If you’ve noticed a change in the look of your personal Facebook newsfeed, you’re not alone. That’s not the only change happening on Facebook. If you manage brand pages for your own business or your clients, you may have already discovered some big changes. They include personalization on brand pages which streamlines internal management, new design with new look and feel that impacts brands and the biggie, competitive intelligence at your fingertips.
First the little things. Facebook page administrators now can view who has been responsible for page status updates. The name of the team member who posted the article or photo will now be seen by both the team members and the page owner. This is huge – and is particularly helpful to companies who have several members of their teams managing their pages — we already love that.
And the big things. A new streamlined look for Facebook pages will be rolled out slowly to all page owners. The objective of the new look is purportedly to make it easier for fans to find the information they need, but it’s also part of Zuckerberg’s plan for world domination – and for Facebook to provide everything a consumer needs so that they don’t have to leave Facebook any more than humanly necessary. And no, I’m not kidding – that’s just good business for Facebook.
For page admins as well as for social media data analysis purposes, these changes will be very helpful. Here’s what you can expect to see:
Timeline Updates
Instead of the two column status update view, your page updates will be formatted in a single column on the right side of the page. This change will give your brand page a cleaner and more consistent look. The left column will now contain the information about your company’s product or service, which means that people will no longer have to click on the “About” tab for that information. What you need to do? Make sure you review the information provided about your brand and make sure it is not only complete, but that it says what you’d like for it to say about your brand or company. Other information that will be displayed includes maps, business hours and your website URL, so make sure that information is complete as well. As mentioned earlier, this is likely a move by Facebook to compete with Google and to give you all the information you need about a business without ever leaving Facebook. If you’re a business, there’s absolutely no reason not to be maximizing this exposure.
Key Admin Tools Now Easily Accessible
With the new redesign, no matter where you are on the page you’re managing, you can view analytics –including information about ads you’re running, new page likes, notifications and messages. Additionally, new navigation options are also available at the top of the page for easy access to activities, insights and settings.
Pages To Watch Insights Now Available To Track Your Competitor’s Activities
This is pretty sweet – and this is one of our very favorite things about the newest iteration of the interface. The “Pages To Watch” feature allows you to add pages similar to your product, brand or service as a list – like many of the SEO tools you and your team might be using. This list can include a competitor’s page or simply pages you’re interested in stalking, errr, keeping an eye on, and the net result is competitive intelligence, right in front of your nose. Cool, isn’t it?
Admins and members of your team analyzing data from social can now monitor and track relevant information about your competitors’ engagement. Information on your dashboard will now include information about other business pages, including:
- Total page likes
- New page likes
- Past week’s page engagement
This is an important update and will provide brand page owners valuable insights as to what their competitors are doing. It will also likely compel them to be more competitive (which might mean spending more on Facebook advertising – what a surprise!) in an effort to stay abreast of what their competitors are doing.
Not everyone has the new streamlined look and dashboard yet. While we wait, we’re also interested to see additional changes that might be rolled out, including any changes to the size of images and length of updates. We will, of course, continue to stalk The Facebook as these changes are implemented and make sure to update you once we have the opportunity to check it out. Do you have the newly updated dashboard and streamlined look for Facebook business page yet? What do you think?
photo credit: mkhmarketing via photopin
Facebook Updates Business Pages Adds Competitive Intel is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency
