Facebook has launched new Facebook brand timelines for all brand pages that will affect how consumers interact with brands. The new timeline design features a prominent cover photo and gives brands more control over visual content on their page through options like pinning posts. It also allows brands to share their history through milestones and to conduct private conversations with fans. While the redesign prioritizes a brand's visual identity and story, it also displays more page analytics and shifts the focus to a user's friends' interactions with that brand.

1. FACEBOOK /
BRAND TIMELINES Briefing
INTRODUCING FACEBOOK BRAND TIMELINES
Although they have hinted at it in the past,
Facebook today surprised many by launching
Facebook brand timelines for all brand Pages. The
new design was initially being used by only a
handful of partner brands who helped launch the
updated page design, including the likes of Coca
Cola, Nike, and Starbucks. But just as Facebook
timelines were quickly picked up by users for their
profiles, many brands are immediately implementing
the new design. Dove, the skincare brand, quickly
upgraded, for instance. While brands have the
option of keeping their page as it is for now, all
th
Pages will be upgraded to the new design on 30
March 2012. We must therefore study Facebook
brand timelines to see how its implementation will
affect the consumer’s interaction with your brand.
FACEBOOK TIMELINES: NEW FEATURES
Design template: With Facebook seemingly intent on making the social platform more visual, it is
unsurprising that the primary changes to the design of your brand page will be the introduction of a cover
photo and the timeline itself. The cover photo (as displayed by the Coca Cola screenshot above) will be the
first thing visitors will see upon entering your Page, whether or not they’ve Liked the Page. It can be changed
as often as you like, but should be a unique image that represents your brand values. It must also abide by
Facebook’s rules; it must be 399 pixels wide, and may not contain:
1. Prices, purchase information, or promotions
2. Contact information, including web addresses (this content is intended for the About section)
3. References to user interface elements, such as Likes, Shares, or other Facebook site features
4. Calls to action
Neither can we incentivise users to upload
this brand cover image to their personal
timelines. Outside of the brand Page, the
profile picture will continue to represent
your page on other parts of Facebook as a
thumbnail – in the news feed, for instance.
The timeline will give us greater control
over posts on the brand wall. Hovering
over a story, administrators will be able to
star it (widening it so that it stretches
across the entire page), pin it to the top of
AnalogFolk LLP • 2nd Floor • 10-18 Vestry St • London N1 7RE • tel: +44 (0) 20 7684 8444 • www.analogfolk.com

2. FACEBOOK /
BRAND TIMELINES Briefing
the page (if it’s an important campaign post, for instance), hide it, or delete it entirely. Only one post can be
pinned to the top at a time, and it will stay there for seven days. Starring posts, meanwhile, can be
dangerous; widening too many posts to cover the page will push other posts down, making them difficult for
the visitor to quickly see. We should therefore be strategic when starring posts, doing it fairly infrequently in
order to keep the Page dynamic. Therefore, if used correctly, the timeline will enable us to create a hierarchy
of relevance for visual content.
Top bar: Promoted to the top of the page, just below the cover photo, photos, apps, and the number of Page
Likes will be made much more prominent to visitors.
By default, photos appear first in this list, followed by
Page Likes and then apps, which were once called
tabs. (We will be writing a blog post about why this is
significant in the coming days). Although you can
decide the order of the rest, photos are cemented at
the front of this list. Up to twelve apps can be placed
on the list, but only four (including photos) will be
visible to the visitor. To view the rest, users must
select the dropdown box, demonstrated on Starbucks’
Page to the right. Deciding on a hierarchical ranking of apps and which ones we want visible to brand fans is
therefore very important. When clicking on an app, the user is taken to a new page, where the brand logo is
minimized and the page can be navigated via a drop-down box.
Milestones: One of the most exciting opportunities the Facebook brand timeline gives us is the ability to tell
a brand story. We can create a rich history behind brands by posting milestones on the brand timeline –
media or text posted retroactively to certain years. As with user profiles, visitors can click these years
(displayed down the right-hand-side of the brand Page) to see what brand developments occurred then.
New admin panel: An upgraded admin
panel will enable us to view the Page’s
latest insights in real time (including graphs
for the ‘Talking About This’ and ‘Reach’
metrics), as well as to keep track of Page
activity (notifications, messages, and new
Likes will all be displayed here).
Private messaging: Having previously
made it strictly against regulations to
contact fans privately, Facebook have
made a (albeit small) step towards
consumer targeting and relented, making it
possible for brands to conduct private
conversations with fans as long as the fan
contacts the brand page first. This will be a
huge help for much of our Facebook activity
where we need to request the personal
information of one of our fans privately.
AnalogFolk LLP • 2nd Floor • 10-18 Vestry St • London N1 7RE • tel: +44 (0) 20 7684 8444 • www.analogfolk.com

3. FACEBOOK /
BRAND TIMELINES Briefing
Open data sharing: The new brand timelines will also display more data about the brand’s activity to non-
admins. A one-month historical graph of ‘People Talking About’ and ‘New Likes Per Week’ (a brand new
metric) are available for any visitor to view.
Landing pages & fan gates: Unfortunately, brands
will no longer be able to specify landing pages. All
fans will arrive at the timeline, regardless of where
they’ve come from or whether they have Liked the
page or not. This will make Landing Pages and Fan
Gates redundant. However, Like Gates can still be
added to apps (tabs), as shown on the Tiffany & Co
timeline Page.
Wall posts: Posts to the brand wall are now grouped
together, and few are visible unless the visitor clicks to
see more and scrolls down the list. Comments on
brand posts are also hidden. However, the visitor’s
friends’ interactions with that brand are pinned to the
top of the brand timeline by default, thereby giving
them far more prominence. This, of course, lets users very easily view which of their friends are advocating
certain brands, and how they are interacting with them.
AnalogFolk LLP • 2nd Floor • 10-18 Vestry St • London N1 7RE • tel: +44 (0) 20 7684 8444 • www.analogfolk.com