Update (10:01am EST): Width glitch should be fixed on all tabs.
Update (3:26pm EST): Production Manager Confirms, Static FBML applications already installed on March 11th will still be able to be edited but cautions about future.
1. Navigation Moved
The content that you formerly accessed by clicking the tabs at the top of your Page can now be found in the column underneath your Page profile picture. The text in the box that used to appear in the box underneath your Page profile picture will now appear in the Info tab.
Old:
New:
2. Profile Picture Size Reduced:
Profile picture size: The profile picture size for Pages has been adjusted from 200×600 to 180×540.
3. Use Facebook as your Page:
You will be able to receive notifications for your Page, view a News Feed for your Page, and like and post on other Pages as your Page.
This enables you to interact on other Fan Pages as your Fan Page. You can not interact with personal profiles as your fan page.
4. Â Photos at the top:
The most recent photos that you post to the Wall of a Page you admin, or photos you tag your Page in, will appear here. This area will not include any photos posted by people who like your Page.
5. Â Wall filters:
Pages now have two publicly visible Wall filters-”Posts by Page” and “Everyone.” Page admins will be able to view additional filters-”Most Recent” and “Hidden Posts.”
6. Email notifications:
You can opt to receive notifications when people post or comment on your Page.
7. Featured Pages and admins:
You can feature other Pages your Page likes, or admins of your Page, in the new “Likes” and “Page Owners” sections on the left side of your Page.
8. Mutual connections:
When people visit your Page, they will be able to view friends who also like your Page, as well as other Pages that both they and your Page like.
1 Big Shocker:
“On March 11, 2011, you will no longer be able to create new FBML apps and Pages will no longer be able to add the Static FBML app. While all existing apps on Pages using FBML or the Static FBML appwill continue to work, we strongly recommend that these apps transition to iframes as soon as possible. Lastly, we want to be clear that our deprecation of FBML does not impact XFBML, such as the tags that support social plugins.**We will be updating this all night as new information comes in.” – Facebook
* we will continue updating as new information comes in*
What do you think of the new Facebook changes? What new features do you like most? The least?
I am not a fan of the new tabs layout. I definitely think it will take away from their use and effectiveness.
Change is always good! We have so much more information available to us now!
How so? We love the changes!
[...] The update has also changed the width of a FBML landing tab – it is slightly out by about 10- 20 pixels. I have checked this on numerous pages – there will be a lot of unhappy page owners and app developers out there about this one! This has now been confirmed as a bug. [...]
This changing the fanpages is a bunch of BS….You people at Facebook constantly screw things up…Why do people fix things when they are not broken?? A really stupid design that has tons and tons of people pissed off
Bradley, what are you most frustrated with?
I’ll tell you what I’m most frustrated with is I have no way of managing mine or my client’s pages without paying a third party service. Lujure is great, but the one free basic tab isn’t enough and my small business clients can’t afford another monthly fee.
Hey Matthew, thanks for stopping by and for the feedback! Your welcome page looks great- love the share bar at the top. Lujure is certainly not for everyone but it has proved very powerful and has been integrated into several businesses as they work to develop their clients fan page. Keep in mind that your clients don’t have to use Lujure. You just have to have an account and then can install to all their fan pages if you like. Cheers!
I’m really having a great time with the changes – I’m keen to see how the profile image dimensions will settle out. I’m still experimenting with speaking in different voices.
I need to go ‘like’ a raft of related pages while logged in to my different niche pages – that way I can @tag those pages in my updates.
Wonder about those businesses who have a personal profile – this will make it more difficult to tell them the difference and why they should set up as a business and not as a personal profile…
Any thoughts on that?
I intensely dislike businesses using personal profiles, and have reported probably a thousand of them with zero effect. Facebook’s lack of a clear response on that issue is one of several symptoms of what I predict will be its demise. Others include the additional sharing of info with apps, combined with the growing forms of Myspace-like scams that drove that site into obscurity.
