This article coincides with my FREE WEBINAR conducted on March 7, 2012. We had a great turnout! If you wish to find out about upcoming free webinars on social media topics, be sure to sign-up for my weekly email newsletter. You’ll love it!
Overall, I love the new Timeline. I think it brings capabilities and control that we did not have before. I’m glad to see some attention is being paid to those of us who are marketing our business on this fabulous website. Here is a brief overview of the changes my Webinar addresses.
I don’t delve much into the Facebook Ads, because I’ll be doing another webinar on that in a month or so. I an also skipping over the Insights feature because Facebook is supposed to be redoing the Insights to be launched on March 30th. If I missed anything important, please let me know in the comment section below. I appreciate feedback, more than you know.
Here is an overview of the Facebook Timeline for Pages from Facebook (PDF).
The Admin Panel is now featured more prominently for the Fan Page Admin. If there has been activity on your Fan Page, you will see a default dashboard of the Admin area.
Facebook Timeline Cover for Brands
According to Facebook, these are the rules of the Facebook Cover for Brands:
The Timeline just makes it easier and more convenient to peruse through the archive posts of your Facebook Brand Page.
Tabs: Now referred to as “Application Pages.”
Pinning Posts: It is now possible to pin a post to the upper right corner of your Brand Page. Click the pencil icon in the upper-right corner of your Page’s postSelect Pin to Top Your pinned post will move to. How to Pin a Post to the Top of My Facebook Timeline
The down side is that you can’t also highlight a pinned item to stretch it across both columns, and you can only pin one item at a time, so you can’t have two pinned items at the top.
Reposition Photo: This allows you to position the photo so that it is situated correctly in the frame. This is a nice addition, giving you more control over the look and feel of your brand page.
Starred Content: Allows you to feature content that you want to draw attention to on your Timeline. This gives you more control on what you emphasize on your page…
About Area The About area went from 70 characters to 170 characters, leaving you plenty of space to add a link to your web site… Businesses set up as “Local Businesses” have a different About setting with bullets instead of a text area. You can change your Fan Page Category at any time.
Additional Links: You can now add additional links throughout the other sections of your profile, including the About Section, Bio, Description, etc… The hyperlink will need to be in correct form, ie: http://dotJenna.com/. I don’t like to use this area because of the way it shows up when posted on a page. I don’t like long, drawn out descriptions.
Too Long...
Updating Your Page is More Important…
If you do not update regularly, it is immediately noticeable to your Fans with the giant #1 .
You can add a post to the past: Not sure why you would need to do this… but okay, I love functionality…
More Interactive: You can now see which of your friends like your fan page. Before this information was much harder to reach, and decreased the interactive nature of the Fan Page.
You can choose to check the box that says, “Show recent posts by others” at the top of your Fan Page. Personally, I turned this off. Some of my fans post odd things on my wall that I don’t want taking up prime real estate on my Fan Page.
Removal of Default Landing Pages – Facebook has removed default landing pages and replaced them with other options to allow brands to drive content to application pages.
You can now use your Cover Photo and Pinned stories to drive users to your application pages. It is also still possible to link directly to application pages from posts, ads and out of Facebook.
Everyone has their own opinion, I have found, when it comes to Facebook. Most people dislike change, it seems–while others embrace it with open arms. Overall, I’m happy with the new Timeline, though there are a few bugs that I’d like to see fixed ASAP. For the most part, I think the new Timeline has the potential to revolutionize your marketing on Facebook. Here’s a breakdown of my thoughts good and bad about the New Timeline:
What about you? What do you love (or hate) about the New Facebook Timeline for Brands? I’d love to hear your opinion. Maybe Mark Zuckerberg will see this? Ya nevah know! Leave a comment below…
I love 98% of the new Facebook Timeline for Pages however I do not like that when I load photo's it automatically publishes it first much better when I could edit and title then post with status, now I have to post album, Hide status update (can no longer delete, which mean that everyone still sees it in their timeline) then copy the link for the album and make a status update so annoying!
Thanks for sharing my infographic, Jenna! Good overview.
Thanks, we had almost 200 RSVPs & 100 show up for the webinar. This article was distributed along with the webinar recording. Wonderful Infographic! Would love to collaborate on one in the future.
Thank you for sharing this, Celeste. I will add it along with the article I'm writing about Facebook Bugs & Pet Peeves. Stay awesome!!!
You can remove posts by others. When you move your cursor over the comment, an X appears in the top right corner. If you click it, the post will be removed.
Yes, I know this, however, this is not the case for the new content that is just below the “Friends Who Are Fans of This Page” section. That is randomly generated posts from other people that for some reason does not have any options for untagging and/or removing from your Timeline. I literally had to call one of my Facebook Fans requesting that she untag a photo because it was a giant hot pink stilletto that looked inappropriate so high-up on my Facebook Timeline. When I searched through the Timeline and the Use Activity Log, this photo was not available for either.
This is an obvious oversight, and one that I hope will be remedied for all of our sakes.