As of March 30th, all Facebook business pages will switch to a new Timeline layout to personal profiles. This has been expected since Facebook first unveiled Timeline back in 2011 but nobody thought it would come so soon after the personal Timeline rolled out.

Although the changes will be mandatory from March 30th, businesses can preview and publish their Timeline right now!

Use this guide to ease yourself in to the new page layout and update your page accordingly. For a more comprehensive guide to social media marketing, come down to Brighton for Social Media Training. Book with SEO Training, Google Analytics Training and Content Marketing Training for a full week of internet marketing training and save money in the process.

For a more comprehensive look at the latest Facebook features and a free cover photo template use our Complete Facebook Timeline Guide.

Step by step guide to setting up Timeline for Facebook Businesses

From today, page owners will be greeted with this message when they log in to Facebook:

You have three options here:

• Preview how your page will look (gives you a chance to get it looking right)
• Publish the Timeline straight away (you can edit it afterwards)
• Ignore it and hope it goes away (not a great idea for marketers!)

The first thing we noticed is a new admin area:

This is the new hub for business page owners for monitoring page performance and check recent activity. There are three tabs to get you started with improving your page before it goes live:

We recommend you spend a bit of time using the manage tab before the build audience tab so that you are inviting people to view a finished page. ‘Help’ is useful for learning about all the new features and how best to use them. The ‘Pages Product Guide’ is an 8 page guide written by Facebook and is well worth a read. Then you can begin editing how your page looks.

Facebook Business Page Timeline Layout

Cover Photo

Use our Facebook Timeline Cover Photo Template to create an attractive image at the top of your page. Your image should 851 x 315 pixels and high enough quality that it does not look pixelated.

The cover photo is a great way to sell your brand so choose something attractive that reflects your business and what you do. It is also a chance to get your contact details right in front of your people’s eyes.

Here’s ours:

What do you think?

Where Have My Tabs Gone?

Those of you who have spent a lot of time coming up with great Facebook tabs using our Facebook iFrame App guide might be wondering where they have gone. Don’t worry, they’re still there, but they are not very visible anymore. They now appear alongside your about, photos and likes:

Only two appear so make sure your best ones are listed first. The rest are accessed by the drop down next to ’4′.

Clicking on the tabs takes you to a new page, which is a different size to the old frames so resize your images accordingly.

The most popular use of Facebook tabs was as landing pages. This is no longer possible so you have to think carefully about how your Timeline appears to visitors.

One solution to this problem is to ‘pin’ a post to the top of your page:

Use this feature to keep promotions and features at the top of your timeline at all times.

What Next?

Now that you’ve updated your settings, added a cover photo, arranged your tabs and pinned your favourite content it is almost time to go live.

Firstly, have a skim through your Timeline wall. On previous versions of Facebook, old posts were covered up very quickly – now they’re there for everyone to see easily. Delete anything you don’t want potential customers to see – for example if your prices have changed in the past few years you may want to delete references to old prices to avoid confusion.

Once you are completely happy with how your page looks – publish it!

Tell Everyone About Your New Facebook Page

Now is the time to use the ‘Build Audience’ feature. Get promoting your page – invite new fans and let your current fans know by using the new message function! Yes, for the first time since the feature was taken away from groups, businesses can directly message their followers. This means that nobody will miss out on any promotions or competitions you run and your customers have a private line to you on Facebook. Some customers shy away from posting on a company’s wall so the ability to send a private message should lead to more customer interaction.

What do you think about the changes? We think they’re fantastic for marketers – more branding opportunities, more customer engagement and a chance for your customers to see how your business has evolved over time. Do you agree or are you annoyed that your iFrame apps have disappeared off the page? Let us know in the comments below…

Similar posts you may like

Tags

Facebook, facebook business pages, facebook for businesses, facebook timeline, facebook timeline for business pages, facebook tutorial, new facebook busing pages, social media marketing, step by step guide facebook timeline, timeline for business pages

Share This Post