I don’t know what’s next on the horizon, but we’ve seen the golden age of Facebook come and go.
@Jim – Facebook has been turning off business “profile” pages and then restricting the email associated with them. It takes time, but I have personally watched 10 happen in the last week.
It’s a big ole platform to manage. Glad to see FB cracking down on this. I agree with both of you- very annoying!
http://www.facebook.com/pages/not-accepting-friend-requests-from-businesses/109532502418917
Hey Jim, you think we’ve already seen FB at its peek? I agree it can be frustrating but we definitely believe it is MOREso empowering!
I understand that you’ve tied your fortunes to this star, Nathan, but I don’t think any social media site is forever. People felt the same way about pretty much any site in the 90s . . . how many Super Bowl advertisers from 1999 exist anymore? Remember pets.com? I recommend developing skills that are transferable -if Facebook loses popularity, the ability to create Facebook pages won’t be worth much on the open market.
Wow you have taken the time to report thousands of businesses using a profile page? Interesting.
I can definitely see there being more confusion on the issue of personal vs fan page. I think with the one button added it makes it clear how to transition though. You think this will for sure confuse folks? Thanks for the great feedback Doug!
HATE THE NEW LAYOUT FOR PAGES!! PLEASE GIVE US THE POTION TO CHOOSE!
Carla, what features don’t you like?
You can chose for two weeks
Apparently am having an issue with the cut-off situation…how do I fix that? I can’t get to the buttons to log out of Facebook, nor do I have an option to go back as the Admin. Or is this a bug that I have to wait until you fix it? Thanks….
It is a bug. Don’t worry about it, FB will fix
Thanks. I think I’m going to like the updates….
Yes! Email updates were very much needed!
There are 2 major things I’m frustrated with as a Page admin, 1) The custom tab cutoff (which as you say is a bug, I truly hope you are right and that’s the case) -if it’s not a bug, it’s going to cost me some serious man hours and money to rebuild many client pages. And 2) When a new visitor lands on you designated landing tab and clicks Like, they are diverted to….THE WALL!!! Which, is complete nonsense. I hope that is also a bug.
We are sure its a bug- no worries!
We are looking into your second point. That would be a bummer!
I really like the new layout! It is a lot cleaner and it showcases your fan page’s images at the top
Did the photostrip become a random display? Does anyone know if there is a bug in the display sequence? Tagged photos do not appear to be displaying in the correct order (departs from the Profile experience). I hope that this is not by design.
Pretty sure it’s a bug. Will post updates here as we get them
Is it true that Page Admins will no longer be able to build their tabs using FBML as of March?
Yes. This was the precise reason we created Lujure. Lujure doesn’t use static FBML.
I am not seeing all the content on my wall. Posts are out of order. #5 above says that admins will be able to view Most Recent, Hidden Posts, Posts by Page and Everyone, however all I see on my page is Everyone and Theresa Sheridan Designs.
Also, what about the size of the page. My landing page is cut off on the right side. Are we going to have to change all the graphics? That is way time consuming and will cost me time and money to alter my clients pages!
The new display shows the most popular stories first. You can switch between views as well on the left side by clicking “admin view”.
The width issue is a bug. No need to edit all pages. Just hang tight on that one
You shouldn’t have to click to “admin view” to view the posts in order but I suppose that’s just a small issue!
We agree, this is the one thing we don’t like!
Small for you maybe. The inability to view posts in chronological order will make one my pages ( a lost and found pets noticeboard type of page ) pretty null / void / useless. How are people going to see the latest lost and/or found posts ?! Plus just when I instigated some daily themes for another page … they changed everything. Let’s just say that the inability to have posts shown in chronological order is a BIG issue for me personally.
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Don’t like the way the posts are no longer in chronical order!
This is one of our least favorite things as well!
I agree, this is the one thing I’m not liking as well. It resembles a game of 52 Pickup, lol (everything is all over the place on the floor, with only the lucky cards landing on top)
Wish we had the ability as page admins to choose the way posts are displayed (popular/chrono).
