By bbr

by Sarah Warlick, writer and copy editor

Facebook is at it again. No, it’s not a revised privacy policy this time, thankfully. It’s a pretty significant redesign for business Pages. On March 10^th, Facebook announced that they would soon begin switching Pages over to a single-column format like the one used for personal profiles. Does this matter to the businesses that use Pages to communicate with clients and others? Yes, it actually might.

The stated purpose of the updated look is to make it less visually confusing. That’s a legitimate driver of change this time around, because the current layout leaves viewers as well as Page administrators a bit disoriented. It’s awfully easy to miss posts or useful information, or be unable to sort out a meaningful timeline of posts with multiple columns.

When the switch is complete, business Pages will be consistent with the look of individual profiles. Posts will be in a single column on the right. On the left side of the Page, users will see basic information about the company – things like hours, phone number, website address and a map of the physical address. Having this info all together in a logical spot makes the Page much more useful for visitors seeking to use a company’s Facebook Page as a reference tool.

On the admin side, Facebook is making changes and additions for ease of access to control features:

“No matter where you are on your Page, you can now view information about the ads you’re running and new likes on your Page, as well unread notifications and messages. You can click on any section in the This Week section for more detail.

We’ve also added new navigation options to the top of the Page, making it easier to access your activity, insights and settings. The Build Audience menu at the top of the Page offers direct access to your Ads Manager account.”

There’s even something called Pages to Watch. This feature gives administrators the ability to track the performance of other Pages (competitors or firms you’re interested in, perhaps), seeing posts and learning stats about them for comparison and inspiration.

Overall, the redesigned Pages seem like a great improvement, both for users and administrators. What do you think? Will this change enhance the user experience and add to the utility of the Page or would you never even notice the difference?