What You Need to Know About Timelines for Facebook Business Pages
If you are wondering what those notifications about ‘Facebook getting a new design’ at the top of your Facebook business page actually mean, here’s a blog post to get you quickly up to date!
Facebook revealed at its marketing conference early Thursday morning (1st March) Australian time that Timelines (similar to personal timelines that replaced personal profiles) are rolled out to business pages in the end of this month.
This quick blog post summarises the biggest changes that timelines will introduce when turned on on the 30th of March and what actions will business page owners need to take before that.
Summary of Timeline changes
Here’s a quick summary of Timeline changes for business pages:
1. Cover photo: This is your opportunity to really get creative and display a (850 x 315 px) cover photo for your page to showcase your brand – Please note that the cover image cannot include any purchase information, specials, contact information, calls to action or references to Facebook elements such as “Like” or “Share”.
2. Default landing tabs will no longer be available (but you can still access your welcome and contact tabs using a link)
3. Your tabs won’t disappear completely, they will just become links at the top of your page and can now be 810 pixels wide
4. Links to your tabs will have new larger 111x74px icons and these icons will be sitting below the cover image offering an opportunity to promote your tabs
5. Photos and likes will now be at the top of your page next to the links to the tabs
6. Profile pictures will only display the thumbnail portion of them
7. Customers can now send messages directly to business pages, allowing more private conversations with businesses
8. You can pin your favourite posts to the top of the page
9. You can soon create offers to your customers/clients
10. New easier to find and use administrator panel allowing different levels of permissions for admins
What does the Timeline look like?
Here’s a preview of what the new Facebook timeline for a business page will look like. The large photo at the top of the page is called ‘Cover image’, smaller image on the left hand side is the new profile picture and the links below the cover photo can be customised for your custom tabs.
What does this mean to Facebook business page owners?
1. Coverphoto: You can now select or design a cover image for your business page to showcase your brand. Please note that cover images CANNOT include any purchase information, specials, contact information, calls to action or references to Facebook elements such as “Like” or “Share”. Take a look at some example designs here http://www.facebook.com/about/pages for inspiration.
2. Welcome tabs will still remain and display as usual. They just won’t be default landing tabs for anyone visiting your page for the first time anymore. However, you can use links to your welcome tab and other custom tabs and still keep displaying them this way.
3. Custom tab icons: You can upload custom icons for your tabs displayed at the top of your page and include your calls to action on these icons
4. Profile picture: You can either keep displaying your current profile picture, however, only the ‘thumbnail’ portion (that shows in front of your posts) will be visible. Alternatively your can get your profile picture resized to fit the new dimensions
5. Some apps used for running contests and sweepstakes are experiencing a few problems and their providers are telling customers not to upgrade to timelines as this stage until further investigation. We will keep you updated on this.
6. Training on new strategies: The design changes aside, there are quite a few new ways to pin posts and feature stories, so make sure you book your coaching/strategy session with your social media consultant to get up to date on how to use the new timelines to effectively promote your business on Facebook!
So there will be a few changes on its way for Facebook business pages in the end of the month, but overall I think it is all positive. A few changes will be required in your overall strategy and design elements, but it looks like timelines will provide us with many new opportunities to showcase brands and products like never before!
For more helpful social media tips, follow us on Facebook >> www.facebook.com/theSocialMediaTribe
Article by:
Minna Salmesvuo
Owner & Social Media Strategist @ Social Media Tribe
Don’t miss out on more articles coming soon, connect with me on Facebook, Twitter or get your free ebook ‘Social Media Strategies for Small Business today!
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