How to Make Facebook’s New Timeline for Pages Work for Your Brand

There are two ways to react to changes on Facebook:
A) Threaten to quit Facebook.
B) Figure out how you can benefit from what’s new.
If you selected B, you’re probably as pumped as I am that Facebook released Timeline for pages today. If you selected A, you probably don’t want to read this post and see just how different Facebook will be from here on out…
Visiting one of your Facebook pages now, you’ll be greeted with the option to preview your page in the new Timeline layout.

Once you select the preview, you’ll have the option to change your page to the new design, but don’t hit “publish” yet! There’s quite a bit of work to do before your page is ready for the big switch…
In this post, I will walk through how your page is different now, how to prepare your page for the new changes, and how to better showcase your company history in this new design.
Note: all pages will automatically be switched to Timeline on March 30, so be sure to get your page ready as soon as possible!

5 Big Changes in the New Layout

Here’s what you’re working with now…

1. Cover Photo

As we’ve already seen on personal profiles, the new design will display a cover photo across the top of the page. Unlike the current photo strip on pages, fortunately cover photos are much easier to create. Best of all, they remain static, so you won’t need to worry about the cover photo being switched out every time you upload a new photo to the page (a major drawback of the photo strip).

• The ideal size for the cover photo is 851 x 315 pixels. It’s OK if your cover photo isn’t that exact size since Facebook automatically crops it, but being close to that size will keep the image from being stretched.
• Use a high-quality photo. Lower quality images may appear grainy because the image is so large.
• The bottom left of the photo shouldn’t contain anything important because this will be hidden by the profile picture.
• Once it’s uploaded, you can reposition the image by dragging it.
• You’re not allowed to use any promotional messaging on the cover photo, such as calls-to-action or arrows directing users to take an action (like saying “Like us!” and pointing to the Like button).  You can also not include contact information, such as URLs, phone numbers or addresses. The complete guidelines for cover photos can be found here.
• If you’d still like to add context to your cover photo without violating the requirements, use the photo’s caption to add calls-to-action and a relevant link to whatever is in the picture. For example, if your cover photo is a picture of your staff, add a link to your site’s team page in the caption urging users to visit the link and get to know your team.

To add a cover photo, you can choose from an existing photo or upload a new one:

2. Profile Picture

Consider using your company’s logo as your profile picture permanently, whereas your cover photo can be where you switch things up often and get creative.

• This will now display as a square image. Because most pages are currently making use of the elongated profile picture, you will most likely need an entirely new profile picture that works as a square.
• The profile picture is 180 x 180 pixels.
• Your full profile image will also act as your page’s avatar and show up next to your page’s updates in the news feed and when someone searches for your page. Unlike the current page design, this will not be a cropped section of the profile picture.

To change your profile picture, hover over the image and “Edit Profile Picture” will appear:

3. About

This will pull from the current information in your page’s info tab. You can still place a link here. Change this up if it’s outdated (or lame…like ours was ).

4. Apps (formerly known as Tabs)

You can display 4 items in this section below the cover photo, but your photos will always appear first in this order. You can choose an additional 3 apps to appear here. You will be able to include 12 apps total on your page, which users can access from a dropdown menu.
Clicking on these thumbnails will take users to the corresponding app, so make sure these are the things you want to drive your page’s visitors to. If you’ve built custom apps for your page, you can add a custom image to appear here to represent the app.

To change which apps appear here, click the dropdown menu that appears to the right of the displayed apps. This will show all of your apps:

From here, you can switch the positions of your apps.

5. Friend Activity

People will see any interaction their friends have had with a page (even if they haven’t Liked the page yet). This is great because it will encourage a new visitor to Like your page if he or she sees a lot of friends engaging with the page. This is also yet another reason why posting content people want to interact with is more important than ever.

Pulling it All Together

Livestrong’s page is an amazing example of pulling together the profile picture, cover photo and apps into a cohesive design.

Behind The Scenes: Managing Your New Page

In addition to the front-end changes, the Timeline redesign includes a whole new world in the backend of Facebook Pages.

Admin Panel

This dashboard allows you to quickly view your page’s Insights, respond to messages, view new page Likes and see notifications about activity on your page.

