Facebook launches new features to help businesses meet their goals

Facebook pages are increasingly moving in the direction of becoming like small business websites, with features designed to make it easier for businesses to hawk their wares.

The social network introduced changes to business pages, which included raising the profile of features that allowed customers to take actions such as booking an appointment or browsing, and letting business use customised approaches to layouts.

"We're adding new features to pages to make it easier for the more than 45 million active businesses on Facebook to highlight important information and reach their goals," the social network said in an online post.

The new features have been especially designed for mobile devices, which had emerged as preferred tools for accessing Facebook.

Business pages would also new feature sections and tabs to showcase merchandise or professional services.

"So now, for example, a spa can add their services menu to their page or highlight the line of products they sell, helping people get to know their business faster," Facebook said.

The social network said updates were also intended to make it easier for users to exchange messages with businesses.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg introduced the update during a press event yesterday at the company's headquarters. She announced the social network was now home to over 45 million pages which were growing at roughly 1 million per month.

In a blog post, Facebook says, ''the new features for Pages reflect our belief that no matter if you're plumbing company, a flower shop, a non profit or a brand, your Page should house the information people are looking for, help you communicate with your customers and support your unique goals.''

The network was also updating call-to-action buttons, making them more prominent on mobile. The new look, which was bigger was located directly under the Page cover photo.  To facilitate businesses and people to connect directly, Facebook was testing various new call-to-action buttons, including ''Call Now'', ''Send Message'' and ''Contact Us.''

According to Facebook, in future, it planned to add more sections for Pages and call-to-action options as different types of organisations needed to highlight different information to meet their goals.

In August Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the social network had hit a new milestone of one billion daily users. (See: Facebook reaches 1 bn daily-user milestone).