Facebook made a recent update that likely affected your company’s page

We put together action steps for you

It’s no secret that Facebook likes to keep its platform fresh and interesting for its users. The latest update will affect the 60 million active business pages Facebook currently has.

As of August 1, 2019, Facebook deleted five fields from its company pages: Company Overview, Biography, Mission, Affiliation, and Personal Interests. Before removing these fields, Facebook alerted its business page users about the upcoming update and warned them about the last date they’d see these fields.

Facebook recommends moving information from the deleted fields (which users likely spent a lot of time and effort curating) to the Our Story or the Description sections. This update truly makes more sense as it urges users to make better use of those sections, which many struggle to complete.

Facebook’s changes are also part of its efforts to collect only necessary data. Do buyers really need to know a company’s affiliation and personal interests before buying from them? No. Facebook determined that these fields were unsafe and unnecessary in the buyer's journey, based on the implementation of Facebook’s Business General Data Protection (GDPR).

Whether we like the change or not, we must embrace it and grow with it. If you’re a marketing professional or admin for your company’s Facebook page, it’s time to make the necessary changes to properly showcase your company’s information. Don’t worry if you haven’t integrated your old information into the updated fields yet. Facebook hasn’t electronically shredded anything – your company’s information is still visible for page admins to see and extract for other uses. We reached out to Facebook to see when the old fields would disappear completely, and the company hasn’t responded. We’ll update you when we hear back.

Does your company struggle with perfecting a communication strategy on or off social media? Axia Public Relations has put together a day-long interactive workshop that’ll help you define S.M.A.R.T goals for 2020 and lay out a clear communication strategy for the upcoming year. Interested in registering for this event?

Hannah Feran is Axia’s shared media strategist. Clients appreciate Hannah’s attention to detail and passion to exceed their expectations. She works closely with clients to ensure their social media efforts are getting the attention they deserve from a carefully chosen audience. Hannah joined the Axia team in August 2018.