Facebook has been quietly rolling out several changes that impact small business owners. Some changes from Facebook have been announced on the Facebook Newsroom and others have not. Unlike most of Facebook’s updates, many of these alterations are welcome, and in some cases long-awaited. Still, it seems that Facebook is slowly and inconsistently rolling out these updates, as some of our team members can see the change while others cannot. Let’s review these changes and how they will affect small business owners when they are fully implemented.

Change 1: Admin Area Overhaul

Facebook recently made over their page admin area, with the removal of tabs that allowed page admins to easily jump through the back end. Now there are fewer sections along the top of the administration area.

• Page Info:

  This section will hold the details about your business page. The fields will vary depending upon your page type, but in this section you will find all the fields that relate to your business. Such fields include: page name, page category, topics, and company founded date.

• Settings:

  This section is the same on all the Facebook pages and contains the tools you will need to control the page functions. Allowing fans to tag photos and message the page, along with age restrictions and page moderations. On the bottom of this section you will also see the merge pages option in the event that you have two pages created for your business.

• Admin Roles:

  This section has not changed. It shows you all the administrators of the page and their roles. Remember, you have the ability to define the role of your administrators. These roles include: Manager, Content Creator, Moderator, Advertiser and Insight Analyst.

• More:

  • This tab shows you a drop-down when you click it with three more options: Audience suggestions, featured, mobile and, for some, pages deals.
  • Audience suggestion is where you will see recommendations from users who click on “suggest an edit,” which is found under your about section on the page. As an admin of a page, you will not see this feature so be sure to go to another page to see what this looks like.
  • The featured tab gives you the ability to publicly show a person who owns the page and to spotlight other pages your company likes.
  • The Mobile tab shows you how you can manage your page via mobile device.

Change 2: New Ad Policies

As of Monday, July 1st, Facebook has been using a new process to review ads to determine if they are suitable for pages and groups and vice versa. This was a change announced in the Facebook Newsroom on June 26th. More specifically, the social platform will be more scrupulous in determining whether Pages and Groups are too controversial for ads to appear on them. Last week they began removing ads from this expanded list of restricted areas. This is good news for businesses on Facebook, as their ads will not be placed next to controversial content, thus decreasing the chances that their products and services would be associated with this content.

Change 3: Removal of Cover Photo Text Limit

First Facebook banned the use of calls to action in cover photos. Then they lifted this rule, but restricted the amount of text to 20% of the overall cover photo. Now the social media site has eliminated this limit as well and the Cover Photo guidelines read as follows:

“All covers are public. This means that anyone who visits your Page will be able to see your cover. Covers can’t be deceptive, misleading, or infringe on anyone else’s copyright. You may not encourage people to upload your cover to their personal timelines.”

This opens up more possibilities for businesses to create engaging calls to action in their cover photos. Still, they must strike a balance, between getting their point across and overwhelming their audiences with too much text.

We know how frustrating it can be to keep up on these changes. If you’re feeling frustrated with your Facebook or other social media we can help. Book a free consultation to see how we can take your online marketing to another level.