I’ve Had the (Facebook) Time(line) of My Life

Do you remember the old Facebook layout? Neither do we; Facebook Timeline is enabled on almost every user profile and every Facebook fan page. Yet, users are still complaining about it (as they have with any other Facebook redesign) and refuse to accept it.

However, the Timeline is here to stay and the sooner you accept it – the better. After all, no one is forcing you to use Facebook. If you don’t like it – stand by your beliefs and stop using it. You know, Facebook isn’t the only website on the Internet or the only social network out there. And it definitely isn’t the only one that keeps changing. So, instead of whining, use the given tools (Timeline) to get the best out of them and maybe you’ll, just like me, have the Timeline of your life.

Whether you’re talking about your personal profile of your business page, Timeline has its advantages which should not be easily ignored but used creatively.

Messages

Although Messages were available before the Timeline, they are now more visible and your fans will be able to contact you directly. Of course, you can disable this feature in the settings of your page, but since Facebook is all about communication you should use it.

Social media agencies will love this feature because they can simply communicate with their clients’ fans without email communication; which is a good way to keep page administrators a secret – no one needs to know which agency and which community manager is behind it.

Your Timeline, Your Memories

Pretty much everyone has a “retro” album with scanned images of them when they were kids. When you registered for your Facebook account you uploaded several albums with events from your life that happened before the Facebook, right?

With Timeline, you can set the date to those photos and they’ll show up on your Timeline in the exact year, month and day when the event happened. You can also add some other content like that as well; got into college, got married, met your best friend, jumped from an airplane? Any life event you want – you can add it and create a real timeline of your life with all the stuff you want to share with your friends.

Cover Photo

Your profile picture describes you and in the recent Facebook’s redesign you’ve gotten 5 more additional photos on your wall – the last uploaded ones from your albums. However, people were trying to be as creative as possible with it but the results were pretty much disappointing. Say hello to the cover photo.

Cover photo is a big image on top of your Timeline and it goes great with your profile picture. Use it so your followers can get to know you better!

Stop Whining

Facebook is changing constantly and that’s a fact you should accept. Hundreds of “give us the old facebook back” groups won’t make any difference to a decision that was made; and it wasn’t made just like that – I’m sure that Mark and the rest of the Facebook team worked hard to get the best design for you, their users, as well as their Facebook Ads – yes, Facebook is a profit oriented outfit (a company, duh) and it needs to make money.