You may have noticed Facebook’s friendly reminder that “On March 30, 2012, all Facebook Pages will get a new design”. So what does that mean for your business fan page? Here are some of the new features and things that will be changing:
Cover Photo: The new Timeline design provides you with a great large space for a lead image, known as your cover photo. This provides you with an opportunity to visually represent your brand. Facebook advises against posting outright advertisements and instead encourages promotional photos instead.
Company History: Another fun thing about the Timeline is the opportunity it gives you to share your company’s history by adding in historic events. For example, you can add an event for the day your company was founded, the opening of a new store, or the addition of a new employee. Fans will then have the opportunity to look back and get a quick history of your organization.
Custom Tabs: Your Facebook page no longer has a left sidebar with links to tabs, instead you now have rectangular boxes below your cover photo. Due to space, you are limited to 4 boxes and the rest are accessible using a drop down menu. These new boxes can be customized with unique names, photos and can be easily rearranged. When you visit a tab you now have a full page of space to work with so you may need to spend some time updating your custom tabs.
Highlighted Posts: Another fun way to promote your content on your Facebook page is to “highlight” a post. Whenever you post an update on the Timeline of your fan page you will see two boxes in the top right of the update. You can click on the star to “highlight” your update which will expand the update to the full width of your Timeline.
Private Messaging: Facebook has finally given businesses the opportunity to answer questions posted by customers privately using Facebook’s messaging system. This is very helpful in keeping the clutter on your Timeline to a minimum.
As the new Timeline for Pages roll out we can expect to see continued updates and additional features showing up. Facebook is reporting that they are also planning to add different administrator levels to allow page managers to assign specific permissions required for tasks such as wall moderator, advertising management, and insight rolls.