Users value transparency now more than ever before – the more transparent a business is, the better a business’s relationship is with its customers. Transparency creates trust, makes for a more organic digital presence, and best of all, improves the likelihood of consumers choosing one business over another. With transparency being such an important part of the modern business world, it’s imperative that your business does everything in its power to improve transparency in order to maintain customer trust and increase the chances that customers choose your business over a competitor.
In a major effort to increase transparency online, Facebook introduced page transparency features back in 2018. These features, developed in the wake of interference during the 2016 US election and the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal, give Facebook page managers the ability to improve their online transparency. Facebook users can now access important information about things like when a page was set up, who currently manages it, where the page managers are located, if the page name has been changed, any page merges that have taken place since its inception, whether the page is running Facebook ads, and if the page in question is run by state-controlled media.
While your first instinct may be to hide this new feature on your company page, you should instead use this opportunity to ensure that your business is properly claimed and managed on Facebook. While there are ways to hide it, they have effects that may be detrimental to your business in Facebook search.
Why is Facebook page transparency so important?
You might be wondering why you should care about Facebook transparency – after all, it hasn’t been much of an issue up until recently. The answer is simple. Your customers deserve the most transparent experience possible, and they need to be able to trust that your business’s Facebook page is exactly what it says it is.
By being able to see that your page is managed by somebody at your business, that they’re located in the same country your business is, and that your page isn’t hiding any previous name changes. Transparency means a lot to social media users, and by ensuring your page is optimized for maximum transparency, you’re communicating to your customers that you care about them and that they can trust your business.
Why you would want to hide page transparency on Facebook
While we’ve explained why Facebook page transparency is so important, some business owners may want to hide Facebook transparency. Situations where you may want to hide transparency include if there’s an unwillingness to set up a Facebook Business Manager and the manager of the page in question wants to hide their public identity. The only way to hide this information is if your business verification was completed prior to October 21st, 2019 – in this case, you can choose to hide confirmed page owner information in your Facebook page settings. If you choose to do this, your Facebook page transparency section will read “Hidden Confirmed Page Owner”. The only other way to hide information from your Facebook page transparency section is to submit a request to hide your primary country location directly to Facebook.
What you should do about Facebook page transparency
It’s important to understand that hiding any information from your page transparency section is against best practices and can lead to depressed Facebook search results or lessened customer trust. The only situation that warrants hiding page transparency information is if your business is using a digital marketing firm to manage the Facebook page. In this situation, it’s okay to turn off the Show Names of Confirmed Page Partners section of your Page Transparency settings.
We highly recommend leaving Show Confirmed Page Owner on at all times, and using Facebook Business Manager to manage your page if the current managers are worried about their public information being displayed on the page. Changing as little as humanly possible will result in better optimized Facebook page transparency, ensuring that users can easily find your business’s page and trust that the information is accurate and trustworthy.
ion8 is an all-in-one business consultancy which specializes in all things digital marketing. Our experienced team of digital marketing experts can help your business optimize its Facebook page, ensuring full transparency that your audience can count on time and time again. To get started on your digital marketing transformation, contact ion8 today.
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