Does Sendible support Facebook's New Page Experience?

What is the 'New Page Experience' for Facebook Pages?

The Facebook New Page Experience (referred to as the new layout) has not yet been rolled out to all Pages and is in beta over at Facebook. To better understand the New Page Experience and what you have access to, check out their articles About Facebook Access of New Pages and About the New Pages Experience.

Why might there be some unexpected behaviour?

We've made a recent update to allow for more seamless connections of pages which have been converted to the New Page Experience. Although we should technically be able to fully support the New Page Experience using Facebook's API, in the same way we normally integrate with Facebook Pages, outstanding issues on Facebook's end mean that what is being supported is not yet consistent.

For this reason, while we have made the updates to allow for much more seamless connections of Facebook New Page Experience pages, we cannot advise that we fully support Facebook's New Page Experience with the new layout until Facebook addresses these issues, removes this feature from beta status, and releases it across all Pages.

Why is Facebook rolling this out while it's still in Beta?

This is a fairly common if sometimes problematic practise. Facebook is testing on a limited number of users and Pages to resolve significant bugs and improve user experience before rolling this feature out to all Facebook Pages.

How does the Facebook New Page Experience (layout) affect you?

If you are managing your Page or a client's Page that has the New Page Experience through third-party tools:

• Any Pages you tag in your Facebook Page's posts will appear as a series of numbers when the post is published.
• If the Facebook Page has been added to the Sendible dashboard already and the Page changes to the New Page Experience, the scheduled content may fail with the error message "Sorry, this content isn't available right now".
• Instagram Profiles that are connected to New Page Experience pages can have errors that can only be resolved in Meta Business Manager.

How can you resolve any issues that you have due to Facebook's New Page Experience?

As Facebook's New Page Experience is still in beta, the best way for these issues to be resolved is by feeding this information back to Facebook. It has been rolled out to a limited number of users to get feedback from users who use it all the time so that Facebook can make updates as needed.

It may be easier said than done to contact Facebook as they don't appear to be providing specific options for this in relation to being converted to the New Page Experience, so we would suggest using any other options you might have available, especially if you have a paid ads account which normally provides the option to contact their support team directly.

On our end, we are continuing to check for, raise and monitor any significant bugs we've encountered around the New Page Experience so we can ensure we also make any related updates needed to support it.

Should I convert my page back to a 'Classic' page if I experience issues?

There are options available within Facebook to change from the New Page Experience back to a "Classic" Page. However, we highly recommend not switching back to the "Classic" page as it will adversely affect your account.

You will (most likely) experience the following when converting back to a "Classic" page:

• Lose all posts made on the Facebook Page since the page launched (including previously published posts in "Classic").
• Lose any insight (analytical) data that you had accrued on the account demonstrating the Page's growth.
• If there are any Facebook Ads live, you could lose those Facebook Ads and all associated data.

If you still want to convert to a "Classic" Page, you can do this by following the steps in their support article Switch back to Classic Pages from the New Page Experience.

At this time, we recommend keeping the Page on the "New Page Experience" and then posting manually to the Facebook Page for a time before taking action through Sendible again to try adding or reconnecting the Facebook Page, posting out to it, etc.

Common troubleshooting steps

Ensuring that you have proper access to the Page so that you are able to post to it via Sendible is a little different in the New Page Experience.

Instead of heading to the Facebook Page's Settings and then to 'Page Roles,' you'll now need to navigate to facebook.com, click on your Profile icon on the top-right corner, switch to the New Page Experience Page/account, navigate to the Page, and then click on the “Manage” button at the top of the Page.

Both users with “Facebook Access” and “Task Access” should have no problems adding their Facebook Page to Sendible, as these are the equivalent of "Admin" and "Moderator" in Classic Pages. However, if you're unable to add the Page and you have “Task Access”, please request that you be granted “Facebook Access”.

If you have “Facebook Access” but are still unable to add the Page, please try adding it via a different Facebook Profile, or request that you be removed from this Page and re-added.

Otherwise, you could ask the owner of the Page to give you access via Meta Business Manager and try again and you should be able to add the profile.

What's next?

We'll continue to update this article as and when we are able to report on any significant improvements, updates or similar around the New Page Experience. We recommend following this article using the option provided so that you're made aware as soon as possible.