Another 2 cents, which means we’re up to a dime
I’m very happy that, after 2 months of wangling that FBML to get my page working correctly, it will no longer be supported. Once again, FB, you have made the simple nearly impossible. I applaud you!
, Mike
Hey Michael, if I picked up on your sarcasm you are a bit frustrated? You aren’t alone! We are here to help though. Lujure lets you drag and drop pages together and there is a free option
Feel free to shoot questions over here…
Absolutely hate the photo strip as I do on my personal page. But it’s even more offensive on admin’d pages. Their “crapily cropped” ™
and they make the top of the page look like crap. I should choose what photos go there & shouldn’t have to keep x-ing photos out. Proof of the epic fail is how the Facebook Pages page itself looks.
Yeah, we are still researching how you can order those images and such. They seem to be randomly placed right now. Thanks for stopping by!
You should be able to disable the photo strip. Not sure if you can, but you certainly should be able to.
Not that my opinion matters in the big picture, but I really think the new layout is poor (personal and fan page alike). Its another one of those times when the engineers pull an over nighter, and forget to tell the design team. Whats also lame is that although the previous layout system was limiting, it was finite. And many of us invested time and money into learning the ways and practices of Facebook. And now its being turned on its ear. Its ironic that my[ ] has now opted to go with a cleaner layout, and Facebook its quickly becoming what the former used to be. A HOT MESS. Are you going to wait a few more years and change it again just to keep us on our toes? Or is there some club that these (horribly overpriced) theme generation programs belong to such that all the paid services continue to work, yet all the hand coded ones are are out the door.
What do you think are the pros and cons of this fan page switch?
While I embrace the change and love many of the new features, it has removed your ability to designate a tab or page as your landing page. Everything goes straight to the wall – which limits some of the impact of the custom landing page.
Migration to the new format is optional for now. I will be keeping a close eye on how the major brands make the switch (Coke, Marriott, The White House). FBML has been listed to leave for some time and while I believe the change is going to happen – the migration to iframes is something the big brands will have to spend big money on and they are big advertisers. I would anticipate a delay.
Thankfully with Lujure it is a piece of cake to move to the new iframes now.
You sure can still set the landing page! Check this out:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUX1UQiJCeA
Thanks for the props Kathleen! Have you given Lujure a whirl yet?
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Thank you sooo much for this AWESOME post, Nathan!!!
) You ROCK!!
Of course! Let me know if you have more questions
Nathan,
I looked at the youtube video on how to set the landing page and I do not have that option on my page. Have any indication as to why that is?
Weird. It’s gotta be a bug. Have you upgraded your page yet?
IT’S ABOUT TIME THEY LET YOU LIST PAGE ADMINS
I played around with lujure a bit last night, I have a page http://www.facebook.com/CarolFinlaysonCoaching and I cant see how I go about adding it to lujure to manage it. So can I use lujure only to create a new page or can I use it to improve the one I have already? I love the changes fb has made, yes a few bugs but overall I like it.
Hey Carol! You can use it to manage as many pages as you’d like. Just click “create a new tab” on the dasboard and select the fan page you’d like to manage from the drop down. Be sure to ask any further questions you here or on our support tab or fan page http://fb.com/lujure
Cheers!
Wish that the music player was moveable back to the static left column. Do love that the tabs are gone and the sweet links to each area are on that static left column. For a music page though, losing the music player to the Info ‘tab’ is awkward. Any ideas?
one other very cool thing – maybe this is true on the personal profiles too – but there is in fact a very hard to notice little x in the top right corner of each picture on the strip, and if you click it and remove the picture from the strip, it won’t come back there again don’t think. the picture is still in the photos for fans to see, but at least we have some control over the strip along the top. just learned that!
