Facebook came out today with a major update to Facebook pages that includes removing “likes”, an entirely new layout for the user interface, a dedicated news feed, simpler navigation, updated administrator controls for partial privileges or new insights, as well as security and integrity features.
Facebook announced the new Pages experience on a blog and said the reform is starting to be implemented today. Here are the main new features / changes:
- Redesigned layout this is more simple and intuitive
- Dedicated news feed to discover and participate in conversations, follow trends, interact with colleagues and engage with fans
- Easy navigation between personal profile and pages
- Updated task-based administration controls giving trusted page administrators full control or partial access
- Actionable insights and more relevant notifications
- Security and integrity features to detect spammy content and spoof accounts
The new UI was designed to make it easier to switch between personal profiles and public pages. Facebook says it is also “cleaner and simpler” than before. It focuses on biographies, posts and important information.
Here’s how Facebook describes the dedicated news feed for pages:
We are bringing the power of the News Feed to Pages for the first time. Pages can now discover and participate in conversations, follow trends, interact with colleagues and engage with fans. The dedicated News Feed will also suggest new connections – other public figures, pages, groups and trending content that a public page or figure is concerned about.
To make conversations on the page more visible to a wider audience and appear more often in your followers’ News Feed, comments from public figures will be placed at the top of the comments section. People will also be able to follow the pages directly from comments and recommendation posts.
Another focus is on “richer interactive conversations” so that restarting Pages includes a new text-based question and answer format.
No more likes
A major change with this update is the removal of likes for pages. Facebook changed to Followers:
We’re removing likes and focusing on followers to simplify the way people connect with their favorite pages. Unlike likes, the followers of a page represent the people who can receive updates from Pages, which helps to give public figures a stronger indication of their fan base.
Administrators are likely to be pleased to see improved management features:
We added new page management features – like the ability to more clearly assign and manage administrator access permissions based on specific tasks. For example, you can now grant multiple levels of access to manage specific tasks, including Insights, Ads, Content and Activity, and Community Messages. This will also ensure the security and integrity of the account.
Finally, Facebook says it is using the verified badge to help keep the community safe, as well as improving the detection of blocked content:
We want Facebook to be a safe place to connect with fans, so we have improved our ability to detect activities that are not allowed on our platform, including hate speech, violent, sexual or spammy content and impersonation. We continue to expand the visibility of a verified badge to make it easier to identify posts and comments from authentic pages and profiles. The comment on a verified page in a public post on another page may appear in a higher position in the comments section and be visible in the News Feed.
The new Pages is starting to be released today, but Facebook says it will appear to all users in the “next few months”.
You can find more details here about the transition.
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