What You Should Know About the Facebook Pages Upgrade
It’s coming—the Facebook pages update. March 30th is almost here, and if you haven’t updated your page yet (like me) you’re in for some big changes.
Mari Smith, a social media speaker and author, has a great marked up screen shot on her blog you should check out.
I’ve complained about this upgrade before, and I’m still reluctant about it even though I have no choice. It’s going to take some getting used to, and there’s tons of stuff I need to learn about my new business page to use it effectively. It’s this forced learning that is turning me off. There are so many other things on my to do list that I have just been pushing this off. Time’s a waistin’!
The first thing I need to do is add a cover image. The dimensions for this image are 851 pixels by 315 pixels. Already I’m annoyed. I like to use our cover image for the big “profile” picture. This still exists, albeit small, but now I need to find another photo that captures my brand. Sure, it’s prime real estate, but now I need to find a photo that I can use legally that says something important about me. This will take some thought.
There are some rules about what can not be used as a cover image. Here they are straight from Facebook:
- Price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it on socialmusic.com”.
- Contact information such as a website address, email, mailing address, or information that should go in your Page’s “About” section.
- References to Facebook features or actions, such as “Like” or “Share” or an arrow pointing from the cover photo to any of these features.
- Calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends.”
The no calls to action rule is likely because Facebook has been very generous with this large piece of real estate … however, the company does not want us to run hogwild with all manner of promotions and campaigns…for free! Those come at a price and are called Facebook ads! —Mari Smith
Facebook is also no longer allowing us to set a default landing tab. People have been creating these custom landing pages to get non-fans to “like” their page on Facebook. Many used deals to entice people to “like” them by way of special offers, promotions, or coupons.
Another thing that has changed is that the “tabs” are displayed differently—and only four of them are displayed at a time. You can have a maximum of 12 and you can customize a thumbnail for all of your apps. It’s a great way to brand yourself!
The Timeline layout is big—and causes you to look left and right to follow (much like a tennis match). You can now add milestones for your business to your Timeline, which is pretty cool. The New York Times has updated their timeline all the way back to when they were founded. Milestones starting in the 1800s can be found on their Facebook page. Your freelance career probably isn’t that long—but if you’ve been around since before Facebook, this new tool can help you build your history online.
Want to make one of your wall updates stand out? You can! All you have to do is hover over it for a second with your mouse and click on the star icon that appears to highlight it. Highlighting your posts make it super wide and it takes up both columns of the new timeline.
Something I have found is that when I upload a photo to my wall in the new Timeline, it’s huge and often positioned in an odd way. I don’t know why they have to be so big—it’s especially annoying if you have a horizontal photo. You can adjust this a little. Hover over the post and a pencil icon will appear (next to the star icon I mentioned in the previous paragraph). Click on the pencil and you can edit the photo by clicking on “reposition photo.” With horizontal photos I am finding that I have to move them left or right to get the view I want unless I specifically size them to 403 pixels wide, which is often an extra step I don’t necessarily want to make all the time.
There are a lot more features I could mention here—but I’m still learning myself. I’m going to miss the old Facebook layout, though I’m sure I’ll get used to the new one. Anyone feel like sharing their pet peeves about Timeline? Leave a comment below.
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I switched over to the new Facebook timeline a few weeks ago, and there are a couple of things I’m still getting used to (that I’m not crazy about). I agree that the photo/image sizing is a pain, especially as a graphic designer — I don’t want to have to cut off any part of my work, and both the single- and double-column image sizes cut off some part of my images! I also don’t like how, depending on how your page is classified (small business vs. “professional services”), it doesn’t have contact information on the front page anymore.
To me it seems that Facebook is moving towards a closed experience. As Allie says, Facebook dictates what is shown on your front page. It is very clear that having a distinct url on your Facebook page linking back to a website will get a lot more hits than one buried in an about page. And I can only asume that is why they want to control and preferably banish that. As much as they talk about connecting the world, they don’t want to connect with a world outside of Facebook. It’s kinda sad.
That notwithstanding, I think the design of the timeline is better than what they had before.
New Facebook makes me like Google+ a bit more.
yes, how generous they are with a huge image that I didn’t ask for.
I’m curious how this will effect some pages though, because I’ve only liked certain brands to be able to participate in sweepstakes. And I used to to work for a company who’s sole service was FB campaigns.
Thanks for the info about how big, exactly, the cover images are supposed to be! I’m not sure whether they are purposely burying this info or I’ve just been missing it in plain sight, but I had previously been guessing. I don’t know why it should be a big secret.
As for your comments about what we can’t include in our cover photos, I think Facebook is going to have a hard time policing all those rules. I’ve already seen plenty that break ‘em, and it’s obvious that anyone with items to sell is going to take advantage of that space to try to sell there. It’s like they’re asking you to throw that space away. Any creative ideas for soft-selling without breaking their rules?