**Edit: It seems Google might be introducing their own version of Facebook timeline.
As widely anticipated, Facebook timelines have rolled out for business pages. The new timelines are a welcomed addition for businesses, offering greater opportunities for branding and relationship building with fans. The design presents status updates in two columns in a much more visual way. Some of the highlights of the new Facebook timeline pages are the dominant cover page, pinning prominent stories to the top of the page, private messaging, activity logs and more comprehensive admin tools. Here’s a look at the new features and how to take advantage of them.
Cover Photo
Gone is the small profile image on the left hand side of the page. A giant 851 x 351 pixel cover photo will now be displayed on the top of your page which is fantastic for brand building. Unfortunately, you cannot use this as a replacement landing page. Facebook has specified that you cannot include images with:
Pinning & Wide Posts
One feature you must take advantage of are pinning & wider posts.
Pinned post will be marked with a small flag icon, and can remain pinned for up to 7 days. After this time, it will return back to its original position on your Timeline. Only page-created posts can be pinned, not user-created ones. Post you mark with a star so not move positions on your Timeline, however, they become wider and stand out amongst the other posts.
Tip: You can create a post about information you would have put in custom tabs and pin it to the top of the page to highlight them such as Welcome Pages and new promotional apps. Regularly pin post according to what you want to promote at the time such as promotions, calls-to-action or product and company news.
Tabs relocated
Tabs are no longer shown on the side of Facebook pages, and now occupy space just under the cover photo as shown below. You cannot move the position of the photo box, however, every other spot can be altered. Simply click on the downward arrow as shown and then click on a specific app and drag it to a different position. Fill additional spots with Facebook apps including any developed by your company or apps that link to company related channels such as blog feeds or Twitter feeds.
Tip: Customize the images that get shown for each app by clicking on the top right hand corner of the image and clicking on “Edit Settings” in the drop down list for better branding. Regularly update these to promote your latest apps, then post about them and pin or star them to help build awareness.
Private Messages
Previously you could only engage with fans on your Facebook wall. Now fans can privately message your page. New messages will be shown in your new notifications panel.
Milestones
This helps businesses share their biggest accomplishments with fans. Milestone images are 843 x 403 pixels.
To display a milestone you simply need to go to the status update box.
Tip: his is a great chance to allow page admins to highlight some of their business’ biggest accomplishments, such as fan growth, award wins, product releases, etc.
Admin Controls
Admin controls have expanded and resembles Facebook profiles with the inclusion of private message notifications and recent Likes and Insights.
Tip: You need consistently check these statistics as this allows you to have full control of your Timeline. Remember to go to Manage > Edit Page > Manage Permissions once you update to the Timeline to manage permissions including post visibility. Also, have a quick browse to see what type of people are liking your page i.e. demographics, occupation etc. You can use this to adjust the content you post on your wall to make it more targeted.
Build audience
I definitely recommend you use this to invite Facebook friends and email contacts to share on your personal Timeline or a friend’s Timeline. This is a great opportunity to build awareness for your Facebook page.
Default customized landing Pages are gone
This is one of the changes that has been most criticized by the social media sphere. Your now becomes the Facebook Timeline mandatory landing page. While your customized landing tab or welcome tab occupies a spot just below your cover photo. Users will need to click on this to be directed to the page.
Tip: You can promote a specific customized landing page by posting about it and then pinning that post to the top of your Facebook Timeline.
Wherever you promote the app such as Twitter or your blog, you must provide links that go directly to that app. Do not simply direct them to your Facebook page. To get your app link, just click on “Edit” for the app and select “Link to this app”.
Enabling Timeline For Pages
On March 31, 2012, all Facebook Pages will get a new design. Until then, you simple need to click on the “Preview” button on the top of your page.
Click on start tour and Facebook will guide you to different sections you can adjust.
Future features
Some users may have noticed the addition of an “interest list” option which was quickly removed by Facebook. The option suggested that you could add the brand’s page to a list, with the following text “Start an interest list to see a special news feed of related posts”. As it has been removed, we can only speculate about its use. Taking into consideration the name, it’s likely to be specific News Feeds you can create to view only posts related to a certain topic such as fashion or sports. This would have great impact on advertisers. As this is an opt-in feature, Facebook could suggest brands you haven’t already liked yet, or allow advertisers to created sponsored stories (promoted status updates) within these specialized News feeds.
Personally I feel the changes are overall positive as they create a Facebook tool that helps businesses communicate more about their company and brands to fans. Though they should still have allowed admins to choose customized landing pages if they desired as opposed to setting Timelines as the mandatory landing page. Custom tabs with offerings such as ‘Like us for access to a free video’, or ‘Click like for exclusive discounts’ were a big part of increased likes for a page. Now fans can simply view Facebook pages easily without liking a page. If you were focused on driving traffic to your website, you need to re-evaluate your strategy ASAP. This will mean some serious re-thinking when it comes to how you grow your page.
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