Over the past year, Facebook has been slowly rolling out its New Page experience. Soon to be available to all public pages, including businesses, the New Page experience promises additional features that will streamline the way you manage your business on Facebook.
You might have received notifications and emails encouraging you to update, but there are plenty of reasons why we recommend holding out a little longer before you do so.
What is the Facebook New Page experience?
The New Page experience includes:
- A new, cleaner layout for public pages
- Easy toggling between your personal and business page
- A separate newsfeed to interact with other public pages (businesses, public figures, and influencers)
- Changes to admin access tools
Why should I avoid updating to the Facebook New Page experience?
Despite Facebook moving forward with the rollout, the New Page experience is causing problems for businesses and creators on the platform. Before you update, here are the teething issues you should be aware of.
1. You’ll lose scheduling tools on the page
If you’re used to using your page’s Publishing Tools to schedule your business’ content, you’ll need to get used to Facebook’s other new rollout: Creator Studio.
With the New Page experience, you’ll lose the ability to schedule content through your page itself. Instead, you’ll have to head to Creator Studio or Meta Business Suite.
2. You’ll lose certain social proof features
The New Page experience has seen both “reviews” and “like” counts scrapped. Lots of businesses have worked hard to grow their page likes and get reviews from happy clients, but these will not be carried across when you update.
That’s not to say they won’t return in the future, but for now they are not available.
3. There are reports of engagement dropping
The New Page experience is designed to encourage businesses to interact with other businesses, hence its separate newsfeed. However, this has meant that many have reported a drop in engagement (likes, comments and shares) on organic content.
It’s likely that the algorithm will penalise businesses on the New Page experience who continue to use Facebook in the “classic” way (that is, not engaging with the business newsfeed). While attempting to foster a community approach, Facebook is in fact penalising businesses who don’t have the time or resources to dedicate to this new feature.
4. Certain advertising objectives aren’t available
Finally, here’s the big one: Facebook’s New Page experience is not yet ready to support certain advertising objectives.
This includes “lead generation”, which is a popular objective amongst our clients here at Yardstick. There’s no workaround or loophole; the update simply isn’t ready. You’ll need to revert back to a “Classic Page” in order to run certain campaign objectives.
Already switched to the New Page experience?
You may be able to switch back to a classic page with the following steps:
- Open your new page
- In the menu next to “Edit Page”, click the three dots and select “Switch to Classic Pages”
- Follow the flow, then select “Continue”
- Your page will be switched back to classic view.
However, for many, this option has recently been removed.
Need help? Got questions?
If you have questions about the New Page experience, please get in touch. We may also be able to help you revert back to the Classic Page should your options be removed.
Email hi@theyardstickagency.co.uk or call 0115 8965 300.
