Inside Facebook

Facebook is currently rolling out a change to the home page of Page administrators. They’ll now or soon see a dedicated, persistently visible section in the left sidebar that displays bookmarks for each Page they admin, with each bookmark showing a counter denoting the number of pending notifications about activity for the Page such as new Likes and wall posts.

The Page admin home page bookmarks and counters should encourage admins to visit their Pages more frequently and more actively engage their fan communities by providing a constant visual reminder. Previously, the general bookmark for “Pages” could end up buried amongst bookmarks for apps.

Facebook has added several new ways for admins to access their Page notifications. In February, it added the “Use Facebook as Page” option so admins could navigate the site under the alias of one of their Pages and see its notifications in the top navigation bar the way users see personal notifications. In April it began showing a link and counter for notifications in the admin panel on Pages, and it May it let admins get a snapshot of growth and notifications for all their Pages in the Pages Dashboard.

Now, admins can click the Page bookmarks in the left sidebar to visit the corresponding Page, where they can view specific notifications through the link on the admin panel. If admins hover over the title of the Page bookmarks section in the left sidebar they’ll see a “More” link that leads to the Pages Dashboard. If someone is an admin of a large number of Pages, it appears that up to 10 are shown above the fold, and the rest can be accessed through the Pages Dashboard. Up to 99 notifications can be denoted in the counters.

By surfacing Page notifications counters on the home page, Facebook may be able to make responding to user comments and wall posts a habit for Page admins the way checking friend requests and personal notifications is for users. This could help improve moderation for Pages and encourage businesses to make them a more central component of their online marketing strategy. This could in turn boost the volume of Facebook ads bought to grow Pages.

[Thanks to Dan Birdwhistell for the tip]