Facebook Business Page Rollout – version 2014

Facebook is once again updating their interface. This time it’s for their Business Listings. This updated Facebook Business Page Rollout will include many things that affect Independent Lodging Properties.

Here’s a short summary…

1. Sometime soon when you log in, you will be ‘invited’ to join the waitlist.
2. Later you will be ‘welcomed’ in with an Update Now button.
3. You will notice that custom tabs have moved into the ‘More’ drop down, effectively burying your custom links like Email signups, and ‘Book Now’ buttons.
4. The Admin panel will have a new look and some new features.
5. Pre-scheduling is now done under the Activity Tab.
6. Reviews cannot be removed as in the past.
7. Highlighting Posts will no longer stretch them across your page.
8. The first picture in photo albums is how the ‘featured image’ by default.
9. Photo sizing in albums has changed dramatically. Once sizes are determined you will find them here. More explanation & detail is found below in the excerpt.
   

   ‘Old Style’ Facebook Business Page for Posada Yum Kin Hotel, Tulum, Mexico – 2014

10. The Banner style has changed. It is smaller vertically and the name of your property will now lay on top of your banner image squeezing things even more and covering your image in specific areas.

You can read it directly from Facebook here.

Facebook says the key new features are:

• Updated Page timeline design
• Easier Access to key admin tools
• Ability to Watch Pages

Utlimately, Facebook users will be the judge. Users include you and your future guests. While Facebook is obviously stepping up it’s monitization efforts, it’s important that they do not continue to send hoteliers away or cause them to minimize their exposure on Facebook. There many reasons to potentially do this; one of them being the building presence of Google and their entrance into the OTA space. 

One of my favorite blogs is Heather Turner’s Chef Forfeng’s Weblog. Heather a chef and consultant to B&Bs, is a key advisor on issues relating to restaurants and B&Bs. Below is the link to her entire blog and below that are some excerpts, I’d like to share on the upcoming changes.

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)

Heather on Albums…

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.

Heather on the Banner..

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.
Essentially you’re 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.

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