September 10, 2015
With Instagram Ads slowly rolling out to engagement-hungry marketers, and Twitter adding advanced coverage of all events as well as upping their game on Windows 10 and iPad Twitter apps – where does that leave the ever-dominant Facebook?
With the recent announcement of Facebook reaching just over 1 billion (mainly mobile) daily users, coupled with the findings that show their messenger app being the second most popular mobile app in the US, they have little to worry about. With the majority of their user base accessing the platform via mobile, it leaves the clear and ever developing opportunity to present brand pages to followers in a clean, clear and clutter-free manner.
As part of this tide of development, they are now rolling out updates to the design of brand pages. The changes seem to focus on simplifying the mobile view of the pages: clearing up the Tabs, CTA and cover image to give an overall tidier look that will affect page visitor engagement and mobile accessibility.
So let’s see what exactly has changed.
The first essential change has been to the top-line images: the cover photo and the profile image. The profile image is now significantly smaller and does not overlap out of the cover photo.
The next change is the CTA placement. The brand page call to action, formerly to the left of the Like and Share buttons, is now totally blue and sits by itself at the bottom right of the cover image. It is now the only button within the cover image area, meaning it is a lot clearer to see and has far more potential to draw more clicks. Marketers can make better use of the button and potentially change their CTA more frequently to suit campaign or seasonal objectives.
The remaining Page Like and Share buttons no longer sit within the cover image area but now sit underneath the cover image to the far right. This affirms the buttons as more standard and unchangeable. Giving them less significance in how users interact with pages and how Facebook channel page and follower interactions now implies that page and post engagement is being prioritised over page following, which makes absolute sense!
The final – and biggest – change has been to shift the tab buttons to the far left, giving them their own clear section. With big developments in advancing the capabilities of page Notes to provide more comprehensive placement for long-form and blog-style content – alongside the addition of Shop and Services tabs (no doubt ready for the Christmas build up and to enhance the e-commerce offering for small businesses) – this is a major step towards promoting the value and use of tabs for mobile users.
With these simple adjustments to cater for mobile page traffic and the recent customer service page messenger advancements, businesses offering products and services straight through their brand pages now have significant advantage in prioritising their Facebook presence over, say, their Twitter profile in the lead up to the ‘most wonderful time of the year’.
However, look out for how this shop base can be coupled with Instagram Ads. Being owned by Facebook and clearly leading on active engaged users, will, we can only presume, result in monstrously effective targeting and engagement opportunities when coupled with Facebook retargeting.
Get your Christmas #NoFilter postcards and shop window displays ready.