Until now, having an impressive and alluring Facebook landing page has been a “must-have” for brand owners to help differentiate and promote their USP.
Whether you’re an online store, professional photographer, music group or an accounting firm, Facebook Pages have been a free marketing tool that could be manipulated by code or third-party applications to adopt a customized site that distinctly reflected your brand.
For those of you who have spent a lot of time and no doubt money building and formatting your brand’s Facebook page (formally known as Fan Page), I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
Facebook has announced to brand marketers the world over that come March 30, Facebook Pages will be overturned in favor of the new Timeline for Brands format.
Up until now, companies have had the freedom to manage their own brand page on Facebook and could decide whether or not they wanted to opt in to the new Timeline format.
By the end of the month, that choice will no longer be optional. Once again, Facebook has changed the rules.
Facebook will forcibly convert all existing brand pages to the Timeline layout, similar to the personal profile Timeline layout that was released in September 2011.
While personal Facebook users have largely responded positively to the Timeline format, those companies and individuals with customized brand pages or landing tabs, may not be so welcoming.
By switching to Timeline, brand owners will have to start from scratch and no longer have control over functionality or design.
Furthermore, bands will no longer be allowed to use third-party applications such as WildFire, Tabpress or Lujure to customize their landing page.
By eliminating the use of third-party landing pages, Facebook is leveling the playing field and returning to a more homogenous format for brands that cannot be overturned.
The new Timeline for Brands layout shares many features with the personal profile version. You should recognize the vertically oriented content timeline and the widescreen “cover” image atop the page, which can be used to display your brand’s logo or a welcoming message. To learn more about the Timeline for Brand’s COVER, click here now.
Photos, likes and apps are now at the top of your Page. Photos show in the first spot, but you can change the order of everything else so people see what matters most. You can show a maximum number of 12 apps, so make sure to put your most important ones first.
Brand owners can expand the appearance of particular updates to widescreen or pin posts to appear in the Timeline’s top-left area for 7 days.
This is similar to Twitter’s recently added feature that has enhanced user’s experience and allowed profile pages to dock a specific tweet atop their feed, regardless of when it was first posted.
Brand owners can also add what Facebook refers to as “milestones”; widescreen content boxes featuring photos and text can detail specific highlights in a brand’s history and addresses some marketers’ concerns that content posted to Facebook has in the past had a short shelf life before it becomes lost in the chronological abyss.
The timeline is an advantage to those brands that have an active social media presence and ideally dedicated social media staff. Such transparency will allow visitors to see how active a brand is: precisely when updates have been made; how often they post, how engaging their content is; and how they respond to visitor posts and feedback.
Previously, visitors to a brand page could only see how many people liked or were talking about the brand. Now visitors will be able to examine a brand’s social proof beyond who many “likes” and “people talking about this” with the click of a few buttons (about, “likes”), visitors can see more about the brand’s market demographics including age ranges, the most popular week for the brands and the cities driving the most visitor traffic.
Now more than ever, a brand’s Facebook social proof must be tight!
The new Timeline will display all of a brand’ Facebook historical activity—both positive and negative. For example. visitors to a brand’s Timeline will be able to see Facebook friends’ interactions with that page, such as when a friend links to a page in Facebook post. So, it is imperative for brand owners to understand what’s is visible and actively hide negative content that would potentially reflect badly on the brand.
The Timeline for Brands also features a new admin panel for page managers to view notifications, respond to messages, edit page content and access insights.
This admin panel makes the page analytics more accessible and comprehensive for brands to view their page’s demographic breakdown, popularity and social proof.
Facebook will automatically update pages to the new format on March 30, but page owners can preview the Timeline by visiting their page and following the instructions outlined by Facebook.
If you do no like the Timeline feature on your brand page, you can “hide” the elements you do not like by heading to your security features and settings.
It is advisable for all page owners to preview the Timeline for Brands and delete any thing in the past you do not wish to be displayed. This may be incredibly time consuming for those who have been established on Facebook for years.
What you cannot delete is the Timeline itself. Facebook has announced it’s here to stay and has advised on reporting any third-party who is offering to remove the Timeline format to Facebook security.
Alternatively, you can remove yourself from Facebook.
A challenge or an Opportunity?
- How creative can you get with your “Cover”?
- Demonstrate your brands longevity!
- Analyze your demographics – Consider what markets you have yet to tap into?
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