So for the past few weeks, I’ve been getting notifications from Facebook that my various pages have had new views or a new preview.

Now, “New Views” has a very simple answer. They are simply how many people have gone to your page for the first time to see what your page is all about. More New Views basically mean more people discovering your page. Whether they like is another matter.

“Previews” on the other end, was much more nebulous. What did a new preview for a Facebook page mean?

The answer, as it turns out, was stupidly simple, but in Facebook’s usual way, obscured. And the fact that this surfaced for me in a Facebook business post instead of a news post means they’re either testing it or they’ve introduced a new feature that no one has found useful.

What does a Facebook page preview mean?

It simply means that someone hovered over your Page’s name to see a preview of your page’s content. That’s it.

At a glance, it may not seem useful, but if your business depends on people discovering your Facebook page and liking your posts then these Page Previews are a good way to see why potential fans are not converting.

Also, there are new metrics to show the age and gender of those who previewed your page but didn’t like it, so you can determine if you’re hitting your age group or not.

Useful or not? Depends, but I’m hoping at least this answers the question. The first answer on that Facebook business page is a completely useless error message. It was Benji’s answer that made more sense.