The New Facebook Timeline & Branding

There was a really good post from Michael Gray called Facebook Brand Page Timeline Checklist in which he detailed some very important steps for companies to take in making the transition over the new Facebook Timeline feature. Starting March 30th, Facebook will be rolling out the new Timeline format across all Facebook brand and personal profile pages. If you have logged into your account recently and noticed that things look very wrong, follow these important steps to get your new Timeline looking professional.

With the implementation of the new Timeline feature, Facebook release a new set of brand guidelines. The most important ‘take-aways’ from the guidelines detail the use of the cover image for your profile.

• It is important that you do not use an image that you do not have exclusive copyright or permission to use.
• Do not make the images an advertisement. While this is good in theory, I am sure it is just a matter of time before we get company’s pushing the acceptable limits of this. Of course this does bring up the question of how will Facebook be policing this?
• The guidelines ask you to avoid tactics in your image that attempt to incentivize liking or sharing.
• Do not place contact information such as telephone and address in this image. All this information is available in the “About” section of the profile and appears under your profile picture regardless.
• The image you use should adhere to the size specifications of 851 pixels X 315 pixels.

Take time to choose a quality image that not only adheres to the guidelines, but does as effective job of showcasing your business, brand or company. This is your first impression so make sure you take time to develop a proper branding strategy. If you are not at ease with image/photo editors such as GIMP or Photoshop, then it may be worth your while to bring someone in to help with the redesign of your Facebook page.

Remember that if you do not access to photos or images to use for your new timeline, there are several sites that offer stock, or royalty-free images free for public usage. There are some stipulations that state you can only use certain images for brand pages and not personal pages, so ensure that you check the user agreement to make sure that you are not in violation of the site’s terms of use.