Facebook Fan Page Changes…

Facebook has just announced that effective August 23, there are new sizing requirements for Fan Pages and they are removing the Boxes tab.

The new width for custom pages is 520 pixels wide.  Facebook is offering a preview now so you can see what your page will look like (simply go to your Fan Page while logged into the account that “owns” the page).

You have until August 23 to resize your pages.  The resizing of the pages will happen automatically during the week of August 23 and if you don’t make the changes in advance – your page will truncate.

Here are 2 screenshots of what my page is going to look like after it truncates:

{click to enlarge}

Not pretty!

Many people are not going to be happy about this change because it will mean extra work or incurring extra costs to have the pages redesigned.

According to Facebook the changes are a result of feedback from developers.

I can’t imagine people will ditch their custom tabs, so I imagine a lot of people are going to be scrambling to get their page redesigned.

It’ll be interesting to see the reaction.  Most Facebook changes are met with initial grumblings.

What are your plans?

Written By:
PG

| EcomBuffet.com | @EcomBuffet

Jennifer Horowitz is the Director of Marketing for www.EcomBuffet.com – a full service SEO, Web Design & Development and Social Media Firm. Since 1998 Jennifer’s expertise in marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has helped clients increase revenue. Jennifer has been published in many SEO and marketing publications. Jennifer Horowitz is the author of Twitter Quickstart Success Training System, Blogging For Dollars, Optimization Step By Step: 2010 and more. You can follow Jennifer on Twitter at @ecombuffet. For more information on SEO, Twitter training or killer Facebook Fan Pages, contact Jennifer at jennifer@ecombuffet.com.

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Comments

  1. Wow, that's not real encouraging, is it?

  2. Sean says:

    Bigger ads, more ads to come? More ad opportunities on Facebook = bad in my opinion. Anyone here successfully complete a FB Ads campaign on or ahead of ROI goal? That system is a mess as of this week, in my opinion…

  3. Brody says:

    This will definitely affect a lot of pages. If you have custom FBML, don't waste time re-building and re-writing your code. Save time and install some “520 Friendly” FB apps. The price is right too northsocial (dot) com. We're here to help!

  4. Julie says:

    How to update tabs/apps you've pulled in like YouTube, Twitter, etc?

  5. Helen Stepchuk says:

    That's really annoying … :(

  6. LordSwap says:

    I am not quite happy about this! I expected it to be something much different! :(

  7. Mat Benfield says:

    Hmm, not very useful at all, means lots of development work for me personally.

    i agree with Sean, it's likely to be bigger adverts so facebook can turn the 500 millions users base in to a profit making business.

  8. Dhirendra says:

    Not for user, totally aid oriented changes. Personally I am not going to welcome

  9. Alex Wideman says:

    Wow. Luckily I haven't started developing my custom page yet.. Phew. I was trying to think of why they would resize it, but it is completely obvious. Facebook pages are the most visited pages on the site and they can be quite targeted.. It's always about the $$. Stupid Facebook.

  10. davidfricks says:

    That's a BS reason from FB. They are cutting the width down to make the ads more prominent.

  11. guest says:

    my plan is to not give a shit.

  12. Habib says:
  13. Jenny Tour says:

    Thanks for the warning. Definitely a factor we will seriously consider…

  14. aaronrobb says:

    This means that we'll also lose some tabs to that dreaded 'more tabs' button I'm assuming. May as well just get down to a couple tabs total, because hidden ones don't get used as often.

  15. Seo servive says:

    yes i agree with above people that FB should avoid annoying things. they have to work for easiness of people not on ROI but is there any SEO services provided by FB . can any one tell me plz.

  16. Gotta love Facebook and their changes. Possibly page load time?

  17. wages says:

    Thanks for the warning.but i think its all for the aid and its not really good thing.

  18. Hippy Hop says:

    As a FB user and not a page owner, it doe s not matter to me. What matters is the the load time for FB. It sucks and is taking a long time very day. More and more people are getting into FB and they are not doing a thing about it. They are more concerned on how they can generate money out of it. They must remember, without the people, they are nowhere.

  19. The face book advertisement from my point of view is not up to the mark ,there are not that effective in my case as compared to adwords.I dont feel that this new changes to can be the good effect .:(