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Today Facebook has revealed a new layout for business pages on its mobile application that will help users find businesses while they’re on the go.

In the new version, a map of the nearest store location, company contact information, customer reviews, check-in data, and the company’s business hours are near the top of the screen, ahead of status updates and comments.

The view changes slightly depending on whether the viewer is looking at the company’s main page, an individual branch, or the administrator’s page. Page administrators will be able to switch between “admin” and “public” views.

Our sibling blog InsideFacebook notes that “The layout, with a top row of buttons and a prominent map and recommendations module, is similar to the design Facebook had been using for its local search product Nearby.”

The changes will appear on mobile browsers and the Facebook iOS app starting today. An Android version is coming soon, according to Facebook.

“As a Page owner, there’s no need to do anything to prepare your Page in advance of these updates, but it’s important to make sure the information currently listed on your Page is complete and up-to-date,” the company said.

Page administrators will also be able to “pin” important posts, such as special offers or videos, higher in the feed.

In the announcement, Facebook did not say precisely how many people are accessing Facebook Pages on the social network, but the post noted that almost half of the “millions” that do are using their mobile phones.

Images via Facebook.

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Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

Late on Friday, Jade from Google announced in the Google Places Help forums that you can now merge your Google+ Business page with your Google+ Local page to have the Google+ Local information with all the social features of Google+ on the same page.

You can combine the best of Google+ Local with Google+ Business Pages on the same page. Jade shares one local shop that did this already named the The Meatball Shop where you can see the Google+ posts and local data all on the same profile.

How do you do this? Google explains:

Click on Verify now on the right side of the page. You’ll need to verify that you’re representing your business by having a postcard sent, even if you’re a verified business owner on Google Places for Business. Also note that verification will only work for pages created in the “Local Business or Place” category in Google+.

Google posted instructions on how to do this:

After you’ve created your page, you can verify it:

• Hover over Unverified at the top of your Google+ page. Click the Verify now button when it appears. Or, click Verify now in the Is this your business? section below the map.
• Confirm your address and click Request postcard again. Your postcard should arrive within a week or so.
• Once itâs arrived, go to the website listed on the postcard, www.google.com/local/verify.
• If you’ve requested a postcard for multiple Google+ pages, make sure to click on the name of the business that the postcard is for.
• Enter the PIN listed on the postcard and click Submit.

Michael Blumenthal has a detailed step by step walk through with screen shots on how this works on a specific example.

Here is a FAQ on this from Jade from Google:

Can a local Google+ page that I make in Google+ have multiple administrators? (ie, Can multiple Google+ profiles manage my page?)
Yes! There are two types of administrators — owners, and managers. Read more about each roleâs capabilities here.

Can I have one social local Google+ page that links to my many locations?
No, at this time, we only support one social local Google+ page linking with one location.

What if I made my social Google+ page in a category other than âlocal business/place?â
Currently we only support verification of pages made in the local business/place category. You may make a new page in that category to access verification, but we cannot automatically move content or followers. There is currently not a way to change the category of a +page.

What about if Iâm a service area business with hidden address?
The new verification process does not currently support service area businesses with hidden addresses.

What if Iâve just got a local Google+ page with reviews (in Google+ Local) but donât have a social +page?
You may create a +page in the âlocal business/placeâ category to have access to verification, if you would like. We hope to offer the upgraded experience to all local businesses, soon, but currently, verification of the social +page is the only way to get the combined/upgraded pages.

Forum discussion at Google Places Help.

Did you know about the Facebook for WordPress plugin?

Well, in June it became available to help self-hosted WordPress users to easily integrate Facebook features (e.g. social publishing and mentions) through their WordPress platform.

Basically, it allows you to cross-post content published to WordPress to your Facebook timeline and the Facebook Pages you manage.

To find out more about how to instal and use this plugin, pop over to SocialMediaExaminer who take you through a step by step guide.

Here’s the link: How to Use the New Facebook WordPress Plugin: A Complete Guide

Facebook pages for the Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Miami Marlins, New York Yankees, San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants, and Washington Nationals were hacked today, as someone updated the teams statuses to a variety of funny (or offensive–or both!) messages.

For the Chicago Cubs, the message was, “Fuck Bill Murray.”

The White Sox endorsed Mitt Romney over President Obama:

The Marlins announced the fan-favorite pitbull giveaway:

The Yankees posted about a Derek Jeter sex change:

The Padres post was less than welcoming to some fans:

The Giants have no love for Chick-fil-A:

And the Nationals announced they were heading back to Montreal:

The Cubs, White Sox and Padres posted similar apology messages, while the Marlins, Giants, Yankees and Nationals have just removed the hacker post.

While these posts were pretty harmless and entertaining, it isn’t good for Facebook or the teams that their accounts were hacked so easily.

I’ve reached out to Facebook for comment and I’ll keep you posted. Big props to Deadspin for the screenshots.

Small business owners, I have a question for you. How are you doing on Facebook? Okay? Not so great? Could be better? You’re not alone, but you’re probably wrong.

