New Facebook Business Page changes Bed and Breakfasts should be aware of

https://www.facebook.com/Applesauceinnbnb (new Business Facebook page layout)

So as I continue my love-hate relationship with Facebook and it’s ongoing changes, I am endlessly fascinated as they givith and then they takith away. It’s sort of like watching a horrifying train wreck for me, I just can’t look away and feel impelled to poke around in it to see just what they changed this time.

For those of you that still are utilizing Facebook for business, you may want to get up to speed a little on a few of the changes, some are big, some little, but as usual infinitely annoying for those that have much better things to do with their time, like perhaps making breakfast for lovely guests.

When you log in to your Facebook page some time soon, you may get this option on your page.

I don’t have a specific time period for how long it takes after you select “Join Waitlist”, some pages seem to get the option to convert in a few days, others are still waiting.

I do know out of the 1166 small lodging facilities I track on Facebook, (https://www.facebook.com/lists/10202488504832479 if anyone wants to follow the list) only 17 of them have the new timeline as of now (4.8.2014).

When your page has the option to convert, you will see this (below) the first time you login. BEFORE you click update now for Fans, take a look and see if you have any tabs that are really important to you FIRST! (more on this in few screenshots down)

Your custom tabs are moving down below the fold to the left hand side. Apparently Timeline, About and Photos are going to stay the same, but if you have a custom tab in the top four tabs of your page, it will bring it into the toolbar, the rest (if you have them, will be under “More”)    This is important because apparently, once the page converts, you can not move the order around.

Updated: May 2014, it now does give the option of rearranging which tabs get switched with which with the exception of timeline and about. Photos can now be moved.

Other changes to be aware of. The Admin panel looks very different, I think it’s actually more user friendly now then it was before.

If you are using the prescheduler, the pre-posted posts are now under the Activity “Tab”

Other changes to be aware of:

1.  The reviews option seems to be a sore spot because you cannot remove the reviews and in most cases can’t reply to the reviewer. If you do get a review (or a troll) you do now have the option of taking the reviews/stars away. Previously you had to delete your whole address for it to disappear. Now you lose the map but can still keep your address listing. The change is located under “Settings” and then “Page Info”

2. With the new page layout, you can still highlight a post or photo but it will not go across the whole page width anymore, as the left sidebar is there. All it does is give a star at the top of the picture/post (at the moment) so not quite sure what the point of highlighting something is for.

3. When you upload a photo album it doesn’t let you pick a primary photo to highlight anymore (I hope they change this back) From testing, it’s the first photo in your album that shows up as a larger view. And the layouts are a tad different.

Vertical album photos

https://www.facebook.com/D53Toastmasters/posts/626093410797124?stream_ref=10

Horizontal album photos

https://www.facebook.com/KornerKottage/posts/10152144852791026?stream_ref=9

Albums sizes are 518 X 518 (pixels)

4. The other major change is photo sizing. If you post photos on your business wall, the new sizing is approximate 415W X 557H for vertical photos and 555W X 308H for horizontal photos. Sizes are approximate because I had to use a photo snipper, I could not find where the actual size is listed yet, (but this is close to what it will be).

Photos posted on your business wall are going to become somewhat smaller on the internal page viewer of someone’s feed. The sizing becomes 511H X 344W for vertical photos and 320W X 437H for horizontal photos*

I’ll correct the sizes when the official sizes are made public.

Because of the new photo size changes, where it previously was better to post horizontal photos, it now may be beneficial to try more verticals, as it’s taking up more visual timeline space or even albums in groups of 4 photos.  Albums 518 X 518 (pixels)  gives you more advertising eyes on space then single pictures now.

5. The biggest annoyance B&Bs will probably have is the new banner layout, Like, Follow, etc and the name of the business now overlays the banner itself, If you have a long description it brings the text up even further. The top two are the new layout, in comparison with the last which is the current/old layout.

Essentially your losing almost ½ of the banner in terms of visual usage and if you have text in there now currently, you will have to revisit what it looks like when it converts. It also appears that the square avatar image has moved over very slightly more to the left hand side.

I’ve bookmarked 22 pages so far that have the new timeline live as of now (4.8.2014) if anyone wants to check them out. https://www.facebook.com/lists/10203050584244113   You will have to click on the individual pages themselves to see the changes as you can’t see them from the feed.

If anyone else sees/comes across more changes they find, I would much appreciate a heads-up so I can update this.