Facebook Timeline Tips Every Marketer Needs to Know

2. UPDATED The design format of the Timeline for brands is quite similar to the Timeline for personal
DESIGN profiles. The cover photo is situated at the top of the Page and the profile picture is on the left
side, right underneath the cover photo. The page is separated into two main columns by a
dividing line that represents the passage of time. Facebook provides brands with new options
for self-expression with the Timeline concept.
1 Profile Picture
2 Cover Photo
2
3 Message Button
4 Views & Applications Panel
1
5 People can navigate to
3 5
different sections of the Page
Timeline.
Status, photo, milestone,
6
question sharing tool
4
6 People will see how their
7
friends interact with your
7 Page.

3. NO DEFAULT In the previous design brands were able to set a default landing page. Many savvy brands were
LANDING using this feature to highlight their most important campaign or application by setting that tab as
the landing page. With the new Timeline format, the brands will no longer be able to set a
PAGE default landing page. When the users visit a brand’s page, the first thing they will see will be the
brand’s Timeline page.
Old Design Timeline
(Hoşgeldiniz translates to Welcome in Turkish)

4. TAB PAGES Facebook has removed the left –side panel of links from the new Timeline design which included
tabs. In the previous page design, that left-side panel could include hundreds of different tabs.
The applications still exist in the new design but they’ll display in rectangular panel right
underneath the cover photo. Only 4 tab panels are viewable at any given time and maximum 12
application tabs can be used.
Eski Tasarım Timeline

5. TAB PAGES One can choose which of the apps and views appear in the top 4 and adjust the order they
appear in, with the exception of the Facebook native view ‘Photos. ‘Photos’ tab will always
appear first by default. When the users expand the tab panel by clicking a drop-down box, they
will see the rest of the tabs.

6. PRIVATE Users will be able to send and receive private messages with brands. This feature will enable
MESSAGE brands to resolve user’s problems privately with much deeper consumer interaction. This is an
optional feature; brands can turn off the private messaging feature if they don’t want to receive
any private inquiries. Enabling users to privately message will be beneficial for a less cluttered
Timeline with complaints and customer inquiries. This will force some brands to provide
‘Customer Support’ on their Facebook pages and others to include a messaging procedure into
their social media communication strategies.
Anyone who has
a Facebook
account will be
able to send a
message. They
don’t have to be
a fan!

7. PRIVATE Brands can only send messages to people who've contacted them on their page. They can't
MESSAGE message someone who likes their page unless they've messaged the page. With this restraint
Facebook is protecting the users to receive unwanted advertisements and promotions from the
brands.
Facebook Brand Page Private Message Screen

8. MILESTONE Milestones present an opportunity for brands not only tell their corporate history but also
updating the Timeline with new milestones such as product launches, store openings, etc. as
they happen. At this time, January 1, 1800 is the earliest date a milestone can have.
To add a milestone:
Click Milestone in the sharing tool at
the top of the Page's timeline
Add a headline, location, date and
details for your milestone
Choose to add a photo (optional but
recommended to make the story more
interesting)
A milestone post is distinguished by
black flag. Milestones are important
moments you've decided to highlight
on your Page thus they are
automatically expanded to
widescreen.

9. MILESTONE Not surprisingly, Ford Turkey brand page does a great job utilizing Milestones for their Facebook
Timeline. They’ve not only entered events and major achievements that occurred in the US but
included milestones that took place in Turkey that go back to 1919 all which include a story and
an engaging image.

10. One new feature that marketers will love is the ability to “pin” a certain post to the top of the
PINNING A Timeline. A pinned post is distinguished by a small, orange flag and always appears in the top left
POST of a page's Timeline. Brands can pin only one item at a time for 7 days. The pinned item exists in
two locations — as the top item on the Timeline itself and within its chronological place. Once
unpinned (which happens automatically when a new item gets pinned, or the item has been
pinned for more than seven days), the post remains in the chronology of Timeline posts.
.
Pinning items to the top of
the Timeline will become an
important feature to highlight
new and interesting content.
This is especially useful for
brands that post frequently
and don’t want important
campaign or promotional
information to get buried in
their Timeline. If a
promotional campaign that
has been posted 10 days ago,
is still valid, they no longer
have to post the same
information over and over
again. All they have to do is to
pin the original post.

