Facebook Timeline Transition Occurs This Weekend: 6 Tips For Brands Who Haven’t Upgraded Yet

Timeline is coming to all Facebook pages, and will arrive in just two days.  This is a mandatory change, one that seems to be affecting pages in a positive way.  Timeline for brands was originally announced one month ago at the Facebook Marketing Conference and has seen a great deal of brands make the transition. […]

Chat with MarTechBot

Timeline is coming to all Facebook pages, and will arrive in just two days.  This is a mandatory change, one that seems to be affecting pages in a positive way.  Timeline for brands was originally announced one month ago at the Facebook Marketing Conference and has seen a great deal of brands make the transition.  On April 1st all brands will be automatically converted to the new Timeline format whether they like it or not.

In lieu of the upcoming change, Facebook has provided six tips for making the upgrade to Timeline.  We’ve identified the tips and highlighted Facebook’s last minute recommendations on the current Lexus Facebook page:

Lexus Facebook Page

  1. Upload an Eye-Catching Photo
    Timeline is a very visual format and creating a big, bold eye catching photo can help increase page views.  Facebook states that this cover photo example from Lexus helped lead to a 200% increase in unique page views on launch day.
  2. Use a Clearly Branded Profile Picture
    With Timeline brands cannot get that creative with their profile pictures.  Previously brands would place codes, marketing messages and more into the profile picture. Now Facebook recommends simply creating a clear brand picture for the profile photo.
     
  3. All Milestones To Company Pages
    Adding in key dates can help fans learn about your brand with Timeline.  Add key company moments, store openings, events and more with milestones.  Red Bull even went so far as to create a “Timeline Timewarp” that acted as a scavenger hunt across their brand history.
  4. Pin A Post a Week
    With Timeline brands can create a “sticky” post that will stay as the top post for up to a week.  TurboTax used pinning during their busiest month to make sure fans saw their FAQs.  Pinning helped TurboTax see 257% more likes for the pinned post with 1005 more comments on it as well.
  5. Arrange Views and Apps
    Timeline allows pages to arrange photos and custom apps at the top of the page.  This can help direct visitors to key locations or photo collections on the page.  
  6. Manage Your Page
    With the upgrade to Timeline admins can now manage their page through the Admin Panel.  The new panel allows admins to track activity, respond and view real-time Facebook Insights.
The following video showcases the implementation of the above recommendations:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMBTD0vNYqs[/youtube]

If you haven’t made the transition to Timeline yet, look for it to come to you this weekend.  You can still enable Timeline for your page before the April 1st deadline.  For more information see the official Facebook Page about Facebook Pages.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Greg Finn
Contributor
Greg Finn is the Director of Marketing for Cypress North, a company that provides world-class social media and search marketing services and web & application development. He has been in the Internet marketing industry for 10+ years and specializes in Digital Marketing. You can also find Greg on Twitter (@gregfinn) or LinkedIn.

Get the must-read newsletter for marketers.