Thank you for this tip !! It’s helped a heap
Hey there, are you referring to fb’s fbml mp3 player code?
good question. it isnt on the fbml tab. its app is Music Player (and has a long standing behavior of not letting the listener click the song they wish to hear, it just plays thru its list in order). It does have a facebook icon showing on the apps page. Kind of lame maybe that i’m not sure exactly if its fb’s fbml …but it is an mp3 player of the tracks.
as with most”brilliant” moves by FB, it blows monkeys and serves very little in the way of useful changes that would require a major layout change.
So you don’t like the ability to post to other page as your fan page and such? Or are you just saying there was no need for an aesthetic change..?
What has the upgrade changed in Facebook Pages?…
There were 8 major changes and 1 significant deprecation announced. 1. Navigation was moved 2. Profile banner size reduced to 180px by 540px 3. Photos across top of fan page 4. Receive email notifications from fan pages 5. Comment/interact as your fan …
Can anyone help with the order of page posts we have a number of people looking for an answer on this one
No solution as of yet unfortunately. Only the Admin can see posts in chronological order.
Boo ! I’m one of the many people who would love the “old” page wall back where posts were listed in chronological order. Or at least allow the admins to have the option to set it as “chronological” or “most popular” or whatever the hell FB has done.
It’s f-ed with some of my pages which rely heavily upon chronological order of posts.
I spent time learning FBML, and although I´m sure Lujure is a great option (which I´ll end up to use) I like to do these little steps to get my page working with coding. My question is always the same: the tabs created until March 11 will be customizable with fbml??
It is NOT clear if tabs created before March 11th will still be “editable” after March 11th. We will update this blog post as soon as we hear answers from FB.
Thanks very much for the advice! As I said recently, change is inevitable, success is not!
Thanks for the support Peter!
While I generally support the new changes (except the staticFBML demise) I think they will confuse many non fb savvy people. I would also like the ability to contact a pages’s admin (dont necessarily need to know who they are) without posting on their wall.
Yeah, I think folks will forget who they are signed in as as well. Time will tell! Admins now do have the ability to make their names public. Not sure if folks will adapt to this readily…
Nathan, where would Admins Names display? I notice it shows to admins only, but do we have a choice in displaying? I manage a few pages and don’t necessarily want or have need to display myself as an admin.
You sure do, you can display them if you choose in the bottom left of the fan page
You have to make them visible first though.
Interesting that the option to allow fans to tag themselves on a page’s photo’s is back (was hidden for quite a while) so expect to see an upsurge in tagging photo competitions and the problems that can bring …
In addition you can also now tag pages in photo’s …
Is the new layout more accessible to people with disabilities?
For instance blind people who use screen readers like Jaw?
You are missing a big market segment here, Please work on that!
Really interesting point Charlene! Tell me more about Jaw.
Charlene, correct me if I don’t get this quite right. I don’t use a screen reader but am familiar with web accessibility.
Screen readers like Jaws allow visually impaired web visitors to hear the information on websites. The software essentially reads the HTML and translates it into an audible format. In order to do that effectively, the code needs to be well-structured, ideally standards based. Not sure if the move to iframes is going to help with this – I think it may even make things worse for screen reader users.
@Nathan – Are you noticing as an admin on pages, that when you update a page, you know how the option of changing/updating the category choice for a page? And also, Post Insights seem to be acting “wacky,” some of my posts that had insights available underneath posts, say “Post insights not yet available, please check back later.”
I think overall, all the people who complain about the change on Facebook Pages need to get over it…whether we like it or not, Facebook is “King of the social network hill” at least for now and if they want to institute an update, they’re going to do it. We’re in their park to play and they get to design the park, right? Last time I checked, they weren’t charging us to access the park, yet we can advertise and market our business in the park, albeit under certain rules and aesthetics.
One thing I learned from being a professional musician/entertainer over the years “you can’t please everyone all of the time, but you can please some of them some of the time!”
The best part of the layout changes is that we have to come up with creative ways to continue to build engagement and make use of the real estate we’ve got. I think it will help one my clients $7000 Social Network Challenge pretty well!
