A short and quick answer to this query, if we have to choose between Yes or No, We would say "No" - if you are a brand or company. and "Yes" if you are an individual, professional, public figure, or celebrity. We ran an experiment on different pages for a week to check what the latest update has in it for users, and based on our observations we have briefly answered your query in the very first line. But as a Facebook user, you must read this article completely what were our findings on which we have made the above statement.
So, a new or updated version of social media platforms is always considered and actually brings a better experience for its users. Since it is based on a lot of research, it always has a better user experience. Also, Facebook claims the same with the user difficulties in mind; How? We will explain later in the article.
While using Facebook, its users might have observed the term "New Page Experience" if they are using Facebook pages for their brand promotions or running marketing campaigns to promote their brand or products.
WHAT IS FACEBOOK NEW PAGES EXPERIENCE?
When you create a new page on Facebook, Facebook creates and clearly says that your page has been generated using "New Pages Experience". You can also switch your already running business pages to New Page Experiences if you want. But, before switching to new pages experiences go through our experience, what we have concluded in our one-week exercise.
Our users and readers can put up a question why did you run your experiment for such a short period of time. Maybe you stay there for longer you might get better functionality, analytics, or insights for your business.
Yes, we have the answer to that query too & while we will be concluding this article you get your answer.
To run this short period experiment we took our two pages into consideration to check what we get and what we miss; one is our agency page i.e tracingflock & one we are running for a public figure.
Honestly and briefly we can say there is nothing to lose while switching to New Pages Experience instead you get an additional or extra or sometimes unnecessary profile ever required to run your business page.
Read again: It generates an unnecessary profile for your business page you need to switch to every time you want to add something to your page or post on your page provided you are using some third-party publishing tools like Hootsuite.
Now, what you get- An additional step - means a bad user experience.
Why do we say that?
Just think, what do you consider while making a purchase or what you consider a good customer journey - The minimum number of clicks in your purchase journey. The statement makes sense here as well.
Facebook is aware of this difficulty that a user may experience. Keep reading you will get to know the reasons behind our claim.
WHAT DO YOU GET?
This section has been taken from Facebook itself.
A new layout with less clutter Your website, location, and other business details will be easier for people to find on your Page.
More ways to be engaged News Feed lets you discover and engage with people, businesses, and groups that can help you grow on Facebook.
Simplified, actionable insights Learn more about your audience trends, including age and location, and quickly see your top-performing content.
WHAT WILL STAY THE SAME?
Content and information Your existing posts, Page information, and other details won't change.
Ads and campaigns You can still create ads and manage campaigns. Existing ads won't be affected by any changes that you make to your Page.
Permissions Existing admins will share ownership of this Page on Facebook. They'll automatically receive an invitation to manage this Page when you switch to the new experience.
WHAT WILL CHANGE?
Your updated Page will display your followers and a follow button in place of Page likes and a like button. Follows are meaningful because they represent people who receive updates from your Page in their News Feed.
Updates to Page roles Existing admins will have Facebook access with full control and existing editors can be given Facebook access with partial control. Any actions that you take on this Page, including when you check in to a location, may be visible to anyone else who manages it. Other roles can't manage the Page on Facebook, but will have task access to continue managing the same things using other tools from Facebook.
New content is only shown on the updated Page If you switch back to classic Pages, the content you shared through the new experience won't be visible on Facebook.
Some features are not available yet The new experience doesn't currently support some features available to Pages today.
THE OLDSKOOL LOOK
- Did you observe the term we used in the subtitle or description of our blog?
- Why do we pick this term for the previous version of Facebook pages?
Let's find out.
While performing our experiment to reach a better decision to whether switch to the latest version of Facebook pages or not, we asked ourselves one tricky question - which one is a better option; just like everybody is eager to know after a new launch or latest update that what to do now?
One week later just after switching to New Pages Experiences, we observed that "Old is Cool".
We concluded that the earlier version of Facebook Pages gives a better experience (further explained in the coming sections) and when we pronounced the above-said term to explain our findings we also observed that the word itself says "Oldskool". Hence we named our analysis with the term.
FACTORS TO CONSIDER WHILE MAKING A DECISION
In addition to the above-mentioned items in the "What you get" section, you get a dedicated profile page and plenty of menu items that you can switch on or off based upon your choices or what you want to show to your audience, or what you do not.
From Menu items we mean posts/ videos/ mentions/ followers/ events etc. Keep this factor in mind. It shall help you reach a better decision either to switch to the New Pages Experience or stick to the older one.
Further, you can not choose from some pre-checked menu items like About/ Mentions/ Reviews/ Followers/ Photos/ Videos/ Live/ Groups/ Following whether to show them or not. They will remain all-time active on your page.
There is another drawback of the New Pages Experience that you can not arrange menu items as per your choice as in the older version.
HOW TO RESTORE YOUR PAGES TO THE CLASSIC PAGES?
Earlier you had the option to do so, but now, you are left with no option to switch to the previous version of the page after your page or profile has been replaced by the latest version of Facebook pages.
FOR WHOM IT IS BEST SUITED?
What we have figured out is - you should experience this latest update from Facebook if you are a public figure, celebrity, or professional like an artist or blogger.
The main reason behind this statement based on the assumptions is quite simple -
As a brand what will be your priorities or content you would like to show to your customers?
Definitely, your products, if you are into cosmetics, health & wellness, clothing, or some other consumables items business.
Why would you like to share as a brand which movies you like? or what books do you read? or whatever that are considered as individual preferences.
Also, you can not arrange menu items as we told you earlier, which means you can not bring your shop in front of your visitors or users if you want to showcase your products. Or if your content is in the form of videos you can not bring that upfront too.
Remember? We told you earlier to bear something in mind. Yes, menu items.
This is the reason why we do not recommend "New Pages Experience" for brand pages or company pages as can not arrange menu items means you can not bring your most valued pages upfront to your customer especially if you are generating leads or sales or any sort of conversion through Facebook. Also, you can not add shop at present to your new business pages.
We were also asked why did we perform the experiment for such a short span? You would have got a better analysis if you had spent a longer period of time with the New Pages Experience. Our response is simple - It does not suit our needs.
CONCLUSION
No doubt, there is continuous development going on to provide a better user experience through New Facebook Pages Experience.
As already mentioned by Facebook that some of the functionalities won't work with New Pages Experience so you need to make a smart decision based on your own observations and experience that bloggers, agencies, and companies have shared after updating their classic pages to the new look.
Facebook is also considering all the feedback from the users and aware of the difficulties a user may experience while switching to a new version or the latest update; and this is an evidence-based statement. How?
When we were switching back to our classic look or the "Oldskool" look and we were asked the reason behind our decision. There were so many options to support our feedback.
The best reason we found in the list (and we were surprised too that Facebook is also aware of this issue) is that "Switching between profiles" is the reason for you to move back to the classic look? And the answer was Yes.
We gave an honest reply & feedback to Facebook. In the process of switching back to our classic look, we lost 7 posts that we publish during that week, but that small experiment brought a great piece of knowledge with it to make an informed and smart decision.