The Facebook Timeline for Brand Pages Checklist

9
Facebook Timeline for Brands Checklist PRESENTS

description

What every brand needs to know about the new Timeline for Brand Pages, with a step-by-step checklist on everything you need to change, create and optimize for the ideal user experience from Spredfast. What's new with Facebook Brand Timeline? Private messages, Cover Photos, Application location, Starring and Highlighting content, Milestones, and more.

Transcript of The Facebook Timeline for Brand Pages Checklist

Page 1: The Facebook Timeline for Brand Pages Checklist

Facebook

Timeline

for Brands

Checklist

PRESENTS

Page 2: The Facebook Timeline for Brand Pages Checklist

www.facebook.com/spredfastFacebook Timeline for Brands Checklist

On February 29, Facebook announced that Timeline is now available for Pages. Along with this exciting news, Facebook also informed brands that they have 30 days to activate Timeline themselves before it automatically happens on March 30.

Don’t panic. While change can be difficult, Timeline does have a lot to offer brands. We’ve outlined the key features of Timeline along with the simple steps that will help you seamlessly transition your Page to Timeline in no time at all.

Activate Timeline

Activating Timeline allows you to plan, change, and control the experience your visitors will have when they visit your Timeline. To activate, visit the Timeline for Pages Preview manager and choose to add Timeline to your Pages. At this point in time, your Page’s administrators will see Timeline while visitors, including your fans, will see the old Page design.

With Timeline activated you can now walk through the features detailed below. Once you’ve gotten your Page updated, click the “Publish Now” button at the top of your Page to start showing off your Timeline to the world. You can make this transition anytime until March 30th, 2012, at which point Timeline will automatically become publicly visible for all of your Pages.

Page 3: The Facebook Timeline for Brand Pages Checklist

www.facebook.com/spredfastFacebook Timeline for Brands Checklist

Cover Photo

The Timeline Cover Photo displays an 851 x 315 pixel banner across the top of your Page. When think-ing about an image for this space, you’ll want to select one that best represents your brand, but is also visually interesting. The Cover Photo is a large part of what visitors see when they visit your Page, so it’s key part of your Facebook identity. Have fun with it.

Facebook has created some guidelines that you need to consider before selecting your image. You’ll want to avoid the following strategies in your Cover Photo:

- Calls to action (“Like Us”) - Price or purchase information (“20% off today only”) - Contact information (phone/email/website information) The goal of these guidelines is to urge brands to be more personal rather than overly promotional. Facebook’s advice regarding Cover Photos is to pick a visually stunning, high-resolution image that will delight or intrigue visitors and make them want to scroll down through your Timeline.

Images for Facebook Applications

The location of Facebook Applications is one of the biggest changes for brands in Timeline. Applications have moved from the left navigation sidebar to the area on the right side of the About section. They now appear as large thumbnails

Page 4: The Facebook Timeline for Brand Pages Checklist

www.facebook.com/spredfastFacebook Timeline for Brands Checklist

as opposed to text links. There are four Application tiles above the fold. Photos permanently occupy the first tile, while you can choose which Applications you’d like to feature in the remaining three tiles above the fold. You could choose to feature some of the custom Applications you may have created before, or you could feature Likes, Events, Photos, or Videos.

Pages also often used “Like-gates” on their default landing app, requiring users to Like a Page in exchange for the ability to use the application. While Like-gates are still permitted, they won’t be the first thing users see when they visit a page.

To edit which applications you display, click the drop-down icon to the right of the tiles, click the ‘+’ button to import your custom apps, and then hover over them and click the pencil to swap them around. We recommend putting the native or custom applications most crucial to your business above the fold, so coupons for ecommerce brands, contests for consumer packaged good companies, events for promoters, etc.

Automatically Highlighted Posts

When users visit your Timeline, they’ll see a combination of highlighted stories that have been published by your Page, by the visitor’s friends, and stories from other users that have received a lot of engagement (determined by Likes, comments, and shares). If a post is automatically highlighted in your Timeline that you’d like to hide, simply hover over it and select to hide them, or delete them if necessary.

