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Facebook Pages: Timeline Layout
Published April 2, 2012Facebook has changed the business pages layout to TIMELINE. As of March 30, 2012 Facebook switched all of the business pages to the TIMELINE layout. If you haven’t logged into your Facebook account for several days, then you are in for a big surprise. Some of the features that we got used to in branding our Facebook pages have gone away and have been replaced by some great new features.
Here is a brief rundown:
NEW – The Cover Photo:
Facebook now gives us more control over how we can brand our business page. The Cover Photo is a large image at the top of your page that you can design any image and insert. This image is large enough that it gives your page the feeling of a website instead of a blog. In the bottom right hand corner of the Cover Photo is where you can click to change the image. In the bottom left hand side of the Cover Photo is the PROFILE Picture. The profile picture is typically your logo or any image that represents your brand. This can be sized to fit exactly to the box or you can position the image to show the area you want.
NEW: Milestones:
Milestones is a neat feature that gives you the ability to highlight important events, press releases, or remarkable things that have happened to your company. Milestones can be created by clicking on the book icon on the status bar. If you have not setup the milestone for the date your started your company, then you will have to do that first. Once you have created the start date, then you can add any milestone you want to the page for your company.
NEW: Pinning Posts:
If you posted something into your page and you want it to stay at the top of the page, then you would click on the Pencil Icon. In order to see the pencil icon, you have to hover over the post that you created. Click on the pencil icon and this will move this post to the top of your timeline. A yellow-0range flag will show up on the post letting you know that this post is pinned.
NEW: Starring Posts:
If you want to highlight certain posts that you created in the past or just created, starring posts is for you. First you have to hover over the post that you created. Then in the top right hand corner of that post you will see a star. Click on the star and this will make your post increase in width to fit to the Facebook Timeline page. This is a great way to draw attention to something without moving it to the top.
NEW: Facebook Admin Panel:
Facebook has also added an admin panel to the top of your page. The admin panel gives you a brief snap shot of what is going on with notifications, messages, New likes, Insights and page tips. It gives you enough information to guide you on what is working with your page and what is not.
Things that went away are:
• Tabs and Landing Pages – Facebook has removed the ability to create a custom tab or custom landing page. This used to be a great way to direct your customers to a set place branding and creating awareness about your business.
Media Today
Published October 28, 2011Print advertising has been the long-standing tradition for small businesses for decades. I have been designing print material for the past 15 years and primarily work with small businesses to make print advertising successful. Most small businesses look to print advertising as the first choice in advertising their business. This tradition is changing, small businesses in the past five years are using less and less print advertising than ever before. The catalyst that has caused this is the Internet. The Internet has made it easier and cheaper for small businesses to promote themselves to the mass audiences. In the past it was very difficult to track your advertising through print, radio and television. Today with the Internet it is much easier with services like Google analytics and Google Webmaster tools, compete.com, and Alexis.com.. These great services give you factual information and real-time insight into the traffic and geographic location of consumers that are visiting your website.
In the past five years the introduction of social media services like Facebook and twitter have made it even easier to track performance, demographics and other analytical information about users in services like Facebook, Twitter, Digg, delicious, ping.fm and more.
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I help clients with setting up and promoting their businesses online with these types of social media. They are highly effective and the largest investment into these is your time. I recommend that people set a schedule each month of how they are going to promote their business online with these social media services. I recommend to people that they either pick a weekly, bi-weekly, monthly schedule that they post to these social media outlets about their business promotions sales and events that are going on. One of the key factors in using social media is consistency. Without a consistent schedule in using social media you are shooting yourself in the foot and it is going to be counterproductive. I have seen clients set up Facebook under the wrong type of service page and use it for the wrong purposes and wrong ways.
With Facebook there are rules and guidelines that you should follow to be consistent and effective with your potential customers. The first thing that I would recommend to people when using Facebook is don’t talk about your personal life on your business page. It is okay to share your opinion in a professional and businesslike manner on Facebook, but you want to keep it focused on your business and what your consumers are interested in about your business. The danger of sharing too much information about your personal life is you confuse your potential customers about your business. The other danger of sharing personal information on your Facebook business page is people will think that is your personal page and not your business. That is why I try to educate my customers about how to use Facebook to promote their business.
Twitter is another great source of social media to encourage people to follow your business. Twitter is a little bit different from Facebook, with twitter you are allowed to type than 140 characters. With Facebook you’re allowed 420 characters, there is a way around the 420 character cap on wall posts and status updates.here is a little bit of insight into how to put more than 420 characters on your wall posts and status updates.
1. Load a new photo into Facebook with the Facebook upload tool. Do this from your page and you will be associated as the owner of that photo, when you do this you can also tag other people in the photo.
2. Once the photo has uploaded you can add a description to the photo and this is where you can add more than 420 characters.
3. Once you have uploaded the photo you can then tag other people in the photo.
That’s all for today! Happy social media posting
Fred
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