Wendy Schollum: Facebook revisions offer benefits

Since Facebook updated user's profile page layouts in December last year, it has been inevitable that eventually the functionality of the Facebook pages setup for businesses, brands, media and public figures would also change. With the declaration that all pages will be changed on March 10, I've outlined some of the key alterations that you need to be aware of.
My favourite of the page changes is the improved editablity of pages and the new notification and commenting options. With the current Facebook page controls, page administrators were largely limited in their ability to edit key page information, once a page was setup. For example, if your pinky slipped while you were typing your Facebook page name or description and you created a page (before you noticed the typo), you had to either delete the page and start again or just put up with the spelling mistake.
The new edit page settings on upgraded pages allows you to not only edit the Facebook page name, you can also change the category it applies to and update all other relevant page information great news for those whose company offerings have changed since their page was first setup.
Those of you who are current Facebook page administrators will join with me in a gleeful hoot when you hear that the new page functionality also includes email notifications when a user interacts with your page. No longer must we trawl through our pages hoping that we don't miss something a user has posted (risking subbing your target market) the notifications now come direct to your inbox.
The differentiation between Facebook personal accounts and pages is another great upgrade. The new page functionality now allows page administrators to post comments to the page as themselves (rather than their posts always appearing to be made by the page) and also allows page administrators to make comments on other pages as their business page (as opposed to those comments appearing to be made by the administrators personal account). This small modification now makes it possible for page administrators to leverage the following of other, more popular business pages, by posting helpful information to these pages hopefully drawing traffic to their page. Outside of these administration changes, there has also been a wide array of layout alterations.
The tabs that have traditionally appeared at the top and centre of pages have now been re-purposed as navigation buttons on the left hand side of the page and replaced with a photo ribbon, showing up to five images for the page galleries. I'm not a big fan of this change as page administrators can't control what images appear in the photo ribbon (they are five randomly selected images that change each time the page refreshes) which takes away the first visual impression control on the page, and the new left hand navigation seems lost on the page, making it hard to direct users to custom tabs/content.
Another visual change is the reduction of the size of the main page image. These images are reduced 10 per cent, meaning that businesses have less room for page branding and will need to make even more careful use of what space there is, by getting their main page images professional designed.
A key functionality change made to pages is that wall posts will no longer appear in chronological order. Instead the page will now list them in order of relevance, which means that if the page decides that a post from two months ago is more relevant than a post made today, then your page may give users the impression that your page hasn't been updated in quite some time.
While the changes will provide some obvious benefits, we are sure to see further refinement as administrators make complaints to Facebook and call for alterations.
Wendy Schollum is a web strategist and managing director of Xplore.net Solutions Ltd (www.xplore.net). If you would like more information on Facebook's business page changes, join Wendy on Facebook (www.facebook.com/xploreNET), follow the Xplore.net team on Twitter (www.twitter.com/xploreNET) or call 0800 100 900.