Page 5: The Facebook Timeline for Brand Pages Checklist

www.facebook.com/spredfastFacebook Timeline for Brands Checklist

Starring to Highlight Items

Beyond Pinning a specific post, you can choose to highlight important posts throughout your Timeline by Starring them. To make the most of the new Facebook layout, you should go back through your Timeline to Star all your best photos and links that are still relevant, while hiding posts that are no longer current. Brands should consider Starring posts from visitors to promote engagement.

Pinning Posts

Pinning a post allows you to feature a post in the top left corner of your Page’s Timeline feed for seven days. This new feature gives you control over what visitors see when they first visit your Timeline. You can use Pinning to direct users to an Application, a promotion, or to display an important status update.

Page 6: The Facebook Timeline for Brand Pages Checklist

www.facebook.com/spredfastFacebook Timeline for Brands Checklist

Messages

Rolling out Timeline creates a new channel for visitors to communicate with your brand by allowing them to privately send Messages to your Page. One thing to note here is that Pages cannot proactively send Messages to Facebook users, they can only respond to users. Messages can be especially helpful for brands in customer service scenarios, so you’ll need to consistently monitor and respond to messages through this new channel. We recommend creating an internal plan on how to address inquires that come in through this route.

Recent Posts by Others

In the top right of your Page’s Timeline’s feed, there may be a section called Recent Posts by Others on [your Page]. The content in this section will vary since Facebook’s algorithms will automatically choose to feature posts that are most engaging. You have little control over what gets featured in this section, however just like with highlighted Timeline stories, you can choose to hide or delete those posts if necessary.

Page 7: The Facebook Timeline for Brand Pages Checklist

www.facebook.com/spredfastFacebook Timeline for Brands Checklist

About

Beneath the Cover Photo of your Timeline, you’ll see a standard profile picture, your company name, your total Pages Likes, and the number of “people talking about this”. Your can leverage the About section beneath these stats to describe your brand, your industry, or include contact information. Visitors can expand the About link to learn other basic information about your brand. Prior to publishing your Timeline, you’ll want to make sure you have a short but impactful About statement for your brand.

Milestones

Brands can go back in their Timeline to publish special Milestones and events relevant to their history. These events can mark interesting moments in time such as product launches or company accomplishments. They appear full-width on your Page with a special flag icon on top and are a great way to help visitors learn more about your brand.

Page 8: The Facebook Timeline for Brand Pages Checklist

www.facebook.com/spredfastFacebook Timeline for Brands Checklist

Admin Panel

The new Admin Panel drops down and appears on top of Timeline when clicked. It’s not just a place to change the preferences of your Page. It also provides a great summary of activity on your Timeline by fans, your most recent Facebook Page Message conversations, new Likes, and pieces of Insights data.

A “Manage” button on the Admin Panel reveals the “Edit Page” which is where you can configure all of your Page’s settings including whether fans can post to your Timeline and who can see those posts.

Once you’ve completed these steps and you understand the various engagement features Timeline has to offer your brand, you’re ready to click the “Publish Now” button at the top of your Page. After that sit back, relax, and engage on your brand new Timeline!

Page 9: The Facebook Timeline for Brand Pages Checklist

www.facebook.com/spredfastFacebook Timeline for Brands Checklist

About Spredfast

Based in Austin, Texas, Spredfast provides social business software for social media management that allows organizations to manage, monitor, and measure their social media programs, and the effectiveness of each piece of content, across multiple social media channels. Spredfast allows its clients to extend their branded content and engage with its audience from a single administration interface to the blogosphere and the major social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Foursquare. Some of the enterprise and agency adopters on board with Spredfast include AARP, Nokia, Bayer, HomeAway,Porter Novelli, ING Direct and AGAIN Interactive. For more information, visit http://spredfast.com.