Bbm facebook timelineguide-01

Tips for the NEW Facebook Timeline

Times are a changing...
The new Facebook layout will have an impact on
what brands have built on Facebook in the past
(i.e. applications, posts, photos and more) and how
brands can best use Facebook in the future.

Compared to the current Facebook brand page
(which only allows the profile picture and five
thumbnails to be customized, hiding photo albums
and tagged photos beneath the Wall), Timeline
unlocks new possibilities for branding, raising
awareness and creativity.

The “Cover,” an 851 by 315 pixel image spanning
the top of your profile, can be changed at any time
and is major real estate for a brand — perfect for
a product shot or promotion push.

Now with the larger post size and photos, Timeline
can easily serve as a brand blog, providing fans
with frequent and engaging updates in a neatly
packaged profile.

As of March 30th, 2012 Facebook’s Timeline will
be pushed live to everyone.

How will this effect our brand pages?
Are we ready?

the integrated ideas agency


Visual Changes

Cover Photo
The new home for on-Page promotion, the Cover Photo should be
uploaded at 851 x 315 pixels. The perfect place to feature a fan or
photo of the month, a new promotion or even a call-out for a (now
more hidden) custom Facebook Application.

Careful! Cover Photos may not include price or purchase information,
contact information or calls to action. Consult Facebook’s rules
Timeline
before development, which includes no commericial & promotional
The new Page layout allows for the biggest, most customized
content.
visual branding ever. Combined with a new, moments-in-time
focused layout, Pages now act as more of a brand narrative
than a community message board.

Proﬁle Picture
Though many brands used extended, promotional profile pictures in the past, Facebook’s new Timeline layout means that
a brand’s profile picture can now stay a relatively consistent reflection of the logo, using the Cover Image for major
promotions instead. It should be uploaded at 180 x 180 pixels. It will automatically be scaled down to 32 x 32 pixels for
News Feed viewing.



Timeline Optimization

Pinning Posts
While Facebook recommends Pages post once per day,
it has created a capability that allows Administrators to
“Pin” a post to the top of the Page, so that it is the first
thing users see upon arrival for a 7-day period.

Prioritize Content
Page Administrators now have a way to prioritize
their own content within the Timeline by starring
the best (most engaging) ones and allowing it to
expand with double width on the timeline.

Just as easily, Administrators can hide less
engaging or less important stories. The net
effect of this functionality is that once a post is
no longer current, Administrators can choose
not to feature it as a main part of the company’s
past in the Timeline. As such, product recall
announcements or public apologies can still be
distributed and shown while relevant, but can
later be hidden in favor of more positive
milestones in the brand’s past.



Timeline Optimization

Most visual post WINS!
Facebook is beginning to put more of an emphasis on
helping users visualize their friends’ and brands’ posts and
activity.

Brands that create posts that are accompanied by visual
media (i.e. a photo or video) enjoy greater inclusion and
engagement through users’ News Feeds and also are now
core to a quality user experience in the Timeline layout.

Posts that include fill-in-the blanks, caption contests and
video clips will drive engagement as Facebook continues
to evolve. Additionally, visually compelling posts make for
an easily scannable, engaging Timeline history, which users
can now scroll through at any time.

Facebook Recommendations
Facebook released some staggering
statistics about what types of posts work best.

• Visually engaging posts generate 2X the
engagement of basic text posts.

• On average, people visit and engage with
Pages most often between 9pm and 10pm.

• Posts between 100 and 250 characters
(less than 3 lines of text) see about 60%
more likes, than longer posts.

ONE engaging post a day is GOLDEN.



Facebook Applications

No Welcome Tab
Administrators will no longer be able to set a
default landing tab as the first thing users
see upon arriving to the Page. Instead, the
Cover Photo will need to do any “Welcome”
talking desired by the brand (though current
fans will see it too).

