Facebook Timeline for Brands

At the F8 Conference last September, Facebook shook up the world of social media when it announced that it was launching it’s unique ‘photo-centric’ format known as  Timeline for Facebook users.  This visual representation of your life transformed the social media giant into a scrapbook of your Facebook life.  In December, the Timeline launch was made available to the entire public and, as of January, has now become mandatory that everyone use it.

Now, Facebook is launching its business version of Timeline, called Timeline for Brands, which will be slowly released starting at the end of this month.

In perhaps one of the worst kept secrets in the industry, Facebook has been planning to announce Timeline for Brands at their first-ever fMC event held specifically for marketers, which will take place on February 29th in New York City.   The rumor is that the new Timeline for Brands will start in beta with a handful of partners and then be released to more marketers in stages, however, officially, Facebook declined to comment on the product or the timing.

Facebook Timeline for Brands | What will it look like?

Again, Facebook will deliver the details at the February 29th fMC event, so all we can do is speculate.  So here’s some of the top speculations of the Facebook Timeline for Brands:

• Expanded company history Timeline – Unlike Facebook Timeline, which started the Timeline from the creation of your Facebook account, Timeline for Brands may actually allow the brand manager to go back in time, prior to Facebook, to highlight some monumental moments in its history and create their own company outline.
• Tabs and Apps– what will happen to all the cool stuff on the side of the Facebook Brand Page?  Some feel that it will appear as boxes similar to other sites, ranging from Spotify to Washington Posts Social Reader.
• Skin Designs– it is rumored that Brand managers may also be able to create a skin design for the sides of the Facebook Page, similar to how Twitter and YouTube allow you to design skins advertising your product or promote your brand.  Currently, it is just blank Facebook color.  This could present some very creative designs.  It makes sense considering Facebook’s focus on visual stimulation.
• Sticky posts– Twitter Brand Pages will allow you to keep a couple of posts at the top of the page at all times.  Will Facebook Timeline for Brands allow you to do the same?

Facebook Timeline for Brands | How to prepare?

Even though there are quite a few things about Timeline for Brands that we do not understand, there are still some things that we can do to prepare in advance.  Here are some tips on how to prepare for Timline for Brands:

• Cover Page– time to start designing your creative brand cover page.  When Timline is implemented, you don’t want to just have your logo up there.  Start preparing now and stand out from your competition by creating your very own cover page now.
• Highlight events in company history – It’s a good idea to start deciding now which events you would like to feature as milestones. Remember, if the rumors are correct, you will be able to go back to the beginning of your company, so think about interesting events throughout the years that people would be interested in.  Start digging through stacks of photos & scanning now and uploading those old videos as well.  You’ll have a new home for them.
• Clean up your admins– Some Facebook Fan Pages have over a dozen admins on them.  Are they all still involved with your company?  With all the attention that the Facebook Timeline for Brands will be generating, and bitter former employee who may still have admin rights can easily come in and post derogatory comments.  Plus, with the ability to go back beyond the original date of the creation of the Facebook Page, they can post other dirty details that you may not want others to know about. So it’s a good idea to go through and check who you want to give admin rights to and who you don’t right away.

In conclusion, no one really knows for sure what the Facebook Timeline for Brands features or functions will be, but you can bet that there will be a whole bunch of buzz about it for the next two weeks.  As more information is released on Timeline for Brands, Black Box Social Media will provide you with the details and how it will affect your business.