Facebook Timelines and Your Small Business
Timeline and Your Business
With the introduction of Facebook’s new Timeline for Pages, you might be wondering how that will effect your business. This is a natural concern when you have been happy with your businesss pages on Facebook until now. Just as your business grows and changes, so does Facebook and their ideas for showcasing your business grow and change. By adding their new Timeline for Pages, you can actually tell (and show) the story of how your business has grown and changed over time.
People are naturally interested in the history of companies they associate with, and Facebook has decided to take advantage of this interest. By introducing the new Timeline, they are offering you, as the business owner, the chance to share the story of your business. They have provided milestones that you set along your timeline to highlight any and all important events associated with your business. The first milestone you will be prompted to set is commemorating the date your business was founded. From that point on, you will be able to choose milestones for any date or event that you deem to be important for your business. Another great innovation, is that you can also add photos or logos along your timeline to add interest or to emphasize events, a special logo, or a symbol that might be easily associated with your business. Another great photo to add might be an image of the front or the inside of your business.
The cover image you use for your new Timeline for Pages is very important. It is large and bright and is the first impression anyone visiting your page receives of your business or brand. You will need to choose a photo that is clear and fits the new larger specifications of a width of at least 851 pixels.
Some features that Facebook has changed are the ability to use landing pages, and no calls-to-action and no contact information are allowed. Obviously, this will have an impact oh how you do business on Facebook. Everyone will have adjustments to make with the new Timeline for Pages, but it does offer an opportunity to add a more personal touch to your interactions on Facebook. Another feature that emphasizes the personal aspect of your business is the ability to send or receive personal messages. With a little time and patience, your business might benefit greatly from the new Facebook Timeline.
Introducing Facebook’s New Timeline For Pages
Everyone is talking about Facebook’s new Timeline for Pages. It is brand new and different from the Facebook business pages you are used to. Facebook is striving to showcase a more personal way of seeing your business or brand. Many people are anxious about the changes that will occur in their Facebook business accounts on March 30, 2012. Beginning March 30, Facebook will be automatically converting your existing account to the new Timeline for Pages type of account. Don’t get into a panic, though, because you can preview your new look before it takes place.
If you would like to preview the new Timeline for Pages look, just log in to your existing business account as you normally would. Then you can click on the “Turn on Preview” box. This will allow you to see what your existing page would look like in the new style. You can preview just one page or all of the pages. This will help you get an idea of how you want to build your new look for the Timeline. Facebook has convenient tours that you can take that will guide you in understanding what Timeline is about and the different features it offers. In this way you can take your time and plan out your new look or, if you think you are ready now, you can just push “publish” and you will be instantly converted. If you choose to do that, you can make any changes you desire at any time.
The basics of the new Timeline for Pages encompasses a more personal approach. Your Cover image is big and bold and will let people know up front something important about your business. It makes a statement, so you might want to consider what you are trying to convery before you choose an image for it. The biggest innovation is the timeline feature itself. Facebook now allows you to place milestones along your timeline that showcase the highlights of your business. The first milestone will show when your business was founded and you may choose as many others as you like to bring attention to important events in the history of your business. The timeline provides a story about your business. It allows everyone to know when you started and how you have progressed through time. You can also add photographs of your business or logos to enhance your timeline and add interest. Many people are happy with the abiltiy Facebook is providing for you to send and receive private messages and to use your new Activity Log to view insights data.
Facebook is not allowing any contact information or calls-to-action, but they are allowing you to pin posts up on top of the feed for a week at a time. facebook-timelines-and-your-small-business could prove helpful when you facebook-timelines-and-your-small-business trying to draw attention to something important. Another big change is that Facebook is no longer allowing you to use an app for a landing page. It will take some time to see what new features are most popular and what old features will be missed, but one thing is for certain… Facebook has made great strides into the future with Timeline for Pages.
See our post on how Timeliness impacts businesses using Facebook pages by clicking here.