App size change
The new application display will continue to
allow older apps (520 pixels in width) to
display, but they’ll look narrow in the new
layout that allows for 810 pixel-wide
layouts. Applications new and old require a
new icon to appear on the Page that is
111x74 pixels.



Facebook Applications

Applications get a down grade
Custom Facebook Applications represent a
significant investment to many marketers,
were given a low priority in the new Timeline layout.
Pages can choose to feature up to three custom
applications by default (the Photos Application is
fixed), but the rest fall below in an area that must
be expanded by the user prior to viewing
additional applications.

Because Facebook’s interface has long been based
on a tabbed navigational structure, where brands
would often create “Welcome Tabs” to orient users
to the Page, this will trigger a major change in many
Page’s user experience. Users will now have to be
drawn in by a brand’s content, rather than a
messaging tab.



Facebook Ads

Facebook’s top advertising spenders will now
be using an offering re-named “Premium on
Facebook.” In order to augment its preexisting
premium advertising offering, Facebook is adding
the in-News Feed ads, mobile News Feed ads and
a new Log-out experience as parts of its paid
media offerings.



Best Practises for the NEW Facebook

#1 Forced community Is DEAD...
One of the biggest challenges for brands
joining Facebook (especially those in highly
regulated industries) has always been the fact
that users could post whatever they wanted to
brand’s walls whenever they wanted to... for
the world to see.

Timeline does away with that. In fact, the
entire interface has made a shift from being a
dolled up message board with some cool
interactive features to becoming a narrative
story about a brand... completely controlled by
the brand. Administrators can prevent users
from posting to the timeline, moderate all
posts and even re-publish the user-generated
posts they like.

The Timeline is engineered to tell the brand’s
story as it wants to be seen. Blemishes can be
hidden and Community Managers have
complete control over what happens on the
Page. One-to-one, consumer-to-brand
messaging also keeps consumers’ and brands’
dirty laundry (i.e. customer service issues) out
of sight and, perhaps, out of mind.




#2 Don’t forget the News Feed
If nothing else, users will have to admit:
Timeline is pretty. Marketers are sure to love
playing with the Cover Photos and finding
new ways to feature neat history as part of the
Timeline. Facebook is even pushing the idea
of the Page itself as “Mission Control” every
chance it gets.

None of that changes the fact, however, that
perhaps the most important part of Facebook
for brands has not significantly changed at
all: the News Feed. Indeed, the majority of
engagement and awareness is generated by
brands’ posts being seen among their friends’
posts in the News Feed.

While Facebook’s new paid advertising units
will be able to land brands in the News Feed,
a strong content strategy with engaging posts
at the right time will still be at the core of the
most successful brands on Facebook. So go
ahead, make your brand’s Page beautiful...
but don’t forget to think long and hard about
that News Feed.




#3 Emphasis on visuals
No one wants to read a book when they hop on
Facebook to stalk a few friends. A quick scroll
through a brand’s timeline will give you an idea
of whether it is posting enough rich visual content.
The more photos, videos and links relevant to
individual posts, the more a brand stands out
in the timeline and builds affinity through
its timeline.

As the entire Internet drives towards a future
of representing a new world of data with
easy-tounderstand visuals, it will be no surprise
if Facebook continues to focus on making
improvements to the platform that make it
more visually gripping.




#4 Story telling through Milestones
Brands, public figures and institutions that
have a rich history have a perfect opportunity
to display it through Timeline in an engaging
way. Administrators can literally go back in
time and use the new “Milestone” post type to
add landmarks in an organization’s past all
the way back to the year it was founded.

Brands that have long-standing relationships
with customers can even encourage users to
contribute photos that can then be re-posted
as part of the Page’s history.

For those brands that don’t have a history,
like movies, Timeline allows Administrators to
tell a fanciful backstory that can build
anticipation for premieres. For television
shows or entertainers, Timeline offers a
wonderful way to catalogue episodes or
performances and the journey to
accomplishment.


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