Facebook is essential to every brand’s social media strategy and they have made big changes that affect the way marketers communicate with the public. The new Facebook timelines literally display user’s life stories from the time of birth to current day. As marketers, we must be able to leverage Facebook timelines to increase brand visibility and reach.
Here’s what you need to know:
Although it has not been confirmed, Facebook has indicated that timelines may be coming to brand pages soon.
Users have the option of sharing links on their own timeline, on a friend’s timeline, with a group, on a page they have administrative rights to, or in a private message.
News feed content, not to be confused with ticker updates, is displayed based on an Open Graph algorithm that factors in the popularity, recency of the post, and the user’s activity history. Post compelling and engaging content more often to increase visibility.
Historically, Open Graph only applied to websites and pages. With the new timelines, it now applies to applications/apps. Apps are now more interactive and integrated into the social networking experience. In a nutshell, user’s networks will see their app activity in their tickers and it may appear in newsfeeds and on timelines depending on usage and settings.
‘Likes’ instantly appear in friend’s tickers. Make sure you are asking users to ‘Like’ your brand page. With the help of customized landing pages you can also generate and qualify leads.
Users ‘Check In’ when they visit a businesses physical location. ‘Check Ins’ are displayed in a user’s ticker for their entire network to see. This feature is only available to businesses that list physical addresses on Facebook.
Users can feature stories or links on their timeline. This means the content will appear in a large rectangular box that occupies both sides of the timeline increasing the content’s visibility to the user’s network.
Users have complete control over what is shown in their timelines and who is able to view it.
Applications allow users to feature their activities (ie. listening to music, reading a book, watching movies, etc.). Apps update when used and activities are displayed in the network’s ticker.
Frequent posts increase your content’s visibility. B2B marketers must also remember that Facebook is always accessible so the standard work week does not apply. Make sure you are engaging prospects and customers after work hours and on the weekends with useful content.
Users can choose to display a large cover photo at the top of their timelines above their profile pictures. Which I am going to do with mine.... and do some kind of nice collage of my speaking gigs.
The size for the Facebook Timeline banner (or cover as they call it) is 849 x 313 pixels. Such information is rather useful if / when you are designing it in Picnik (thanks to Leigh McDonald for this info)
I tried to quickly search and reference the Facebook Timeline banner size but nothing came up. Also if you want to save a little bit of time, we have created a quick template for you to use that includes the guidelines and a mockup of where your avatar would exist (this will help accommodate for the design).
The ticker displays user activity to everyone in his or her network. This can work for or against you. Be engaging and monitor social activity.
Looks like Facebook is about to change the way that social media marketing is done (again) and so we had all best get with the beat .... :)
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