On November 14, (that’s THIS Thursday!), Facebook is removing the option to have public followers on personal pages. This will gradually occur, with a small group starting this week. If you have ever allowed public followers, Facebook will automatically change your profile to Professional Mode. Directly from Meta: “November 14 is only a deadline for a small group of profiles. This will be a gradual transition with rolling dates. If you did not receive a notice, you’re not in this wave. However, you can always still transition to ProMode, no need to wait for the notification!”
What IS Professional Mode? Read about it from Facebook HERE.
The “queen” of Facebook, Mari Smith, recently shared a Q&A she had with Meta regarding this change:
. Will the option to switch to ProMode still be available down the road if some users choose to stick with classic for now?
Yes.
. For those who choose to stick with a classic mode profile (friends only), will there still be a privacy selector allowing sharing posts to public? Or will that be reserved only for ProMode going forward?
Main profiles can post publicly, they just won’t be eligible to be recommended in the same way as posts from ProMode profiles or a Page.
. If the privacy selector will allow public posts on classic mode, will there still be a privacy setting to choose who can comment on such posts?
Yes, we aren’t making any changes to what main profiles can do. You can still determine who can comment on any public post.
. Does Meta have any rough estimate of the actual rollout timeframe seeing the November 14 deadline is only for a small wave of users?
We don’t have a set timeframe yet. It will likely be well into next year.
. Will it be very obvious with multiple clear notifications before profiles with followers automatically get switched to ProMode?
Yes!
. After the full rollout, for those who have chosen to enable ProMode, will it ever be possible to revert back to classic mode if they change their mind?
Yes, you can always turn off professional mode (or turn it back on) at any time.
. What exactly is a ‘followable profile?’
Followable profile is a main profile that has followers (essentially the setting that we’re transitioning to ProMode). We found that a lot of people using this setting could really benefit from the professional tools that they get with ProMode (insights, audience growth, monetization), which is why we are simplifying the choices and deprecating this follower only option. So now you can have a main profile, a main profile with professional mode turned on, or a Page.
See the full post from Mari here.
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