With this month’s mandatory change-over to Timeline for all Facebook brand pages, and this week’s Simply Measured study, which declared huge boosts in fan engagement for brands embracing Timeline, the internet’s abuzz with both glaring concerns and glowing testimonials for the social network behemoth’s latest redesign roll-out. Regardless of which side of the Timeline you stand on, one thing is certain: As of tomorrow, all Facebook fan pages will be sporting the new layout. So here are a couple Facebook Timeline brand page tips to ease the transition into the next phase of Facebook.
To begin, pretty much everyone agrees that the big perk to Timeline is the visual element. According to the Simply Measured report, engagement with photos and videos went up a composite 65% for the brands studied. Reframe your brand’s message to utilize the more eye-catching visual component of Timeline. Decide which information would be best served visually or textually. Highlight important updates by repinning them to the top of your Timeline. Since multimedia factors in so heavily to Timeline, strategizing what to share and how to share it can now lead to a much higher engagement payoff.
Elsewhere, make sure to manage your existing content after your brand page switches over to Timeline. Removing past posts that are no longer relevant, or don’t translate well with the new design can help keep your brand from looking stagnant. In place of these posts, repopulate your Timeline with photos, videos and text from important milestones in your brand’s history. These offer an interesting perspective into your brand’s story that is engaging for both existing fans and first-time visitors alike. The more extensive and built-out you can make your Timeline, the more opportunity your brand will have to impress the users that find their way on to it.
Finally, don’t get discouraged by what may seem like limitations to your Facebook marketing campaign posed by Timeline (see full rules and regulations here). Sure, we can no longer count on flashy landing pages to run promotions and solicit “likes”, but we can use third-party services like Shortstack to develop Facebook applications to serve the same function. And the sky’s the limit when it comes to these. For example, we recently created a Facebook app for one of our clients that dually serves as a call to action (shown below in the blue circle) and, once it’s clicked through, a place to host a promotional banner:
Upon clicking the “Like Us Special”, users are taken to this section of the Facebook app:
Make what you will of the early studies on Facebook Timeline’s impact to brand pages. Like every other modification Facebook rolls out, it’s ultimately up to the user to make these developments work for them. Keep these Facebook Timeline brand page tips in mind while cultivating your company’s social presence.