Ed
One way to take advantage of the new “Like” other Pages as a Page, is to get Pages in your niche to like yours and vice-versa. Think of it as a “link exchange” but in this case it would be a “Like Exchange.”
Or just provide great content, network with other Page Admins and organically build “Likes” from other pages related geographically to your business or niche pages or non-competitive pages and grab users from other pages this way. I kind of liken it to the link authority you get when another website links to yours, but in this case it increases your “Likes” list.
I’m referring to the “Featured” function of the Page Admin area, where you can designate the 5 pages to display that your page likes. I foresee this as VALUABLE authority real estate, that pages with thousands of fans could use to feature related pages they like or *gasp* even “sell” as sponsorship spots. (Nathan, already encouraged a client, an event, to feature their Top 5 event sponsors here.)
This also brings up another suggestion for events or companies that take part in event marketing:
FEATURE in your top 5 photos, the logos or custom image of your sponsors, and when user clicks on photo, they see a Call To Action in the Caption/Description under photo, driving them to another page or website landing page for further interaction and list building.
The uses of the new changes are only limited by your marketing imagination…USE IT!
Ed
Nathan, if you have a tab in FBML how do you transition this to an iframe?
@Kyle, not a sales pitch, but easiest way I would think, is to use a CMS tool for Facebook such as MiProApps, TabSitePro, SocialAppsHQ OR Lujure, the service Nathan has.
I believe you can take the FBML/HTML code you used to create a FBML tab, can be used in these CMS tools.
All have the facility to “drop and drag” a html/fbml widget, to past in your code.
Don’t quote me that all functionality will remain, but most of it will. I pasted code from an FBML tab into a widget in MiProApps and Lujure and it worked fine. But I’m not an FBML programmer, so I rely on the programmers I use to update the code for me since I don’t pay attention when Facebook depracates FBML code. I only know enough to be dangerous! LOL
Ed
We are working on and testing the ability of a “static fbml converter”. Currently our HTML app in the Lujure platform enables this.
@Nathan I dropped FBML (pretty basic, though) in the MiProApps and it worked. But you’re saying Static FBML has to be converted to an iFrame version of FBML? (Not a coder here, just need to know the basics.
How is it that some of the big names still have tabs on their pages?
http://facebook.com/acehardware
http://facebook/pepsi
http://facebook.cococola
Looks like another attempt to give the big guys an advantage that the rest of us do not have.
This pisses me off and I hope it does enough ppl to make them stop – afterall, the money FB is raking in now is because so many of us are on the site in the first place.
My 2 cents ( or was that a dollar’s worth??/)
Um, they may not have switched and updated their pages yet Gina…take a look again after March 10, when Facebook switches everyone.
And also, tabs themselves won’t disappear for ANY page with the new changes. Just the Top Tab navigation is gone, which now you can access on updated pages in the lefthand menu.
Just wanted to clarify a few things on the page updates…
My 2 cents worth as well.
Ed
We’ve now got a total of “sixth cents” in this comment thread. That HAS to be a good omen
They may have simply just not switched yet. Come March 1st, they should update.
Those who understand the benefits will move quickly to transition to the new design. Although I’ve been critical of some of Facebook’s prior moves, this one has one me over. I know there are lots of complaints going around but brands will benefit from the new features in the long haul. Being able to engage under a brand name is crucial for any strategy. Bigger brands may be taking their time to adopt simply because it takes longer to turn their rudders.
BIG LOVE for this Facebook Pages Change: Ability to comment, like and interact with other page AS YOUR PAGE!
I see Advanced Facebook Marketing strategies come out of this new function…just sayin!
Ed
We love them too! What do you see precipitating as new marketing strategies?!
Well, I’ve spent the last hour and a half liking pages as one of my pages, commenting & liking posts and interacting with users. Got a couple new fans from the activity and a sales lead already, so I think the ability to get notifications, interact on Facebook as a “PAGE” with other PAGES, is pretty significant.
