Facebook Is Testing Tweaks In The Design For Brand Pages

Less a redesign and more a rearrangement, Facebook is adjusting the look of brand Pages.

The changes are subtle, so you might have missed them, or perhaps they haven’t reached you yet (It appears the changes are being made visible on the user level). They were reported first last week by digital marketing expert Mari Smith. Here’s a before/after screen grab from Smith’s Facebook Page:

Here’s the rundown of changes from Smith:

• Profile picture now much smaller and sits fully on the cover image (doesn’t overlay below).
• Tabs now align left, under profile picture.
• Page title and category appear to be in a smaller, less bold font.
• CTA button now blue and much larger — and the only button on the cover image.
• All other buttons (Like, Follow, Message and Share) are now under the cover image, not on the image.

Smith noted that during Facebook’s summer Boost Your Business tour, the company said “a big overhaul is coming to Facebook Pages in September,” so this could be the leading edge of that. It’s been more than a year since Facebook last made major changes to the design of Pages. We’ve emailed Facebook about the changes and will update this post if it responds.

[Update: An hour after we published this post, Facebook announced that it is updating Pages to make them mobile-friendly and adding new features, including the ability to create tabbed shopping and service sections. Facebook announced that 45 million businesses now have Facebook Pages. You can read our coverage here: Facebook To Small Businesses: Use Pages As Your Primary Mobile Solution]

The current design adjustment on desktop shouldn’t require much action from Page owners, unless they have incorporated their profile photo into the design of the cover photo, the way Coca-Cola had done. The straw that spells out happiness no longer dips into the Coke bottle in the brand’s profile photo:

As we mentioned above, not all users are seeing the design changes, and that likely means Facebook is still testing what the final look will be. Some of the adjustments are showing up differently for different people; notably, the Call to Action button that appears on the cover photo in Smith’s example is displaying at the top of the left-hand column for me and others:

On the iPhone app, the CTA is rendered very prominently. Here’s an example uploaded to Smith’s Facebook post:

Another wrinkle that some are noticing: the ability to view a Page as a visitor. Some have been seeing this feature for several months:

About The Author

Martin Beck

Martin Beck was Third Door Media's Social Media Reporter from March 2014 through December 2015.