Today you would have opened up your Facebook fanpage and been invited to update to the new design… make sure you read this and preview your new design facebook fan page BEFORE you decide to upgrade!
Facebook has invited everyone who has a fan page to upgrade and when March rolls around it will be automated. If you are like me and don’t mind the new Facebook Profile appearance then you are going to love the new Facebook Fan Page Design – however before you go and change it there are a few things that have happened in the launch that were over looked and are being fixed…
The biggest issue has been the fbml tab width. This is the width of your special custom made pages that many fan pages have their new visitors land on before they become a fan. If you have one or many (especially with lots of images etc) then I advice you to preview what it will look like first or WAIT until they fix the width to be back to what it was. No need to ring your web developer or media marketer to get it fixed – this is something that Facebook didn’t plan to change and the will fix it.
However, the other significant change is the width of your profile picture size and it will be permanent so you have until the end of February to get it fixed if it doesn’t look great. The new profile picture size has gone from 200×600 to 180×540.
The rest of the changes are the ones that won’t effect the appearance too much – no more than how your Profile looks now, but here is a list to help you orientate yourself around those changes:
To edit your Fan Page it is in the top right hand corner like your Profile.
The ability to switch from posting as yourself to an admin of your Fan Page can be found under the Account settings, displayed as ‘Use Facebook As Page’. A pop up window will appear for you to choose which Fan Page you want to post as if you have more than one Fan Page. Facebook has put a default user setting on the right also that assumes the role of the admin of the Fan Page and can be clicked if you want to change to your Profile role to post.
The most recent photos that an admin posts to the Wall of a Fan Page or the photos you’re Fan Page is tagged in will display here. No photos that fans post to your Fan Page wall will display here.
You can receive by email any ‘like’, ‘comment’ or ‘post’ notification for your Page now or have the notifications pop up on the top as your Profile notifications already do. This will depend on your current ‘Notifications Settings’
Pages have always had two wall filters and they have been renamed as -“Posts by Page” and “Everyone.” Two additional filters have been added for admin only users -‘Most Recent’ and ‘Hidden Posts.’
The tabs at the top of your Fan Page can now be found underneath your Fan Page profile picture. The Information box that used to be there can be now under the Information tab.
The list of friends that like your Fan Page can be now found on the right side of the wall and this allows for more room to list your favorite Fan Pages.
So either love it or hate it – Fan Pages will change and we will also say goodbye at the same time to the very popular Facebook fbml application to say hello to a new and more adaptable iframes application for creating Custom Fan Pages. But don’t worry – Facebook have assured everyone that when the changes occur on the 11th march all existing fbml built pages will still be supported.
