Facebook: 8 Million Pages Are Using New Feature

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Facebook is crowing about brand uptake of its new Pages regime. It says 8 million brands had transitioned to the new design by the end of last week, nine days after it unveiled the features at a marketing conference in New York.

The changes allow corporate, non-profit, political marketers, and others to use a number of design and promotional elements that weren't previously at their disposal. Among them: cover photos up to 399 pixels in width; support for brand milestones through the Timelines interface; "pinned posts" that let a brand keep updates near the top of the Page; and a paid "reach generator" ad that guarantees an update will be seen by more fans in the news feed.

Facebook shared results for two brands that have used the reach generator. It said beta advertiser Ben & Jerry's quadrupled its reach to 98 percent of all fans for a 28-day period. And Dr. Pepper used it to reach 83 percent of fans with its "Man’ments" campaign and Sponsored Stories ads. Facebook says this led to a 140 percent lift in people "talking about" the brand.