Facebook for Business – a Love / Hate Relationship

We love Facebook, don’t we? Yes, we do… most of the time.

As Virtual Assistants and online business owners in general, many of us have come to love Facebook Pages as an effective Social Marketing channel to build brand awareness and community. With such features as Static FBML, we have devoted a lot of time to customizing our Pages and adding unique features that make them stand out from the rest.

For example, on our VAClassroom Facebook Page, we have added featured members photos, banners and navigation bars to the left-hand side. Now some sweeping changes due to take effect the week of August 23 will have a profound impact on our Page and many others.

Here’s a summary of the changes according to the Facebook Profile and Page Roadmap Update:

•    The “Boxes” tab, boxes on profiles and Pages, and application info sections will be removed.

•    Beginning the week of August 23, all profile and Page tabs will be resized automatically to a new width of 520 pixels.

According to a blog post by AllFacebook.com, “the removal of the boxes tab is a sweeping change that will see the disappearance of all profile boxes on the left-hand side of Facebook Pages.” A Facebook spokeswoman advised AllFacebook.com that the removal of those boxes will require page owners to move that information to the info page or a custom tab. Page owners also need to be aware of the fact that the new narrower tab width may affect the appearance of their Pages.

So how can page owners best prepare for these changes leading up to August 23?

A HubSpot blog post entitled “3 Ways Facebook’s Pending Page Changes Affect Marketers” has some good advice:

•    If you’ve created any custom tabs for your Facebook page, click on these tabs to make sure the look and feel of each page hasn’t been distorted. Because pages will now be narrower, it’s possible that images or banners you’ve added or formats you’ve used previously will now need to be resized or reformatted.

•    Be sure to take a look at the boxes on your page’s sidebar and in your Boxes Tab ahead of time so you can decide what you will need to create custom tabs for once the boxes disappear.

So, it seems that Facebook consistently makes changes that can present headaches. And yet, the upside is that is an amazing channel to connect with the right audience and has so many cool apps and tools that enhance the business pages.

For now, this newest change will create a lot of work for Virtual Assistants who serve as their clients’ Social Media Specialists. In the long run, will it have a positive impact on Facebook for business?

We’d love to hear your thoughts. How are Facebook’s changes affecting you and your business page? Please share your comments below.?