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The Top 8 New Facebook Timeline Features for Pages

1. CONVERT TO THE NEW LAYOUT

Facebook Timeline for Brands is now available to all of you that have a Facebook Fan Page. To convert, simply click on the ‘Preview’ button on the top right of your Facebook Fan Page.

If you’re not ready yet, don’t worry, you can wait until March 31 to prepare and and get your Timeline ready. Here is how to convert: Go to your page where you will see ‘Preview’. Click on the preview and hey presto- your new Timeline Fan Page is loaded. Be warned, though- once you ‘convert’, there is no going back to the old design!

1. DESIGN YOUR OWN ‘COVER BUSINESS DESIGN’ PHOTO

Really great feature of the new Facebook Timeline for Pages is the ability to create your Cover Design. The dimensions of this Cover Design are 850 x 315, which gives you a great opportunity to create a unique image to get people interested in your page. A word of caution: Do not use it as a sales tool. In fact, here is what is NOT allowed on your Cover Design:

• Price or purchase information, such as “20% off” or “Download it here”• Contact information, such as web address, email, or mailing address.

Put these information in Page’s ‘About Section’. Keep it clean!• References to user interface elements, such as Like or Share, or any

other Facebook site features• Phrases such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends”• For your unique Cover Design photo and to discuss your marketing

needs, please contact us at: sales@beinsocialmedia.com

Use this new space to enhance your business. They say that a picture is worth 1,000 words, so get creative!

The profile picture will change as well. Your profile picture represents your Page on other parts of Facebook, like in news feed. Use your logo or another image that represents your Page. Choose an image that’s at least 180 pixels wide. If you don’t have a logo, a small professional photo of yourself would be sufficient. Or for a maximum exposure, get a QR code of your website to act as your logo:

http://beinsocialmedia.com/other-cool-stuff-2/qr-codes-for-anything

To order your Cover Design, please visit:

http://beinsocialmedia.com/FacebookCoverDesign.html

3. PIN POSTS

If you’re running, for example, a great giveaway that creates lots of interest on your Facebook Fan Page, your post will be pushed down to the bottom of the page very quickly if there is lots of interest. So some people coming to your site may not find the giveaway details.

Facebook has finally fixed this problem by introducing the new feature to Timeline for Business! You will now be able to pin a post to the top of your Fan Page for up to 7 Days. This new feature is excellent and a great benefit to businesses trying to promote an event or a giveaway.

So how do you pin the post? Simply hover over your chosen post, a giveaway or a photo with your mouse as shown and click on the pencil icon; click ‘Pin’ and your post will be at the top of your page for 7 days. How great is that?

In order to draw attention to your important posts or images, you can ‘star’ them, the feature that is also available on your Personal Profile Timeline. Just hover over your post with your mouse and press the star- your post or image will now be wider and bigger. To make it regular size, just click on the star again.

4. STAR YOUR POSTS & PHOTOS

With the new Facebook Timeline for brands, you can now keep track of all your page’s activity on the ‘admin panel’. Your admin is right at the top of your Fan Page. When you first convert your page, the admin panel appears to be sitting above your main Fan Page and you may feel a rush of panic. Don’t worry- just press the ‘Hide’ button to go back to a page view.

In the new admin panel, everything is much better organized than on the older versions of Fan Pages. You can respond when people write on your Page timeline easier, and view your latest insights.  Visit your activity log to review all your posts and activity. 

In addition, people can now contact you privately using ‘messages’ which wasn’t possible before. You can see your messages right in your admin panel.  You can choose to have or not to have the ‘message’ option in your settings. I personally recommend it, although unfortunately you might get a few spammers.

5. YOUR NEW ADMIN PANEL LAYOUT

5. YOUR NEW ADMIN PANEL LAYOUT

6. ORGANIZE YOUR POSTS

You now have an opportunity to sort the order of posts on your new Facebook Timeline for Brands pages by the following options: Highlights, Friend Activity, Posts By Page, Posts by Others. This feature is very useful because businesses have different needs.

Those that rely on a customer feedback will welcome ‘Posts by others’ feature, especially if many people are interacting with the page. The settings are very simple to change, just click on the ‘Posts by Page’ arrow and highlight your choice.

7. YOU CAN’T SET YOUR DEFAULT LANDING PAGE ANYMORE

The fact that Facebook disabled its previous feature, ‘Set a default landing page’, came as a shock to many businesses. This is where most of the marketing was done, the funds were spent to create state-of-the-art landing pages and mini website pages. With the new Timeline, we’ve lost this powerful ‘Call To Action’ feature.

Now when fans visit your Fan Page, both old and new fans, they will simply land on the wall. But here are 2 things you can do to get around this problem:

a) a) Create a stylish, head turning Cover Design with a strong ‘Call To Action’ message.

b) b) If you have previous landing pages such as ‘Welcome’ page, you can still use the direct link to that application.

Take A Look Here:

If I wanted my fans to land directly on my mini website within Facebook, I would simply use the highlighted link in my browser. True, the link looks messy as opposed to clean, direct Facebook Link, but my point is that it is STILL possible to take advantage of your previously designed Fan Page applications.

8. Get Ready for the New Timeline

So to sum up, here are some of the things you should do before you convert to the new Timeline:

•Create a unique Cover Design for your business (or have it professionally designed by us at http://beinsocialmedia.com/FacebookCoverDesign.html)•Prepare your business history, adding any important dates, events, how you started, when you opened your first shop, welcomed a celebrity to your business and so on•Clean up photos and posts that you don’t want to be seen on the new Timeline•Prepare your first ‘Welcome to our new design Fan Page’ post to really show off your new Timeline!

Only time will show whether these Fan Page changes will be better or worse. For now, the businesses will have to get to grips with the new layout and I don’t doubt many will start seeing benefits.

So to start with, order your Cover Design at:http://beinsocialmedia.com/FacebookCoverDesign.htmlWe are here to help you get creative and even run your Social Media campaign for you if it’s too overwhelming. Just visit us athttp://beinsocialmedia.com/FacebookFanPageConnect.html

*We are giving away some really cool Cover Designs that can be used for Personal and Business Timelines. Just visit our Fan Page and become a Fan at

https://www.facebook.com/beinsocialmedia

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