Why The New Facebook Pages Are Good for Bloggers

Facebook made an update.

It seems like that happens every week (and I can see you rolling your eyes from here at the mention of a new facebook update) but I think this particular one is something that can be really positive for bloggers, especially those of you who blog anonymously.

New Page Layout
Pages now look like the updated profile:

Tabs 
Tabs are no longer located at the top of the page, instead they are on the left side.

The row of pictures at the top 
When the new profile came out, there was much hatred for the row of pictures. The biggest complaint seemed to be that anyone could tag you in any picture and it would show up at the top of your profile (although it is possible to remove pictures you don't want by clicking on the 'x'). Your page now has the row of pictures at the top.

The good news is, only pictures uploaded to the wall by a page administrator will show up, so you don't have to worry about random people tagging or uploading pictures that will be displayed at the top of your page.

A great idea (and one that I obviously haven't followed yet, as you can see by my screenshot) is to upload specific pictures to be displayed. There are lots of fun and creative ideas for using the row of pictures on your profile, but you should know that unlike your personal profile, the pictures at the top of pages change order each time the page is loaded....so, know that the pictures won't stay in the order you place them.


New Settings Options
Clicking on the Edit Page button on the upper right, will open up your settings and permissions area.

Email Notifications
You now have the option to receive email notifications when people post or comment on your page.

New Wall Filters 

You now have two choices for how posts on your page will be filtered, showing posts from your page or posts from everyone. 

When using the 'Everyone' filter, posts will not appear in chronological order. Instead, they will be in the order of popularity and importance as decided by the facebook algorithm. 

If you choose the 'Only Posts by Page' filter, it will maintain the chronological order of postings, but people will have to click "everyone" manually if they want to see postings from other people on your page.

I hope that in the future, facebook will give the option for a "most recent" filter, but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for it. 

Moderation Blocklist

If censorship is your thing, you can automatically block specific key words and terms. 

Also, you can choose for profanity to be automatically blocked. 

How You Post On Your Page
You can set the default for how you will post on your page - either as the page, or as your personal profile. It is especially nice to have this option for pages that have multiple administrators.

Option to Feature Administrator's Profile
You have the option to feature the profile of page administrators. It will show up on the left side, under the list of pages that your page has liked (more on that in a minute). I have done this with my page, because I have a facebook profile that is public, but if you choose to keep your profile private, it does not need to appear anywhere on your page.

This leads me to the biggest change to Facebook Pages, and the one that I think will really help bloggers, especially the anonymous ones.


New Option to Use Facebook as Your Page

On the right side of your page, you will see that you can 

"Use Facebook as _____(your page)". 

Your page will now be able to interact with other pages.

There has always been an option for your page to feature favorite pages. Prior to the update, featuring those other pages didn't really do anything for you, and if you wanted to comment on someone else's page, you had to do it through your profile.  The way it works now, you (as your page) visit other pages and like them,  and then your page will be able to comment and post on those pages.

When you use facebook as your page, it will have it's own home feed, which will consist of liked pages. You will also get comment reply notifications.

When you are finished using facebook as your page, you just click on account at the top right side and choose  to switch back to your personal profile.

I have been told by several anonymous bloggers that they would love to be able to connect and interact with blogs and bloggers via facebook, but don't dare to do it because it would "out" their real name and identity. This update means that an anonymous blogger can set up a page and use it to interact with other blogger's pages on facebook....without having any connection to their name or personal profile.

Definitely a step in the right direction for bloggers who want to get more involved in social media without compromising their privacy.

Do you have a facebook page? I do! 
What do you think of the new update?