You may have heard about the changes Facebook announced mid last week for Business Pages: Facebook Timeline will be coming to business pages starting March 30, 2012, and is certainly one of the more drastic user interface changes Facebook will have implemented recently.
We’ve been learning all we can about Timeline for Brands, so we can guide you through the changes. Below are some of the highlights:
Cover Image
While existing custom tabs will still look and function as before, they will no longer be designated as “default landing tabs” and will instead show up within that panel of clickable images along the top of the Timeline. Now, all users will be sent directly to the Facebook Timeline, on which the largest branding opportunity is the Cover image:
Important to note, cover images cannot contain the following:
- Price/purchase info
- Contact info
- Calls to action
- References to FB features such as Like or Share (Yup, this means no more arrows pointing to the Like button!)
As the user’s first contact point with the brand, this cover image presents us with some unique challenges and opportunities around branding and promotion. While the custom tabs still play an important role, the emphasis is less about being that first welcoming contact point (since you can no longer set a tab as a default landing page) and more about engagement.
Some Other Cool New Features
1. User access to metrics – If a user clicks “Like”, they have access to a basic Facebook Insights dashboard: brand stats (e.g. likes, dates of highest click through rates, etc.) become visible to fans and general users alike — this is an excellent opportunity for competitive analysis of other brands’ efforts and content.
2. Option to screen and moderate all users’ comments – Rather than allowing fans free reign to comment on your page, admins have the option to have all user comments queue up for approval prior to being published — while this can be a valuable safeguard, particularly for businesses and organizations that attract very strong opinions (e.g. politics), this may not be the best option for all brands. Censorship can reflect very poorly on a brand’s authenticity!
3. Option to allow private messaging between users and the brand – Admins have the option to allow fans and other users to private message the page, much like a friend can send a private message to the inbox of another friend — a fantastic opportunity for customer service. Please note that brands cannot initiate contact, however a private conversation can occur if the user reaches out to the brand first.
—
These are just some highlights of the many changes being implemented by Facebook. We can provide customized consulting and design services for these new specs and functions, and can advise on what these changes mean to your existing efforts as well as future best practices.
While these changes are certainly a departure from the previous interface and functionalities, there are a lot of opportunities to be had here! Facebook’s key reasoning behind making these changes are to necessitate more organic fan interaction, and that is precisely what has always been needed for a successful Facebook presence. These changes simply facilitate that more aggressively.
If you have any questions or concerns around the new Facebook Timeline for Brands, we’re more than happy to sit down with you! Be sure to give us a shout and we will be in touch shortly. Remember, Timeline for Brands will be enforced as of March 30, so that’s not a ton of time to familiarize yourself with the new design!
