A feature launched last year on Facebook in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, had got our team of geeks excited! From now on, business pages with a physical address will display a verified check mark on their profile – in a similar way to pages owned by celebrities, politicians, and public figures.
Do you have a local business page on Facebook? Well, now you’ll be able to incorporate a verified stamp of approval! The new badges – which will also be rolled out in other countries soon – have gray check marks instead of the usual blue that you’re used to seeing for other verified pages, and they will display in search results in the same way.
The brand new pages will make sure that people find the correct profiles for local businesses, and will show up higher in search results – a win-win if you own a local business! Although there will be multiple entries for the same business and duplicate pages, this is a sure-fire way to make it easier for people to find your company. The result? More customers, more leads, and more sales!
The feature can be accessed within the Page Admin settings in countries where it is already available. Small companies can verify their profiles straight away by using the publicly listed phone number of their business, or by uploading a document like a phone bill to confirm their identity. Facebook says that the process will only take a few days. The social media giant has even updated its help pages with details of this exciting new development and plans to offer badges for all Facebook business pages in the future. Our team of geeks think this is a brilliant idea, and one that will give a boost to the profiles of existing small businesses around the world.
Facebook is committed to helping small companies, and, as we all know, social media can be an effective way for businesses to increase their online visibility and attract the attention of consumers. Now, Facebook have made ‘call to action’ buttons like ‘Send Message’, ‘Call Now’ and ‘Contact Us’ more prominent on the profile page, and have even introduced new ‘Shop and Service’ sections where companies can display products and services. Here, merchants have the opportunity to sell directly to Facebook users with the ‘Buy’ button. Sounds pretty good, right? With more than 1 billion people visiting Facebook Pages every single month, the new changes are a great way to drum up business and improve your bottom line.
The new strategy has been noted by experts as a way for Facebook to placate business owners who were upset with changes that made it harder for users to find their company pages via the News Feed. Facebook recommended that companies improve their profile pages in order to feature on users’ feeds, but many businesses still found this difficult; with the plethora of content showing up on the News Feed on a daily basis, many marketing messages were being lost in the crowd. The new badges should make it easier for users to find your page, read your content and contact you if they have a query.