What We Know So Far About The New Facebook Page Experience
We already covered a bit about the new Facebook Page Experience on our YouTube channel a while ago, but now that more pages are getting the option to migrate to the new Facebook Page experience, we will dive deeper into what we are seeing and how business owner’s should prepare for the upcoming changes and whether migrating your business to the new experience is the right decision.
While you read through this article, please keep in mind that a lot of these features are brand new and your Facebook profile may not have the option to upgrade. Everything we will go over in this blog are features we are seeing ourselves firsthand, or we have heard Facebook is rolling out through their own product announcements.
What The New Facebook Page Experience Looks Like
Facebook is trying to make it simpler for businesses to grow their community and achieve business objectives. Here are a few of the ways they are updating pages in 2021.
Optimized layout for a simpler, more user-friendly interface
As you can see below, the look and feel of the new layout is a bit more streamlined. This should make it easier for users to see bios, posts and more relevant info compared to before.
“Dedicated News Feed” that allows for better engagement with fans and easier trend/conversation discovery
Similar to personal profiles, Pages can now find and contribute to conversations, follow trending content and interact with their fans. Facebook will also attempt to connect your Page with other Pages that it thinks your Page or your fanbase will care about.
People will also be able to see comments from Pages and follow Pages right from those comments or recommendations posts.
Task-based admin controls for more control over Page access
Users will assign and manage permissions based on tasks or creative roles. Depending on who you are working with, you can grant Insights, Ads, Content, Community Active access and more. This increased control over access levels will allow users to collaborate without risking the integrity and privacy of their Facebook profile or business Page.
Privacy/integrity features to filter out more spam and impersonator accounts
Facebook has improved their ability to flag activity that is banned on their platform. Certain activities like spam, hate speech, violence, or impersonating content will be more clearly marked and taken down. Also, business Pages or profiles that have the verified badge will see comment prioritization when they interact with other posts, which means their comments may appear higher than Pages that are not verified.
Should you switch to the New Page Experience?
One important thing to remember is that from everything we are seeing, you’ll be able to switch back and forth between New Page Experience and the classic Facebook Page.
As a quick summary, here are some things that you may lose if you swap to the New Pages Experience. These may be features that eventually come back, but we are seeing them as disabled in the New Pages Experience, hopefully temporarily.
- API connections in replying to a comment in a private message
- Certain business features, most notably the Jobs feature
- Specific Page Roles like moderator & editor
- Ability to schedule or pin posts
- Reviews and check-ins
- Likes are being phased out in favor of followers
How Facebook is handling Likes and Follows moving forward
If you want to read how Facebook describes this change, you can click here to go to their help center.
Basically, in the New Pages Experience, likes are going away. BUT, Followers will serve the same purpose, so the change shouldn’t be too scary for businesses and marketers.
On classic Pages, followers already exist. Your followers are the users that have liked your page and marked “follow” so that they will see your posts.
Sometimes, users can like your page, but mark themselves as “unfollow” so they don’t get your posts and updates. For businesses, those users who like your page but don’t follow add little value for your business. The entire benefit of having Likes is so that people can see your content and updates, so Facebook is attempting to clarify when a user is a Follower.
Here are a few situations that may happen and how Facebook will handle them:
If you switch to the New Page Experience, and someone likes and follows your Page already, they will still be a follower in the New Page Experience and add to your total follower count
If someone likes your classic Page, but doesn’t follow, they will not be a follower in the New Page Experience
If someone follows your classic Page but doesn’t like it, they will transfer to your New Page Experience as a follower
Page likes will not exist in the New Page Experience, so Page like count will no longer be accessible.
What happens if you switch back to a classic Page?
If you switch back to classic Page from a new Page, your followers will remain the same
If you switch back to a classic Page from a new Page, you will still have all the likes from your classic Page, unless they unfollowed your new Page. Anyone that followed your new Page will be added to Follows for your classic Page.
Summary
As with most Facebook updates, it’s important to be patient while they work through these changes. Some businesses may have access to these changes earlier than others, so don’t feel left out if you can’t upgrade to the New Pages Experience.
Even if you get access to the New Pages Experience, it’s important to remember that certain features are still being rolled out slowly.
In our opinion, there is no rush to convert to the New Pages Experience and it may be worth it to wait and monitor other businesses or resources that will work out the kinks for you before you convert.
Optimize Social Media provides social media & reputation solutions that evolve with our clients. As social media experts we manage Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yelp, YouTube and Instagram accounts for our clients daily. We help the modern business owner implement a specialized social media strategy so they can make more money in real life. Enjoy our blog.
What We Know So Far About The New Facebook Page Experience was originally published in Social Media For Business Owners on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.