Facebook’s Business pages are a place where you can develop a relationship between your brand and the world. If you are one of Facebook’s 80 million Business page users, check out the major changes Facebook just announced/implemented this month.
Recommendations
Reviews and star ratings on Facebook are now called “Recommendations”. Instead of a user rating a business 1-5 stars, this has been replaced with the question: “Do you recommend [Business Name]?” with a Yes or No response option. Recommenders can add a written review, photos and tag specific things they recommend about the business (see the screenshot below). Facebook’s algorithm will then calculate the recommendation into a star rating and add it to the business’s existing rating.
Businesses have the option to turn off this feature, which is not recommended. By turning off “Recommendations” on Facebook, all of your current reviews will be hidden, and could hurt your rankings.
Call-to-Action Button
Facebook’s Call-to-action (CTA) buttons allow a business to display buttons on their page to entice users to take some type of action. Call-to-action buttons can help your customers:
- Contact you through Messenger, email, phone or website
- Shop
- Start food orders
- Book a service
Businesses now have the option to connect services such as MyTime, HomeAdvisor or delivery.com to their Facebook Page.
Stories
Last year Facebook introduced stories to its platform, following in the likes of Snapchat. If you aren’t familiar with how Stories work, this feature allows a user to post a video or photo to their “story” that will stay live for up to 24 hours. Users can view your story from anywhere by simply tapping your profile photo. This feature is now available to Facebook Business Pages.
If your brand has a video strategy or would like to introduce video to your marketing plan, now is a great time to take advantage of this feature. Video is a great way to build engagement with your customers.
Customized Business Information
This update will now showcase information such as business hours, recommendations, price range, or a restaurant menu in a style that is almost identical to Google My Business. Even your recent posts and events will display in a left to right carousel, like Google Posts.
Events
Facebook has added ticketing integration to its events. Businesses can now connect their ticketing platform to Facebook, making a seamless ticketing process for users. In addition, Businesses now have the ability to turn events into ads. More 650 million Facebook users browse local events on the platform to find something to do. Turning your events on Facebook into ads gives you the opportunity to increase your event visibility.
Jobs
In February, Facebook rolled out job posts to more than 40 countries. This allows businesses to post job openings to a Jobs tab on their Page, Jobs dashboard, Facebook Marketplace, and the News Feed that they can promote with ads. Similar to LinkedIn, job seekers can discover openings, auto-fill applications with their profile information, and submit their application in the platform. In the next few months, Facebook will be expanding the reach of Facebook Jobs to be available for all businesses and users worldwide.
As you can see, Facebook has some big updates coming this August that present many opportunities for your business. If you have any questions about these Facebook updates or how to leverage them in your digital marketing, please reach out to the Social Media Marketing Experts at MoreVisibility.