What Does the New Facebook Timeline Mean for Your Business Page?

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Image: Example of how a Facebook business page looks in new timeline.

If you run an active Facebook page for your business, by now you have probably heard that, similar to the new Timeline pages that launched for personal profiles, Facebook will be rolling out a Timeline for brands.

By March 30th all Facebook Pages will be converted to the new design, so the sooner you can familiarize yourself with the new look and feel, the better.

Here Red Jeweled Media offers a rundown of the new page features and how they will operate:

Cover Photo:
The cover photo is the first thing people will see when they visit your page.  The photo should be a unique image that represents your brand identity.  For example, if you are a restaurant you might choose to use an image of your signature dish. 

The images will be 851 x 315 pixels and should not contain information about sales or events, any of your business' contact information, or prompt visitors to "Like" your page.

This is an opportunity to be creative and offer an exciting visual to your fans and non-fans (all cover images are public, which means anyone across the Internet visiting your page will see it).

Profile Picture: 
Same as it does now, your profile picture will represent your page throughout Facebook, most often in the news feed.  This will likely be the place where you will use your company logo or brand identifier.  This should be a square 180 x 180 pixels.

Pinning & Highlighting Posts:
Do you ever feel like some of your most important posts get lost in the feed?  With the new Timeline for brands, you can pin your most important posts to the top of your page (for up to seven days), which means you can choose what posts you want fans to see first. If you are running a contest or having a sale, pin these posts to ensure the information stays top of page and top of mind.

Similarly, you can highlight posts which will make the post run the full width of the Timeline. While these posts won't move to the top of the page, it visually implies to a visitor they should stop and read the post.

Milestones:
On a personal profile page you can indicate milestones in your life.  By reading your Timeline, visitors can learn when you got married, had a baby, graduated college, etc.  

However, milestones for business pages are a bit different. They offer the opportunity to share your company history and tell your business' story.  You can indicate when your company launched, when a new product debuted or any dates that were key in the lifetime of your business.

What Else?

• You will no longer be able to use a default landing tab such as a "Welcome" page or send visitors directly to one of your applications.  Everyone who visits your page will land on the Timeline.  

• You will be able to send private messages to fans. (Finally!)

• You can highlight your application tabs (these are tabs where you might have a sweepstakes app, or enewsletter subscription app). These will appear just underneath your cover photos versus on the left hand side of the page where they currently reside and can get a bit lost in the shuffle. You can even design a custom image that invites users to click on your apps.

Facebook is offering business page admins the opportunity to preview what their new page will look like prior to the March 30 change.  Red Jeweled Media encourages you to start playing and experimenting with your page so you can be ready to go. You can make all the needed changes without it being visible to the public. When it's perfect, all you have to do is click "publish."

With the new Timeline for pages, it becomes more about the visual experience a visitor will have with your brand and it adds another opportunity to share your brand's story and personality with potential customers, fans and friends.