Los Angeles — Just a month ago, Facebook introduced a revamped version of Facebook Pages, effectively synchronizing the design of pages and profiles. Today, Facebook’s official Twitter account transmitted the following message: “The upgrade to Facebook Pages will be rolling out to all Pages today. Learn more at http://ow.ly/4bWhV.” This means that the opt-in phase has ended and Facebook has begun rolling out the new Facebook Pages layout to everyone.
Since its introduction, the social media giant Facebook has communicated more extensively about the plans for an initial opt-in phase, but now the trial period is over, and Facebook will begin a mandatory roll-out of the new design to all users.
It will be interesting to see whether the enhanced communication helps admins and whether the massive community accept the changes more readily — especially because this mandatory rollout phase may occur over a couple of weeks rather than all at once.
Nevertheless, Pages are like profiles for businesses, public figures, and brands. Facebook released a revamped profiles early this year, and a lot of new features that debuted with this change will be reflected in the new Pages format.
However, a gripping enhancement in today’s announcement of a site-wide rollout of the new page layout: you can view the status of your pages and preview changes during the next few weeks by going to http://facebook.com/pages/status.
Here is a refresher as to what Facebook is touting as the three biggest improvements with the new layout:
-
Better Communication: You can browse and communicated with other areas of the social media network as your Facebook Page, indicating that you can select to receive notifications about fan activity, Like and comment on other Pages as your Page, as well as get your own News Feed where you can engage with the current and most important news from other Pages you like.
-
More Opportunities for Expression: Facebook Pages will reap advantage from many of the same enhancements in the new Facebook Profile design. You will be able to feature photos of your Page’s most recent experiences at the top of your Page and highlight other Pages you are connected with as well as the people who are managing your Page.
-
Improved Relevancy: Facebook Pages should be more appealing since users will be able to filter by Top Posts, which shows the most interesting stories first, or by Most Recent, which show posts in chronological order.
Complaining about redesigns is all too common behavior on the site, but Facebook does heed the gripes and make changes that respond to demand. But whether or not that is an accurate assessment will be apparent in the weeks to come, as the redesign is rolled out.
Moreover, the changes will be unfurled in a typical staggered launch; the whole process will take a few weeks. If you want to preview the changes before everyone else, head over to facebook.com/pages/status and hit the Preview button.