7 things your practice needs to know about the new Facebook business page

August 11, 2016

Have you looked at your Facebook business page lately? If not, you should take a look. Facebook quietly rolled out a new business page design that will impact the layout of your page. It is essential practices keep up with the constant changes in social media, and this is the latest example of why people need to stay on top of their social media marketing efforts.

In our column last month, we discussed several updates related to Facebook, including the Newsfeed algorithm for getting seen, and a new search feature being tested. This month we are continuing with Facebook since they just rolled out a big new change.

Think of Facebook as one of the doors to your practice. When potential and current patients are visiting your page, it’s important for them to see the best possible reflection of your practice. Staying current on the updates, ensuring you’re implementing any necessary changes, and working with new tools to increase patient conversion can help boost your practice above the competition.

We have outlined the latest changes, and offered some suggestions on how best to use them to your advantage.

Continue to the next page to see the changes - and how your practice can benefit from them.

1. Logo

The practice logo used to sit on top of the cover image and it was always tricky to create cover images that integrated nicely with the logo placement. No more! Now your logo stands alone in the upper left of your business page. Likely you won’t need to make any changes to the logo section on your page since the image size has stayed the same.

2. Cover image

Now that the logo has its own area you have additional creative space on the cover image. This image helps tell the story of your practice. You might want to use an image of the front of your office, a full staff picture, highlight an award you’ve won, or use something similar that speaks to your brand. The cover image is the same size as before, but now that the logo has been moved you’ll want to redo this image to take advantage of the extra space.

3. Tabs

The tabs have moved from under the cover image to the left column. The good news is that you can now add even more tabs to your pages. You can create tabs for reviews, contests, events, etc. If you’ve created tabs in the past, you might want to take a few minutes to clean up the tabs that are listed. If there are tabs that are no longer relevant, delete them.

4. Page interactions

These buttons are now far more prominent to the page. Like, message, share, etc. are easier for your patients to see and interact with so you don’t need to take action in this section.

Continue to the next page for more changes...

5. Call-to-action button

This is one of the most important areas of your page. The call-to-action button has changed position and gotten bigger which makes it far more visible. That’s good news for lead conversion.

You’ll want to spend time making sure the correct call-to-action button is implemented for your page. You can choose between “book now,” “call now,” “shop now,” “watch video,” “request appointment,” “send email” and a few more. We suggest using “call now,” “request appointment” or “book now” for the best results.

6. Search posts

It’s now possible to search posts from a business page. Searching in this box only returns results from the business page the patient is on. You won’t need to take any action here but it’s good to know that your posts will have a “life” online and could be visible for a longer period of time now that people can search for and find them.

7. About section

The About section used to be a tab under the cover image but in the new layout it is in its own section on the right. This allows your information to have increased visibility on the page. As long as your about information is up to date you won’t need to take any action. If your information is outdated though, it’s a good time to clean it up.

These changes all lead to a cleaner, more organized business page with a much stronger focus on the call-to-action button and therefore increasing your new patient lead conversion.

As an aside, with the newsfeed algorithm changes Facebook has recently made, we strongly suggest you formulate a post that instructs your followers how to always make sure your posts show in their newsfeed.

By hovering over the “Like” button, your patients can select “See First.” By making this selection they well always see your updates in their newsfeed.

Stay tuned for future topics that will include social media trends, SEO (search engine optimization) strategies, PPC (pay-per-click) best practices, online reputation management and more.