Any business that uses a Facebook Business Page to build their value in the marketplace, attract new followers/customers, and communicate with their existing followers/customers, knows that Meta is continually updating the Business Pages Experience and looking for ways to improve it both for your followers and for you. Sometimes these changes are well received and sometimes, not so much. Either way, in order to take advantage it’s essential for creators and page administrators to be aware of what Meta is doing.
That being said, here’s an overview of the updates to the Facebook Business Pages and Instagram experience that Meta has made throughout the months of June and July 2022. Highlights include the launch of Small Business Studios, more extensive transparency tools, a new Creator Marketplace, expansion of lead generation and customer acquisition tools, a rebrand of the Facebook Marketing Experts, and lots of Reels updates.
Switching into your new Page
Have you noticed that your business page acts differently lately? As Facebook continues to migrate users from the Classic Pages experience to the new Pages experience they are changing how you switch from your personal page into your business page. Now, business pages are structured more similar to personal accounts, and you have to “switch into” your business page instead of visiting the page under your personal account. Meta has already started this rollout, so if you still have the Classic Pages set up, continue switching into your Business Page as you always have. Eventually, all Classic Pages will be converted to the new Pages experience.
Here’s how it works:
To switch into your new Page from a Desktop:
- Open your home page.
- Click on your profile picture in the top right.
- Select Switch Profile.
- Select the new Page you want to open.
To switch into your new Page from Mobile:
- Open your Facebook app.
- Tap on your profile picture in the bottom right.
- Under your name, tap on the new Page you want to open.
- This will switch into and open your new Page.
The transition to the New Pages Experience will cause some changes that may affect how you manage your Facebook Page. These changes include:
- A redesigned layout that’s simpler and more intuitive
- Easy navigation between personal profile and pages
- Dedicated News Feed to discover and join conversations, follow trends, interact with peers and engage with followers
- You can follow others from your Page’s News Feed to share, like, and comment on their updates as your Page
- Updated task-based admin controls giving trusted page admins full control or partial access
- Actionable insights and more relevant notifications
- Safety and integrity feature to detect spam content and impersonator accounts
Major changes to pay attention to:
- With Classic Business Pages when you clicked on “Share” you used to get a long list of sharing options. With the New Page Experience your sharing options have been reduced to two choices:
- “Share Now” which sends the post directly to your personal Facebook Page Feed
- “Share to Feed” which reshares the post to your Business Page but allows you to add additional content
- The “short bio” or page description now has a 101 character limit versus the classic page 255 limit. If your page was recently converted, check that your previous bio is not cut off and adjust accordingly.
- When adding managers to your Facebook Page, you can now grant full or partial access. This replaces the old “Page Roles” settings, where you could grant roles such as “Page Administrator” and “Page Editor.” Unlike full control, partial access (or task access) gives restricted managing abilities, such as viewing insights, managing all content and ads, and responding to direct messages and comments. Here are the instructions on how to grant someone partial access.
There are some aspects of managing your Facebook Page that will remain the same. These include:
- All Page content, including posts, photos, videos, stories, and groups, will automatically move to your new Page
- An Instagram account can still be linked to your Page
- All of your Page followers will be transitioned to your New Page and the follower count will still be displayed
- The blue verification mark will automatically be transferred to your New Page
- Business Manager, Ads Manager, Creator Studio, and Pages Manager App are still available
Meta Launches Small Business Studios
Meta has announced the launch of Small Business Studios, a resource center for businesses and marketers looking to grow on the platform. To support the launch Meta has created a library of video courses for creators. The online courses are packed with information to bring you up to speed.
The Small Business Studios launch also includes a tour of five cities in the US focusing on education for small business owners and peer networking. Attendees will receive one-on-one, 30-minute Meta marketing support from experts for everything from troubleshooting technical issues to building brand strategies.
The tour has already started in Detroit (July 20-21) and Columbus (Aug. 3-4), and will be coming to Kansas City, MO (Sept. 21-22), Austin (Sept. 28-29), and San Diego (Oct. 12-13). Meta will probably add more stops to the tour so keep your eyes posted for a seminar in your area.
