If you have a Facebook Page, over the last few weeks, you may have seen an alert that the Facebook Pages Team has been sending out to Page owners.
Grey badges will be removed on 30 October
The Facebook Pages Team
We’re working on better ways to show that Pages are authentic. In the meantime, make sure that Hypestar is following best practices for Page visibility and engagement.
So, yeah…grey badges…
What are grey badges?
They were assigned to Facebook Company Pages that had been verified. This style of grey badge appeared next to the name of a company page once it had had its contact details/name checked by the Facebook process. This could be achieved using an automated procedure (if your brand’s contact details had been included on other profiles) or via a manual process if you’d rather submit company information via scanning in (or if you couldn’t complete the automated process).
Is this change anything I need to worry about?
In the larger landscape, not really. Or perhaps, more specifically, there’s really nothing you can do about it. That said, the Pages Team at Facebook has stated that following their “best practices to improve page visibility and follower engagement” is the route forward here.
We’re always working on better ways to help people understand more about the Pages they interact with. We introduced grey verification badges in 2015 to show which Pages for businesses and organisations are authentic.
However, we’ve found that they can be more confusing than helpful, so we’re removing them on 30 October. As a result, there will no longer be a grey badge on Hypestar. This won’t impact the way the Page appears in search results.
To learn more about how to help people find a Page and verify that it’s real, please go to our best practices.
At Hypestar, we’ve historically been encouraging brands to verify their page as it added a layer of authenticity and credibility, but some categories for pages didn’t allow verification. So, I think what we’re seeing here is a levelling of the playing field and of course an encouragement to ensure that your page’s details are provided (which prevents Facebook users from having to leave the platform to find your details – something that we know Facebook has struggled with).
So what exactly are those best practices you should be following?
Best Practices to Improve Page Visibility and Follower Engagement
- Select the categories that best describe your business
- If you own a business with a physical location, add your address
- Add a profile picture and cover photo to your Page
- If you have a website, add it to your Facebook Page
- Update your hours
- Turn on Recommendations
- Encourage people to follow your Page
The general vibe here is that if your Page is a genuine one, you should spend the time to populate that profile and help your customers, clients and supporters see that your details are provided – which is absolutely something I’d agree with. So now is a good opportunity to check your Facebook Company Page and make sure you’re all up to date.
