29Feb

Facebook Fanpages Convert to Timeline for Brands: March 30, 2012

It has been a long anticipated question ever since Facebook rolled out the Timeline for personal pages– When will the Facebook’s Timeline be available for businesses?! The question has now been answered.

 

Instead of fearing another Facebook rollout, it’s time for businesses to focus on mastering effective content marketing. Starting March 30, 2012 all Facebook Fanpages will be switching over to the Timeline format. Is your business ready? Here are some popular questions about the new Timeline for brands and our take on how to leverage the exciting … not scary, changes through content marketing.

What Happens to the Business Profile Picture?
Cover Photo:  This will be the first, and largest, image your fans will see. It appears like a banner (840 x 310 pixels) at the top of your page. Now this is where you would want to visually promote an upcoming event, sales, or your brand with an image from your business’ website. This is your opportunity to stand out.

What Happens to the ‘Like’ button?

  • Liking your Fanpage: The new Subscribe button allows any user to subscribe to your public updates in their News Feeds. The concept of subscribing pages is similar to following someone/a business on Twitter or adding them to a Google+ circle.
  • Liking your activity: Fans will be able to indicate on your page whether they “love”, “want”, or “own” a product, along with a selection of other verbs. Giving you a much better idea of what your users really mean when they traditionally ‘like’ an activity.

How can a business “tell their story”?
Telling A Story:  Brands will be able show the evolution of their business from the beginning to now. It’s best to share events such as a significant promotion within your company, a new service introduction, or a big move to a larger office to really paint the picture for your fans.

How will the newsfeed change?
As a brand, product announcements are huge.  A post announcing a new product can be kept as the most recent featured post for your page appearing on public newsfeeds. This will demote other, less intriguing, announcements away from the Timeline (ie. responses to individual customers)

Why is content marketing important for the Timeline?

  • Facebook has expanded the post space to 5,000 characters and has made photos and videos larger, allowing you to essentially micro-blog right on your Profile or Page.
  • Content Marketing key takeaways:
    1. Be Personable — With personal anecdotes, humor, or visuals (photo and video)
    2. Engaging – Get to know your fans through questions, polls, etc. and post blogs
    3. Be a Resource —Posts can include statistics, links, numbers and other useful facts to strengthen your content’s purpose and value.
    4. Inspire — Educate your readers and inspire them to take action.

What’s this rumor about being able to integrate into my fan’s timelines?
Businesses are creating apps for their brands in order to integrate themselves into users’ timelines and increase their visibility: any activity that users engage in on your business page will be reflected in their Facebook Timeline, and it will show up in the ticker so that the rest of that user’s social network will be able to see what they’re doing or even reading and do the same. For example, dealerships should think of adding an app to display their inventory.

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