The Facebook Page Covers Study
In March of 2013, Facebook made some major changes to its then called Facebook Timelines for Business Pages. The page cover had very strict and specific guidelines. I decided to do a study to see how many businesses were able to adjust to these changes and follow the new guidelines. This chart illustrates the results. What I found was that large corporations not only were able to follow them but that they clearly had been notified about these changes before the general public and small businesses. I also found that without an in-house social media design department or a freelance graphic design firm to help them, the small entrepreneurial businesses were at a complete loss. Over time, Facebook starting to make adjustments to its new guidelines. Some were helpful and some, in my opinion, completely destroyed the story telling ability that a page cover photo in tandem with the icon image could have. The biggest controversy was the inclusion of the company URL on the page cover image. Many companies decided to ignore the restriction that Facebook had placed on including this piece of information. Over time, Facebook made many changes that seemed to bend backwards to accommodate what everyone wanted. The pristine quality and story telling ability became lost and ineffectual. Eventually, even I did not take them seriously anymore. Creating a dynamic, excellent storytelling venue became a lost art all to soon. Although social media marketing graphic design is here to stay, I do not consider Facebook to be the forerunner in inspiring companies to create outstanding page covers any more.
