New Facebook Page Experience Rolls Out With Bugs – Social Factor Alert

Facebook announced their New Pages  Experience in 2021, with the promise to roll this out to all Pages “in the coming months.” The transition had a rocky start, with Users and Page Admins receiving prompts to switch to the new layout, but with only some able to switch back to the classic layout – and no way to know if your page would be able to roll back or not. As of January 31, 2023, multiple Page Admins reported receiving emails from Facebook indicating that “switching back to the classic Pages will no longer be available,” indicating the New Page Experience was fully deployed and now permanent.

Facebook has rolled out 12 major Page versions to date (here’s a great recap of all of them), and while any change can have issues, this one seems to come with more bugs than usual. Facebook calls this version a Page “Experience” specifically because it introduced significant platform changes along with the redesign, including: changes to Roles (Moderator and Editor removed), requiring Admins to access Pages through Business Manager instead of using their personal account, and changes to various ad formats. 

Key Insights for Brands

• Any users that had Moderator or Editor access to your page now have full Admin rights. This does mean those accounts could remove other users’ Admin access. Many brands were made aware of this early in the transition, but ALL Admins for ALL brand Pages should be carefully audited through Business Manager following this transition.
• Some Admins are reporting that the process for merging New Experience Pages together appears to be broken, and has yet to be repaired by Facebook. If possible, delay channel consolidation on this platform. 
• Many apps will need to be reconnected to Pages if not done so already (such as this example from Zoho). If the app accessed your page through a personal account, that access has been revoked, and needs to be rebuilt through Business Manager.