Likes will be transferred over to Followers if the users both liked and followed the page prior to the update.

Honestly, this is a welcome change! It has always been a mystery to us why Facebook would want to separate one action into two. If a person likes a page, they want to be following it by default!

Hopefully this will make things a little less confusing and lead to further growth!

Facebook also announced that they would be removing the ‘Our Story’ element from the page presentation options, a feature that allowed businesses to provide more background on their ventures. This element will now likely be found under the ‘Additional Information’ section, but will unfortunately no longer be displayed prominently on the main landing page.

So, what are the big benefits? Well, for starters, Facebook stated there would be an improved ’ease of use’ for those who need to navigate between personal profiles and business pages, a big perk for small business owners!

Some other main features are a redesigned layout, a dedicated news feed to engage with fans, actionable insights, updated admin controls, and safety features that protect pages from spam and impersonators.

We must say, we are thrilled about the return of engagement and news feed functionality to Pages! The ability to have a feed of content that you can use to connect and engage with users as a page is MAJOR and will prove to be an incredible asset! The social aspect of social media is so important and, with this update, businesses can get back to the business of connecting with their communities.

Over the past few months, it feels like we’ve been leaving the office with sore necks from the whiplash of Facebook’s ever-changing layout!

There have been so many adjustments to the platform that it can seem daunting to keep up with. We strongly encourage everyone to make the switch to this new setup as soon as you can! Not only will it make the adjustment easier in the long run, but it will let you get back to engaging with your community, which is well worth the learning curve.

In the meantime, we will be over here waiting for changes to (inevitably) be made to these changes! And, of course, we will always keep you updated!

xoxo,

The Ladies of Become Intertwined
Keeping the ‘Social’ in Social Media!
www.BecomeIntertwined.com
@BIntertwined