11. PINNING A To pin a post to the top of your Page, click the pencil icon in the upper-right corner of your Page's
POST post and select ‘Pin to Top’. Your pinned post will move to below the sharing tool in the top left
of your Page's timeline, and an orange flag will appear in the upper-right corner. You can also
easily unpin a post from the top by clicking the pencil icon ad selecting ‘Unpin from Top’.
We will begin to see savvy
brands design posts
specifically to be pinned,
whether images, a well-
designed call-to-action or a
message calling for the user
to click one of the tab panels
under the cover photo.

12. HIGHLIGHTING This feature allows brands to highlight the posts that are important. When a post is highlighted,
A POST it expands to widescreen.
Clicking on the ‘Star’ sign will make that post
spread across two columns. Click it again, and it
will go back to one column.

13. PAGE LIKE One of the important features of the new design is the detailed ‘page like insights’ that can be
INSIGHTS viewed by anyone who visits the page and they don’t even have to be fans to see it. When we
take a look at the Ford Turkey brand page, not only we are able to see the total number of
people who like to page and number of people who are talking about this page but also see the
most popular week, the most popular city and the most popular age group. And we can also
view a one month graph that shows daily new likes and talked about numbers.
Detailed page like
insights will enable
marketers to sneak up on
the competition, watch
their every move closely
and prepare a thorough
competitive analysis.
With this transparency,
the competition amongst
brands will be fierce than
ever.
The statistics are from March 5, 2012.

14. COVER PHOTO Brands used to design profile pictures and landing pages that aren’t solely about the brand
RESTRICTIONS image, from time to time they were announcing promotions and sales concentrated campaigns.
With this knowledge at hand, Facebook decided to come up with some restrictions to the cover
photo to prevent brands from turning it into a fan-gate, promotional billboard, or other
marketing tool.
Cover images can't be deceptive, misleading, or infringe on anyone else's copyright. Brands may
not encourage people to upload their cover to their personal timelines. Covers images may not
include;
i. Price or purchase information, such as "40% off" or "Download it on our website";
ii. Contact information such as a website address, email, mailing address, or information that
should go in your Page's "About" section;
iii. References to Facebook features or actions, such as "Like" or "Share" or an arrow pointing
from the cover photo to any of these features;
iv. Calls to action, such as "Get it now" or "Tell your friends."

15. SIZES • COVER PHOTO:
Cover photos are 851 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall. If you upload an image that's smaller than
these dimensions, it will get stretched to this larger size. The image you upload must be at least
399 pixels wide.
• PROFILE PICTURE:
Use a high quality image that scales well from 180 x 180 pixels to 32 x 32 pixels thumbnail image.
• VIEWS & APP BOX:
The views and apps boxes are 111 pixels wide and 74 pixels tall.
• MILESTONE PHOTO:
Dimensions for milestone photos are 843 x 403 pixels.
• APPLICATION PAGES:
Page app width can now be adjusted to be “Narrow” (520px) or “Wide” (810px).

16. SUMMARY • On March 30, 2012, all Facebook Pages will get a new design.
• The new design changes are all in sync with the Facebook’s product strategy as a social media
network. Facebook is encouraging brands to form a stronger communication with their fan
base. Content was always important, now it’s the King! Providing relevant, interactive and
valuable content via the News Feed is the number-one priority for consumer engagement.
• According to Facebook’s philosophy content is the new ad and the storytelling is the
advertising. The content we are used to see in our regular news feed will be the
advertisement. They are trying to reduce user friction and abolish the whole notion of
advertising by introducing different ways of advertising.
• Brand pages will no longer be able to increase their fan base by solely utlizing the free
Facebook tools. Advertising on Facebook will be crucial tool to increase consumer
engagement and fan base.
• Anyone who has a Facebook account will be able to send a private message to the brands and
view their page insights simply clicking the ‘like’ view on the tabs panel.
• Milestones present an opportunity for brands not only tell their corporate history but also
updating the Timeline with new milestones such as product launches, store openings, etc. as
they happen. When you mark a story as a milestone, it means it’s an important story, it
automatically appears as a highlighted event and thus has a higher percentage of showing up
in more newsfeeds.
• With the ‘pinning’ feature brands will no longer have to post the same message or image over
and over again to remind users about a promotion or campaign. All they need to do is to pin
that post. There will be no more visual clutter on the timeline.
• Brands will be able to highlight any post in their timeline just by clicking the star button.
• Larger application tab pages will allow your brand to create more interactive and visually
stunning applications.