Facebook Timeline for Brands is now available to the public.  In order to convert, simply click on the ‘Preview’ button on the top right of your Facebook Fan Page.  If you’re not ready for this experience yet, don’t worry, you will have until March 31 to prepare and clean up your Timeline.  Prepare for what?  Well, here are the top features of the new Facebook Timeline for Brands.

Facebook Timeline for Brands Preview Button

Facebook Timeline for Brands Preview Button

Features of the New Facebook Timeline for Brands | Cover Page

The first cool feature of the new Facebook Timeline for Brands is the ability to create your very own Cover Page.   The dimensions of this Cover Page are 850 x 315 (must be a minimum of 399 pixels wide), which gives you a great opportunity to create a unique profile to keep people on your page.  One word of caution:  Do not use simply to ask for a sale.  In fact, Facebook has listed what it will not allow you to do with a Cover Photo:

  • Price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it at our website”
  • Contact information, such as web address, email, mailing address or other information intended for your Page’s About section
  • References to user interface elements, such as Like or Share, or any other Facebook site features
  • Calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends”

Instead, use this space to heighten the brand experience on your page.  They say that a picture is worth 1,000 words, but if your picture is 1,000 spammy, selling words, then you will turn off visitors to your site.  So get creative!

In addition to changing the Cover Page, the profile picture has changed as well.  Your profile picture represents your Page on other parts of Facebook, like in news feed.  Use your logo or another image that represents your Page. Choose an image that’s square and at least 180 pixels wide.  I’m not wild about this change as you can no longer use longer ribbons to advertise, but the Cover Page function makes up for it.

Features of the New Facebook Timeline for Brands | Pinned Posts

Imagine running a real cool contest on your Facebook Fan Page, only to have so much fan interaction that the contest post is pushed down to the bottom of the page within 15 minutes, thus anyone coming to your site may not find the contest details.  Facebook has finally fixed this feature with the new Timeline for Brands!  You will now be able to pin a post to the top of your Fan page for up to 7 Days.  This new feature is long overdue and a great benefit to Fan page administrators trying to promote an event or contest.  In addition, just like the personal Timeline pages, you can still hover over a story and click on the star ( star icon ) to make it wider, or on the pencil ( pencil icon ) to pin it to the top of your Page, hide or delete it entirely.

Features of the New Facebook Timeline for Brands | Manage Everything From One Place

Facebook Timeline for Brands Admin Panel

Facebook Timeline for Brands Admin Panel

With the new Facebook Timeline for brands, you can now keep track of your activity on your Page from the admin panel. Respond when people write on your Page timeline, and view your latest insights.  Visit your activity log to review all your posts and activity.  In addition, people can now contact you privately using ‘messages’. Notifications about new messages will appear right in your admin panel.  Unfortunately for all you spammers out there, Facebook Timeline for Brands Pages will not allow you to initiate a private message to your fans.

Features of the New Facebook Timeline for Brands |Page Design

Facebook Timeline for Brands Sort Posts

Facebook Timeline for Brands Sort Posts

You now have an opportunity to sort the order of posts on your new Facebook Timeline for Brands pages by the following options: Highlights, Friend Activity, Posts By Page, Posts by Others.  You can now determine how you want your posts to be viewed. If your Page has frequent Friend posts, then you can sort by having your customers posts at the top of the page.  You can go chronologically in order of all posts, or even by ‘highlights’, which are those posts that are deemed most significant.  It’s very simple to change, just simply click on the ‘Posts by Page’ arrow and highlight your choice.

Features of the New Facebook Timeline for Brands |Tips to Getting Started

Here are some of the things you should do right away to get yourself ready to convert to the new Facebook Timeline for Brands:

  • Create a unique cover photo using the 850×315 dimensions
  • Prepare your business chronology, adding in events for important dates, such as when you opened your business, got your first sale, hired your first employee, achieved a financial milestone, attended an event, etc…
  • Clean up an photos or posts that you don’t want posted on the new Timeline
  • Determine what your first post will be (think engagement, engagement, engagement)

Features of the New Facebook Timeline for Brands |fMC Event Video

What does Facebook have to say about their changes to Facebook Pages?  This video will allow you to here it directly from the engineers:

Watch live streaming video from fbmarketingtalks at livestream.com