Facebook unrolled templates a while ago, but you may not have realized it because most of us kept our pages on the standard template. While all templates are fully customizable, Facebook’s templates give new pages a place to start from that doesn’t involve picking and choosing tabs one at a time.
Besides the standard template, Facebook has eight others. They are called Services, Business, Venues, Nonprofit, Politicians, Restaurants & Cafes, Shopping, and Video Creator. If you pick a category, Facebook automatically chooses what tabs it believes are best for your business.
As an example, we’re going to use the Services page for an auto repair garage. Let’s break down the Services template, so you get a feel for how Facebook is trying to help businesses. Because we have chosen services as the best fit for our auto repair business, Facebook will display like, follow, recommend, and save buttons on the toolbar. The following tabs will be displayed on the left side in the following order: (We have included a short description with each tab title.)
Home
This is the page with your timeline. It’s also the first one most people see when they arrive at your page.
Services
Since your company offers services, highlight them in this tab.
Reviews
People are curious about how other people rate your business and want to give you feedback. Give them the opportunity to do so with the Reviews tab.
Shop
This tab shows products you want to feature.
Offers
If you have any special deals going on, you would post that under this tab.
Photos
Your photos will show up on this page.
Videos
This is the place for your videos.
Posts
All posts are shown here.
Events
This tab is used for upcoming events. If you’re having a huge one-day sale, you might want to publicize it here.
About
This tab lets you give visitors a general overview of your business.
Community
If someone wants to know what people are posting about your page, they will be able to find all those Facebook posts here.
Jobs
Are you hiring? Great. Let the world know with this tab.
Facebook knows not every business will want all these tabs, so you are able to turn them off. In the case of this auto repair business, you may not sell products directly to customers, so you might want to turn off the Shop tab. If you don’t have any sales going on or your business doesn’t usually run any, you might want to remove the Offer tab. You can also add any tab you want that is not currently displayed.
While the Facebook templates aren’t exactly a game changer, they do make it a little easier to create a page and give new Page users a guide to get them started. It’s not a feature we needed, but it’s one we definitely appreciate now that we have it.
