So in the last couple of weeks I have had several clients contact me saying that they cannot see their business Facebook page. My own Facebook account has not been transitioned as Facebook is staggering this rollout.
Here is what has happened. When you log in to your personal Facebook account, you can see all the pages you manage simply by clicking on the drop down arrow on the right hand side. When you click on this button it used to say Your Pages and beneath this your pages were all listed. It now says Business Manager and the pages are now listed.
If your profile has been transitioned to the new Business Manager setup, here is what happens when you press on your page. Instead of simply being taken to your page that everyone sees, you are redirected to the Business Manager section which looks completely different. You cannot see your actual page but can see all of the backend functions such as Ad Accounts and so on.
To get to your actual page (you know, the shop front one that you are used to going to) you need to press on the page in Business Manager under the heading Favourite Pages. This will redirect you to your normal page and you can relax. It is all there just like the last time you visited it. If your page is not in Business Manager, you need to claim it. To do this you MUST be an admin on this page. All you need to do is click on Claim Assets and then enter the URL of the page you wish to claim. This is nice and simple and will ensure all your pages are in Business Manager.
So why the change?
Facebook has moved pages across to enable you to access more tools to help you manage your page. This may seem scary if you are not used to going in to the Insights section or creating Ads but it is really nicely laid out and contains a lot of useful information. Facebook has introduced these changes to add security to your business pages including Ads Manager and to enable you to separate out page managers so you do not need to be personally connected to someone to have them as an admin on your page. CLICK HERE to read a summary on Business Manager and its advantages as written by Facebook themselves.
Facebook Mobile App
The change of your business page may make it hard for you to access your page via the normal Facebook App. The way around this is to install the Pages Manager App on your phone. This offers more functionality for you as a Page Manager.
What about sharing content?
Many people are confused by this change and are struggling to share content from other pages now. This is quite simple but just a couple more steps in the process. Your business page no longer has a newsfeed so you must access the content you want to share via your personal newsfeed.
Once you have a post you would like to share, you simply hit the Share button. There are several drop down options including Share… you need to select this option. Once you choose this option, you can now select from a few drop down options including Share on a page you manage. When you select this option, it then shows all of the pages you are an admin on and you choose the page you want to share the post to. This is a couple of more steps but still quite simple.
Hold on tight!
Facebook is a business that is set up to enable businesses to spend money. You can be sure that these changes, whilst difficult, will make it easier to manage your business page moving forward. You need to ensure you are familiar with these changes by taking the Facebook tours and spending some time navigating the new Business Manager if you are not comfortable with it.