It’s cool to comment on other pages in our geographic region and connect/interact that way. Helps brand the page ALL OVER Facebook, instead of my personal profile. It’s already leading to some great conversations (with other page Admins) and facilitating some offline conversations and connections too!
I guess this isn’t really advanced or new, just a take on previous strategies already employed on the Interweb… (who used that term, btw, anyway? Was it Ashton? LOL)
I have a few other strategies starting to blossom, but due to a NDA with my client I can’t share those…yet!
Perhaps after a few months and/or in a case study report.
24 hours into the new Facebook Page redesign and I’ve really yet to find something I don’t “Like.”
Ed
I also wonder what will become of the iPhone Facebook App? Using Facebook as an Admin while using the iPhone App is a little buggy today.
Seen any word on this Nathan?
I love the ability to interact on others’ fan pages as “me me” “laurieanhealing me” or “reach them online me”. This greatly increases the way that businesses can interact with each other. I can support and promote them by posting appreciative comments, but at the same time, this leaves a trail back to my page and increases my business visibility. If used correctly, I think this one is a “win-win”. I do wish, however, that we could post on group pages as our business name also.
Great feedback Laurie. I agree, id love to interact on group pages as our fan pages!
Do you know how to now access the pages that you manage? I used to go to account and then manage pages and the list would pop up and I would select which page to work on. Don’t know how to go to my individual pages now expect type them in. I want to see my whole list of pages together and then select from there like before. Any ideas?
Click account, use facebook as page, then just click the page link instead of clicking switch. Cheers!
Thank you, that works just fine! Isn’t there a spot though where you can see all your pages and the number of “likes” in one location? I stumbled upon it once now can’t find it.
Great article Nathan… You are a gifted writer! Thanks for keeping us in the Facebook Loop! Did you know that today is the 100th Anniversary of Naval Aviation?!? We’re out here celebrating in San Diego (The birthplace) Check it out at http://dld.bz/100years
[...] Top 8 New Features – Lujre’s Blog [...]
[...] Here is an article written by Lujure – Top 8 New Features of Facebook Fan Pages + 1 Big Shocker. [...]
This is real big shocker! FB social network marketers are being affected by it
If the profile image is changing to 180×540, can one assume the avatar/icon when you post is changing to 180×180 instead of 200×200?
That is correct Mary
I love the ability to interact as my Page. It’s a great way to spread my brand. I don’t like that it doesn’t include people. I’m getting multiple personality trying to switch and manage personal and biz. I’m not happy about FBML going away. I’m not a programmer. Don’t want to be really. But have earned money helping people design tabs and landing pages. Now what???
Melissa, you should check out our platform… Just drag and drop, no coding. You can even convert your static fbml to iframes via copy and paste. Just click the platform tab above to learn more.
I have been waiting for notification of comments. It was very hard to keep up when i had to go to my business page to see if someone commented on something.
Facebook has added this feature for us!
Nathan, what if I have pages in FBML that I am fine with just leaving. She strongly recommends switching them to iframes but we also know that they will be grandfathered in. Should I just leave them and see what happens?
Kyle, not so sure about the grandfathered thing. Where did you hear this? We’re encouraging folks to just convert them using this tool: http://www.youtube.com/officiallujure#p/u/2/UeKe7zxoq_w
It isnt tagged photos that show up, it is your most recently uploaded. This is how the photostrip is differing from the profile. By having tagged images show up in the photostrip for fan pages you prevent people from creating “ads” on your strip. It also prevents a lot of the customizing of pic collages as well, though if you are creative you can find ways to still make it work. I created a panorama on a clients page: http://www.facebook.com/holisticmanagement
But the photostrip is not based on tags. Only based on most recently uploaded and it has to be uploaded by an admin.
The best thing overall with the new changes has got to be the ability to interact, using you Fan Page, with other Fan Pages.