That’s what it says in a new survey from Constant Contact UK. It’s their contention that small business marketers have set the bar too high for themselves and so they’re not happy with the outcome. But the truth of the matter, is that many small businesses are doing a very good job of marketing through social media.

Here’s a segment from their infographic on the subject:

Dramatic, but if we flip the numbers, we see that the majority of those surveyed thought Facebook was a help. As for the 52% of Pages getting 10 likes / shares / comments — well, that’s cool but there’s no proof that those things lead to profits.

Let’s look at another slice:

What’s significant here are the low numbers on the right side. Polls and questions are on the bottom of the list, but these are excellent ways to not only engage your customers but get valuable feedback. It also makes them feel like their opinions matter so post a poll today!

Next I zero in on the only 14% who say they answer customer service questions. I hope this means that few are getting questions to answer and not that they’re ignoring them. That would be bad.

Finally, here’s one I fully believe:

A few days ago, a small business owner asked me how to get more follower on their Facebook page. When I asked them why they wanted more followers, they said it would help them get traffic to their blog, which in turn was there to send traffic to the sales page of the product they were selling. Kind of a long way around, don’t you think?

Big numbers don’t automatically translate into big sales. Stop trying to collect followers for the sake of having more followers.

Social media success can be defined by a single sale you made this week from a link you posted to Twitter. Your action led to a conversion.

Celebrate. You done good.

Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook Community

Today Facebook begins the roll out of “Page Post Targeting Enhanced” allowing Pages to target their posts to segments of fans with certain genders, ages, and other characteristics so they can tailor market messages to specific audiences. For example, a business could tell teens they’ve got “swag” while telling adults they’re “reputable”.

Until now, Facebook Pages could only target posts to fans of certain location and languages, but the social network just told some admins that the new targeting options are opening to a select number of Pages today and will roll out to all Pages over the next few weeks. The tool could make Pages even more useful to marketers and convince them to pay for ads to buy additional fans.

The news comes from a member of a closed Facebook group for social marketers, who wrote that he received the following info from Facebook:

“Page Post Targeting Enhanced

Today, we will start rolling out an enhanced version of Page Post Targeting to a small percentage of Page Admins. Over the next few weeks, this will become available to all pages.  With this new feature, Pages can now target their posts to certain fans in the news feed who meet specific criteria such as age, gender, location, language, etc.

All content will still remain on the Page since this is the only way to allow friends of engaged fans who don’t meet the targeting criteria to see viral stories (i.e. David likes a post.. )”

We’re waiting for more details from Facebook about exactly which other characteristics will be targetable, such as work history, home town, or most importantly, interests / Likes.

Page Post Targeting Enhanced will let Pages publish different content to different fans, or word their marketing messages differently to maximize relevance. That could translate into more traffic and awareness driven, and lead marketers to become even more dependent on Facebook.

Facebook is known for randomly changing things and annoying millions of users in the process. Well, not this time. This time, they got it right.

Facebook has announced a change to the way photos are displayed and it’s large. . . your pictures, I mean. This is what your photo pages will look like going forward:

Pretty, huh? This page is extra cool because she’s doing fun things in a cowboy hat, but I bet this new design will make everyone’s pictures look cooler.

Gone are the ugly thumbnails, the even rows and boring layout. With the new photo design, you choose which photos to highlight in the same way you highlight a post. Easy, I assume, because my account hasn’t switched yet, so I can’t test it.

Photos are a big part of Facebook, but I’ve always been put off by the way they handle them on the site. The interface felt sloppy and amateurish. This new page is what an online photo album should look like.

Though the Facebook announcement post doesn’t say for sure, I assuming that this change will apply across both Profiles and Pages. Once this happens, spend a little time cleaning up your branded Pages, (delete outdated photos, highlight a few, create new albums) so you make the most of this photo opportunity.

I’m not listening in to the Facebook earnings call at the moment, but the tweets and news reports from it are circulating very quickly.

One stat that caught my eye came from Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who told investors and listeners on the call that 11 million businesses are using Facebook Pages. She also reportedly said that “hundreds of thousands” businesses buy advertising on Facebook.

Here’s a CNET tweet with both statistics:

11 million businesses have pages on Facebook and hundreds of thousands of businesses advertise (live blog) cnet.co/LQp6MX

— CNET News (@CNETNews) July 26, 2012

I’m most interested in the first number — 11 million business pages on Facebook. To my knowledge, this is the first time that Facebook has self-reported how many business have pages.

That’s More Facebook Page than Google+ Local Pages

It’s been a while, but back in December, Google self-reported that eight million businesses had claimed their Place Pages, which are now called Google+ Local Pages.

At that time, and based on Google’s own numbers, about a million Place Pages were being claimed every five months. If that rate has held up, Google would be at about 9.5 million +/- claimed pages now — still below what Facebook is reporting today.

This isn’t really a surprise. When we do our GetListed Local University workshops around the country, we often ask for a show of hands and we always seem to have more SMB owners saying they have a Facebook Page than have claimed their Google business listing.

Now it’s finally nice to have more a show of hands to compare the two.

This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing.

More Businesses Have Facebook Pages (11m) than Claimed Google+ Local Listings (8m)

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