Web Business Woman

by Guest Blogger, Lena West, Chief of Social Media Strategy at xynoMedia

I originally posted this content on my Entrepreneur Magazine blog, Seriously Social, but I think Lipsticking readers need to see this, too. Rather than rewrite it, I just copied and pasted. Mea culpa.

As if we need one more change from Facebook, right? We can barely keep
up with our own lives much less Facebook making more changes.

I’m
sure, by now, you’ve heard about the design changes that are planned
for Facebook Fan Pages (yes, I STILL call them Fan Pages). And, if
you’ve been sunning on the beach or dealing with an allergic reaction
to expensive face creams, as I have, you can get the scoop, here.

Facebook
says they’re making the Fan Pages easier to navigate for developers,
etc. Whateva. The link above to their “Profile and Page Roadmap Update”
could have been a bit more focused on what the heck people should
expect, but hey this is Facebook, right? Why should anything be easy?

Here’s what you need to know:

When is all this going down?
Monday, August 23rd (ummm…yeah…that’s today…hop to it)

What are the three things you need to know to keep your sanity?

1. The Boxes tab is hitting the round file.
   If you don’t have a “Boxes” tab, skip this item and go directly to #2.
   Do not pass go, do not collect $200. (How to tell? Go to your Fan Page,
   cycle through all the tabs at the top. If one of them is called Boxes,
   you have a Boxes tab. If you don’t, you don’t.) If you DO have a Boxes
   tab, know that it will be going bye bye. (This means Boxes on your
   personal profiel, too, by the way!) Get all that content off there and
   creatively move it to another tab.
2. The page layout will be more narrow.
   You might have to have your graphics resized to fit correctly. If you
   are the administrator of your page (if you created the page, that’s
   YOU!), you can see how that looks in a preview now. If you have a
   designer, tell them to resize custom graphics to 520 pixels wide.
   Unless you are a graphic designer by trade, resist the temptation to
   just “do this yourself”. It will end up looking weird, grainy and
   unprofessional. You’ve put a lot of energy into your online image – pay
   someone for an hour to do the right thing for your business.
3. The Application tab will be going away, too.
   So, if you have one, move the information off that page and creatively
   put it someplace else. Copy and paste works fine for text data. You
   might not have an Application tab…that’s fine. If you don’t, don’t
   worry about it.

Just as an FYI…

If you’ve
recently (like the past 30 days) paid someone to design a custom
Facebook Fan Page for you, they “should” make the changes for you for
free. That’s what we’re doing for OUR clients. Designers might
disagree, but I’d rather eat an hour or two per client and build
goodwill than nickel and dime. That’s just how I roll.

If your designer will not make the changes, you can:

1. Hire another designer (but you’re still paying, so what’s the point in that?)
2. Try to strike a deal
3. Remember
   the next time you work with social media designers to include any
   changes in your contract if you can.  As you know, Facebook changes
   their mind with the weather.

If you still find yourself confused and bewildered or you just don’t want to deal with it, reach out to me on Twitter (be sure to use @lenawest in your Tweet so I’ll see it) and we’ll get someone from our team to help you quickly and for a reasonable rate.

These
changes are REALLY simple and straight forward and should not require
an Act of Congress to get your designer to change them. In most cases,
a competent designer can make the changes in an hour.

Hope this helps ya! And, hey, look at this as an opportunity to spruce up your Fan Page design!

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