Timeline for Facebook users has been available since the beginning of this year and now it’s coming to brand pages!
There are a ton of new features, some of which you will find on your personal profile and some that are just for brands, but all of them will have a huge impact on how you use your page and how you interact with your fans.
Timeline Features in a Nutshell
One of the first things you will probably want to do now that your page has been upgraded to Timeline is to pick a cover photo. This works exactly the same as on your personal profile. You have a huge space to get really creative here so give it some thought.
Facebook has spent a lot of time concentrating on images and with the introduction of Timeline, the bigger the better. If you want to be showing off your images, they are going to have to be big. 851 pixels wide to be precise. The profile photo is now much smaller and used as an icon rather than an image so unfortunately for some, skyscraper profile shots no longer have the same effect.
Next up, messaging. Facebook have been talking about this for a while but it hasn’t materialised until now. Now fans can message you privately by clicking the “Message” button on the top right of your Timeline. This has so much potential from a customer services point of view. I know personally working with clients in the tourism industry that sometimes people post things on the wall about bookings for example which just can’t be dealt with publicly.
One of my favourite new features is the “Pin to Top” option. If you have a post which you would like to showcase, you can pin it to the top of your Timeline and it will stay there for 7 days. Alternatively you can “Star” a post and it will be featured more prominently, taking up the whole width of your Timeline.
Now you can create company “Milestones” such as new employees, product launches and shop openings. This gives your audience a very easy way to look through the history of your business and see how you got to where you are today, right from the start.
This Changes Everything
These changes at first glance may simply look aesthetic but they actually will fundamentally change how you use Facebook as a business. Now, rather than posting real time updates you have a chance to tell your entire story from the inception of the company. You can go back and feature events or “Milestones” and make people wish that they hadn’t missed your shop opening in 2010 or the seminar you hosted in 2009. Bios are boring, well most of them anyway… Ours are pretty cool. Now you have the opportunity to ditch your un-engaging, vague bio and simply show your customers exactly how it happened!
Timeline brings you even closer to your customers, they can interact with you on a more personal level, if necessary they can interact with you privately, and they can learn more about your business easier than ever before.
Getting Started with Timeline
To get started with Timeline all you need to do is click “Preview” in the message that has popped up above your page, follow the tour to sort out your profile and publish it. The changes are mandatory from 30th March so if you are having any trouble doing this I’m always happy to help, you can tweet me @JamesBougourd.
Also, make sure you check out what we’ve done with our Timeline.