I may or may not have squeed like a fangirl when I got a Facebook app alert that a brand new app was available to download for Facebook Page admins. I’ve been wanting a more fully featured Facebook app ever since I created my first Page three years ago. However, a bit of disappointment promptly followed my app download.
The usefulness of this new Facebook Pages Manager app is about a 1 on a scale of 1 to 10. It doesn’t do much that the normal Facebook app doesn’t already do for Page admins. The most notable new feature is that you can see a brief, and I mean brief, overview of your core Page Analytics. The total number of Page Likes was already visible, so really, the only newly mobile-visible metrics are “People Talking About This”, “Weekly Total Reach”, and a “Trends” graph. The Trends graph only shows the last 13 days and has no ability to change the date range, so the usefulness factor is not real high here. Nothing on this screen seems to be tappable to view more details.
The other new feature is that you can see a list of your Page admins and tap to view each person’s profile in the main Facebook app— just in case you didn’t already know who they are. You can’t manage (add/delete) the admins from the app, so the ability to view Page admins in a list adds no real value, in my opinion.
So, should you download this app? Yes!
Despite a lack of useful new features as of this minute, this app launch is a sign that Facebook is investing in helping Page admins do a better job of managing their Pages with mobile devices. It only makes sense that Facebook will add more features in the future. Social media marketers are naturally heavy users of mobile devices, so the more features Facebook can give us on our phones and tablets, the more we can make Facebook better for everyone— and that is in Facebook’s best interests.
Have you downloaded the new app yet? What do you think? Let me know in the comments.
