Facebook has just made it even easier for you as a Facebook Page owner to use Pages to grow your fan base, increase engagement and improve interactivty for your business.

This is a very exciting upgrade (for me anyway!) and already the possibilities are unfolding.

I have upgraded my Page already so I can bring you news on the new layout and the exciting changes.

The new Page layout is much the same as a general Profile layout with images at the top of the page, friends notifications etc BUT one of the most beneficial changes Facebook has made is to notify you when a person comments on a post on your page! You can find this option in settings and you will get an email to let you know. No more stagnant comments, unreplied to and disgruntled fans – so no excuses!

Another great feature is you can switch between posting as yourself and as your Facebook Page – yes! You can now post all over Facebook as your Page name rather than yourself – directing new fans directly to your fan page and business.

They still have all the usual features including FBML tabs and setting your landing page – so all good there. More features will be revealed soon/

Keep up to date and why not post your findings in the comments at the bottom of this post?

To upgrade your Facebook Fan Page – visit the pages status page and click “upgrade” next to your Page name.

All pages will change to the new layout from March 2011 – so get ahead of the game!

Facebook blogged about the new upgrade here.

UPDATES:

If you are logged in as your Fan Page (once you have upgraded your page click the link to the right next to your main feed to use Facebook as your page name), you can now “like” the pages you are already a fan of. It looks like businesses and pages will double their fan base overnight with this feature! May be a system bug.

You can also change the category your page is in – click “edit page” then click “basic information” to change your category (you may have chosen the wrong one to start with) Thanks to Mari Smith for pointing this one out.

If you are logged in as your page and leave Facebook to browse the web, you may find you cannot click “like” buttons on other websites until you log back in as yourself. This may however link in with the Facebook insights www.facebook.com/insights where you can link a domain to your personal profile as well as your page. Will update on this as soon as possible.

The update has also changed the width of a FBML landing tab – it is slightly out by about 10- 20 pixels. I have checked this on numerous pages – there will be a lot of unhappy page owners and app developers out there about this one! This has now been confirmed as a bug.

The Static FBML app will no longer be available to add to a Facebook Page from 11 March and Facebook will switch to iFrames – read more here. I blogged about this a while ago with the assistance of Matt Masiak Facebook move to iFrames

Featured section – You can select as many pages as you like to rotate on your featured section (5 at a time) in the admin panel. Click “featured” and “edit” then select your pages. Ideal for extra exposure if you own more than one page.