More Transparency for Social, Political, and Electoral Ads
In recent years Facebook has encountered quite a bit of controversy ad transparency surrounding social, political, and electoral issues on social media platforms. With the rising spread of disinformation, people started questioning the ethics of ads from these categories. In response, Meta rolled out new transparency tools for social, political, and electoral ads in July 2022.
Meta seems to now understand that more information about advertisers’ targeting choices is critical to understanding the impact of digital advertising on elections and social discourse. Meta has now updated their ad transparency tools to provide more information about advertiser targeting choices for social issues, and electoral and political ads.
Starting in July 2022, the Ad Meta Library now includes summaries of targeting information for these ad categories. The data will be made available to vetted academic researchers to study social media’s impact on society.
The disclosed targeting details includes demographic information (including age, gender, and interests), how much of their budget individual advertisers dedicate to each target demographic, and whether an advertiser is using custom and/or lookalike audiences.
New Creator Marketplace
Meta has been talking about their Creator Marketplace for quite some time and it’s being rolled out for testing for a small group of invite-only brands in the US. This tool within Meta’s Business Suite should make it simple for brands to find the exact type of creators and influencers they’re looking to partner with.
Creator profiles will include short descriptions, recent posts, and statistics like follower count, engagement, and average reach. Their profiles can be filtered by gender, age, location, and interest. The same filters can be applied to creators’ audiences.
The Marketplace’s dashboard also includes communication and collaboration features. Brands can message creators, outline campaigns, and request deliverables from one place.
Expansion of Lead Generation and Customer Acquisition Tools
Meta’s inaugurating new tools to further support brands in their customer acquisition efforts. These new tools will help improve lead generation management, making it easier for brands to generate leads, nurture them, and convert them into customers.
These tools incorporate:
- A “quote request” option for Instagram – Businesses will be able to add a “Get Quote” button to their profile and use “Get Quote” stickers in Stories. The customizable lead form will ask customers detailed questions to improve the accuracy of quotes.
- Partner Integrations – Lead information from Meta can now be downloaded directly to a CRM of your choice, enabling your sales team to reach out to leads fast.
- Creative flexibility with Instant Forms – Instant Forms will be easier to create and personalize, with new visuals and content options. Adding visual information about products is predicted to increase conversion rates. It may also be used to help build brand or product awareness.
- Filtering leads with Instant Forms – Soon, Pages will be able to use the answers to multiple-choice questions in Instant Forms to determine which leads may or may not be a good fit.
- Gated Content – Businesses can create gated content that will be downloadable or accessed directly from the Lead Ad Form.
Rebranding Facebook Marketing Experts as Meta Pro Team
The Facebook Marketing Experts program designed to offer high-quality support to businesses using the platform has been around for a while. Now, Facebook is expanding the program and rebranding it as the Meta Pro Team.
The rebrand includes expanded access to free live support to provide one-on-one guidance for business users; specialized expert help in topics like ad optimization, technical troubleshooting for ad and account issues, campaign strategies, unlocking billing; technical support for the pixel, Conversions API, and more.
Reels Updates
With the success of TikTok Meta has unsurprisingly been putting a substantial focus on Reels on both Facebook and Instagram over the past few months. And, in July, Meta has rolled out even more Reels updates.
These updates include:
- Videos on Instagram are automatically shared as Reels – Standard video posts will now be full-screen experiences. All new video posts under 15 minutes long will automatically be shared as Reels. As part of this change, the Videos and Reels profile tabs are going to be merged.
- Users will now be able to create Reels from existing videos when using Creator Studio. This update allows users to repurpose existing content as short-form videos. You can share clips from your videos as Reels or Stories.
- Boosting Reels – Reels are becoming a core focus for brands and casual users alike, and now you can easily boost them within Instagram’s app. Boosted Reels will show up in user feeds, Stories, and Reels tabs.
- To boost a Reel, find the Reel you want to boost in your profile grid, and then tap Boost Post. You’ll be able to enter in a few promotion settings and define your budget for the campaign. There are some eligibility rules to follow when boosting a Reel.
So that’s our summer recap of Meta’s updates to the Facebook Business Pages and Instagram experience. We’ll be back with more updates in the fall.
Of course, Obsessed With Success is always here if you need help maximizing your Facebook follower’s experience on your page.
