Facebook Timeline for Pages: Everything You Should Know About It
Facebook released its Timeline layout for brand pages or as you may know them, fan pages. This change was announced before and it was expected – we’d hardly believe that Facebook would allow profiles to have one layout while pages had another one.
Now that everything is unified, Facebook can move on with its plans for better ads placement and reach – which might even be a good thing for you. Timeline itself is pretty much the same for pages as it is for profiles, however, there are some changes you should take care about, so read on!
The Timeline, Profile and Cover Images
After having all users accommodated to the Timeline layout, Facebook decided it’s the time to release the same layout to brand pages. As described on Facebook itself, Timeline for pages allows you to highlight your posts, add a cover photo and manage everything in one place inside the Admin Panel.
You can preview your pages in the Timeline layout and if you like them, you can publish them immediately. If you don’t like them, revert back to the old layout. However, keep in mind that you’ll be switched on March 30th – so make sure to prepare everything for that moment.
For starters, you’ll need to prepare your profile picture and a cover image. NearCoastMedia did some measurements and come up with the fact that your profile picture should be 180×180 pixels in size, and it should look good at 32×32 pixels as well. Your cover photo should be 850×315 pixels.
Landing Tabs Are Gone
TechCrunch noticed how this new layout affects one big functionality of old Facebook pages – landing tabs (and tabs in general). This means that you won’t see those “like to see a picture” links anymore. However, if you’re the admin of a legitimate page and you use welcome tabs to greet your potential fans, you won’t be able to do that anymore.
Applications, which were in tabs as well, are moved to those small rectangles just below your cover image. Messages to pages are now more visible, so if your page allows it, your fans will be able to send you a private message so you can communicate with them. To have a conversation between a user and a page, the user must initiate it, i.e. send the message first.
What do you think of Timeline on brand pages? Are they going to be more useful for the brands or the fans?