Included in the admin dashboard are dropdown menus at the top right:

Manage

This menu allows you to edit the page, view your activity log (a month-by-month overview of your updates and fan engagement) and view users you have banned from the page.
Edit
This is still the familiar editing dashboard admins will recognize from their current page layout.
However, you might want to “Unpublish” your page while testing out Timeline:

Activity Log
You can filter which type of activity you view by the following: Info Updates, Photos, Videos, Your Posts, Comments, Posts by Others, Questions, Notes and Events. This makes it much easier to go back and find an old post instead of scrolling through your entire Timeline.

Build Audience

This menu allows you to invite contacts and Facebook friends to Like the page, share the page or create an ad.

Messages

You will now have the option to allow your page’s community to directly send messages to the admins. You will be able to access and answer these messages from the Admin dashboard.
To activate fan messages, go to Manage Permissions and select “Show Message button.”

People can send messages to your page by clicking on the messages button between your cover photo and apps:

Tell Your Brand’s Story

The amazing thing about the Timeline design is you can go back to “life before Facebook” (yes, there’s such a thing) and share important events from your company’s history. You will also now be able to select certain updates to remain at the top of your page, which ensures visitors can see the most important stories you post. Additionally, old posts can be dated to accurately reflect your company’s chronology. These new elements can help you better communicate your brand’s message.

Milestones

You can add in significant dates and events from your company history, and these can include images or videos that reflect the time period.
To add a milestone, select “Milestone” from your status menu:

From there, it will open this dialogue box:

You will need to select a year for the milestone (mandatory), and you can also include a month (optional).
Event: This is the milestone itself, something like “Our first commercial” or “Opened office in Tampa.”
Story: This is where you can write more about the milestone and explain its significance to your company’s history.
Photos & Videos: Upload or select an existing picture or video that is either from the actual milestone or that represents the milestone. I recommend always adding a photo or video to make your milestones even more engaging.
What are some milestones in your company’s history? Here are a few ideas to get started…

• The year you were founded. Include some facts like who founded the company, the size of the original staff, the first office location and the financial earnings the first year in business.
• New office locations. If your office buildings aren’t particularly photo-worthy, you can add an iconic image of the location itself (for example, if you opened a new office in Vegas, use an image of The Strip).
• Product releases. Include videos of commercials for new products, images of the new products, links to stories about the product, etc.
• Partnerships. Add an image or video reflecting this new partnership and tag your partner company in the update.

Here’s an example of a milestone on The New York Times’ page. They included an image of their first-ever issue in 1851:

Pinning

You know me — I’m all about pinning! This is an excellent addition to pages because you can keep important updates from going unseen.
You can choose one story a week to “pin” at the top of your page (these will remain there for 7 days). Pinned stories will be distinguished by the orange flag in the top right corner.

To pin a story, click on the pencil icon next to the update. From there, select “Pin to Top.” You can also go back and “Unpin” a post if you decide you no longer want to feature it.

Some ideas for which types of stories to pin…

• Time-sensitive discounts or promotions
• Your company’s content, such as recent blog posts or videos
• An article or current event that is extremely relevant to your industry

Highlighting Posts

Clicking the star next to a post will display the post in a wider format across your entire Timeline.

This is perfect for making certain photos really take center stage in your Timeline; look at how a starred post compares to a normal post:

Unclicking the star on a post will make it return to the normal post size.

Changing Dates of Old Posts

Did you create an album when your new office opened? Did you post a video when you were featured in a news story? You can go back to these significant events and attach dates to them so they more accurately reflect your company’s history.

Reposition Photos

Another nifty feature is being able to reposition photos by dragging to show a better section of the image. Using this, you can go back and fix any old photos that were cropped weird after you switched to Timeline.

Conclusion

Sometimes Facebook changes can be frustrating and overwhelming, but the new changes that come with switching pages to Timeline really work in a brand’s favor:

• You’re given a huge, free banner to display across the top of your page.
• Your visitors will be more compelled to interact with your page because their friends’ activity is featured at the top.
• You can tell the story of your company using milestones.
• You can keep important updates at the top of the page.

By understanding how to use these new features (and communicating these changes to your page’s admins), you can better express your company’s identity and form a stronger connection with your Facebook community.
Have you seen a brand that’s already tricked out its Timeline? How do you think Timeline is better than the old Facebook pages?
Like BlueGlass on Facebook to check out our new Timeline!