As you may already know, Facebook recently rolled out an update of its Pages for brands with a new interface and new features. Amidst all of the hullabaloo, many are simply asking — what’s so great about the new Pages and what do I need to know? As a consultant that manages Facebook engagement for our brands and select clients, I’ve taken a couple of weeks to get under the hood of the new Page improvemets and have found four key features that can make you a better page admin. Here’s what you need to know.
- Navigate Facebook as Your Page. I didn’t truly grasp this feature until I tried it. On the new Pages, admins now see a new tool box on the righthand side of the page offering them quick links to key features like Insights (which is a post in itself). Among those is a new button allowing you to ‘Use Facebook as [Your Page].’ This allows you to do just that, which is further enabled by this next new feature …
- Your Page Gets a News Feed! Once you’ve selected to navigate Facebook as your Page you can click the Facebook logo at the top which traditionally returns you ‘home’ to your personal news feed. However, when navigating as your Page, this feed is now limited to updates from other Pages your brand ‘likes.’ This means you need to go out and …
- Like and Share Things as Your Page. All of this is easier to accomplish, organize, and manage with the new Page update. Liking similar brands, organizations, and thought leaders in your space on Facebook means your Page’s news feed organizes all of these updates for you/your Page. It’s easy to post and share content which in turn should lead to more interactions on your Page. But with this increase in interactions how can you make sure you and your team stays on top of this?
- Page Admins Get Email Updates. That’s how you stay on top of it! This is a little thing but it helps in a big way — especially new media marketers for smaller businesses or personal brands. Previously the onus was on the admin(s) to be constantly monitoring their Page. With the new update, the Page tells you when there’s activity. To some this may be an un-sexy new feature but it adds so much to an intuitive admin experience.
Are there other updates? Sure. Applications move from being tabs across the top to a listing below the Page’s profile pic. You could argue that you are trading some prominence for the ability to list more apps and organize them accordingly. And Pages now have the recent photos across the top like personal profiles but these updates are largely cosmetic. The four I have chosen to focus on here are ones that enhance your experience as a Page admin which in turn can help you cultivate your community.
The Brand-Driven Insight? These new Facebook features — navigating as your Page, Page news feed, Page likes, and admin email updates — add up to a heightened Page management experience, which in turn, makes engaging with your community even easier. With this Page release and with an ever-growing set of insights, Facebook is becoming an increasingly effective online space for marketers of all sizes to create engaging customer experiences and build communities around brands.
How are you using the new Facebook Page features? Like?
NOTE: To switch back to navigating ‘as your personal profile’ you need to return to the Facebook page you are navigating as and switch back. At some point, it might be more intuitive to manage who you are navigating as via the main bar at the top. That’s just another idea for a future release if Mr. Zuckerberg and co. are listening …
