Facebook has recently unveiled some new changes to its Page’s for small businesses in hopes of convincing more of them to sign up. Facebook has made changes to make Pages more mobile friendly, to give small businesses an easy mobile solution. This post will go through some of these changes.
Custom Page Formats
Facebook announced custom page formats—so retailers, restaurants or services, like a spa, can easily feature the information people are most likely to look for. They announced two new sections- Shop and Services. The shop section allows businesses to show their products, while the new Services section enables professional services businesses to showcase a list of their offerings at the top of their Page.
Updated Calls to Action
Small businesses can now offer “call-to-action” buttons on mobile pages that appear more prominently that previously, encouraging consumers to “Call Now,” “Send Message” and “Contact Us.”
Updated for Mobile
With over one billion people visiting Pages every month, people are already turning to Pages to learn more about businesses, and now Facebook is updating Pages to help businesses build mobile presence and communicate with customers more easily.
Messaging for Pages
Facebook has also made updates to help small businesses manage messages by allowing them to create and save responses to common messages such as “What are your hours?” Pages that respond to messages quickly will receive a badge that allows others to know that a Page is very responsive.
Pages can also reply to public comments privately in a message, helping them to solve customer requests more efficiently.
Ads will also have the option to send a message to the Page. When someone clicks on the “Send Message” button in an ad, the Facebook Messenger window opens for them to write and send messages to the business. Incoming messages to Pages include an attachment that shows which ad prompted the person to reach out, and once someone initiates a message with the business, the business can reply and follow up as necessary.
Advertisers can start using the “Send Message” call-to-action button by creating a new local awareness ad and selecting “Send Message” in the “Call to Action” field.
Reply to comments privately with a message
Previously, Page admins could only respond to customers in the same way that the person reached out to the Page, either through a comment or private message. In the coming weeks, Page admins will be able to reply to public comments with a private message, helping them solve private customer requests more efficiently
With this update, Facebook users can add a storefront to their Page.
And while all these tools are free, there’s a clear connection between helping businesses with more free tools and getting them to buy more ads. All of this is to improve the functionality of Facebook ads to provide more value for businesses who purchase them. If customers are directed to a page that is mobile optimized and shows exactly what the business does, the customer is more likely to convert.
