Facebook are testing a revamped Admin Panel for Pages which has a new streamlined look as well as some new features.
Rather than having the menu for the various settings and options on the left-hand side this is now on the top of the Page as you can see in the screenshot below.
More significantly, there are two fields under Page Info; Topics and Subcategories which appear to replace to previous Categories and Subcategories dropdowns and Topics field. They are there to provide more information to users about your Page and to help it show up in Search results.
There’s no contextual help for Topics but on clicking the question mark icon Facebook informs me that Subcategories are there to “…help people find your Page more easily. These will appear above the About section on your Page and in search results.”
Topics allow you to add key words related to your business and somewhat oddly are obtained from existing Pages. Selecting an Interests Page is the best option here. As you can see from the screenshot above I’ve added the ‘Social media Interests Page’. The options for Subcategories are confusingly obtained from Topics Pages! These are options are being tested so the final rollout will no doubt make more sense. Another change is that Subcategories are now displayed on the front of the Page above About (Short description).
Under Settings there’s a handy new option to merge similar Pages which can be used to merge a Place Page with a ‘Like Page’.
To keep up to date with the latest changes in Social Media and to learn how your business can benefit book yourself into my quarterly Social Media Forum in Cheltenham. Next one is coming soon on Thursday 18 July 2013 and costs just £50.