Facebook Business Pages Created with New Timeline Layout – 7 Tips and 3 Great Examples

Yesterday I decided to bite-the-bullet and take the time to create a new Facebook page for my business. I’ve created multiple business pages for other clients but I’ve never actually created one for ours. Now that Facebook has shifted to the new and *improved* timeline layout I’m glad I waited.

After working with my page for the better part of a day. It appears that they’ve simplified things but with the new shift, it’s not really apparent to me how one can set up additional *custom* pages. There’s buzz about it but at the time of writing this article, it’s not really apparent to me how it’s done. Oh and if If you’re used to setting up and working with the original page/app model, it appears that you may need to forget all or most of what you’ve learned.

7 Facebook Timeline Tips

Not to sound like a downer or anything. The new pages look really sharp, the controls are robust and I’m sure we’ll see much innovation surrounded around businesses in the coming months. Here are a few pointers to keep in mind as your building yours out:

1. First you must create a “Cover Photo”. Let’s call this your storefront. Cover photo dimensions are: 851×315
2. You must also create a “Profile Photo” at 180×180 pixels. This is the smaller image that lies over the top of your “Cover Photo”. It should be your logo or business name (like posting your name via a sign in front of your store).
3. Links to your pages/photos no longer live at the top or in the right colum of the page. They now live just below your cover photo.
4. You’ll notice a couple buttons (star and pencil icons) in the upper right corner of your posts. The star icon can be used to “highlight” your particular post by making it larger. By clicking the star your post will expand to the full width of your page’s content area. The “Pin to Top” feature should be pointed out as well. You can get to this feature by clicking on the pencil icon and selecting the “Pin to Top” option. This will pin your post to the top of your page for 7 days. After 7 days it will then move back to it’s specific place in the timeline.
5. If you have a ton of photos, as I did, it’s much easier to upload them all at once into comprehensive albums. Once your photos/videos are uploaded add the given date to each. Your media will then show up in the timeline as dated.
6. Once all of your information is in place, don’t forget to promote it via the “Build Audience” link at the top of your page.
7. All sources say that this is a good change and will allow for more customization on the future. We shall see!

3 Great Facebook Business Page Examples

As I was researching I came across a variety of Facebook pages that inspired my design – all notable brands and nice, clean design:

Starbucks – Warm, Nicely Branded.

Notice how they’ve set up the timeline to go all the way back to the opening in 1971. Also note where they used the “Hightlights” tool so that some of the content spans the width of the page– Nice!

VH1 – Much good pop-culture content and eye candy

It would be nice if the went a back a bit further in time.

Red Bull – Very sharp. They’ve always been good at maintaining their brand-image.
Note how they’ve used the “Pin to Top” feature for the first post in the timeline

Additional Resources:

http://www.learnfacebookpages.com/
http://www.facebook.com/networkedblogs
http://www.facebook.com/marketing

BTW: If you come across a new way to add a 3rd party blog feed to a “News” page on Facebook it would be great to hear back from you…