The social networking company announced today that it’s updating its Pages offering to now not only include enhanced call-to-action buttons, and improved Page layout, but also new sections all geared towards the mobile audience. And Facebook is certainly a place for this community: there are now more than 45 million active businesses on the platform. Sandberg views small business akin to being about entrepreneurship that’s used to create opportunity for families and their customers. She reiterated the company’s mission to connect everyone together, and this is especially applicable to small businesses. Sandberg remarked that Facebook is able to connect business owners to new customers, delight them, and even help source materials and talent.
Page administrators will be able to incorporate new call-to-action (CTA)/messaging buttons and will find that they’re featured more prominently to capture the user’s attention. Although CTA buttons aren’t exactly new, admins can opt to use one of several that Facebook is currently testing on mobile, such as “Call Now”. Previously, Pages could have one of seven buttons, including “Book Now”, “Contact Us”, “Use App”, “Play Game”, “Shop Now”, “Sign Up”, and “Watch Video”. To help businesses cater towards their audiences instead of forcing them to conform to the structure Facebook has for all Pages, new sections are being added that administrators can take advantage of. To start, the social networking company is releasing new Shop and Services sections. The former is geared towards helping retail businesses showcase their products more prominently. The latter will enable professionals to tout their offerings right front and center on their Page.
The inclusion of a Shop section is intriguing since it’ll allow businesses to sell more of their products right from their Page, thanks to theintegration of a Buy button earlier this year. In doing so, Facebook could possibly be trying to circumvent administrators going to third-party services like Shopify for their e-commerce needs.