By Paul Jones

Facebook Timeline for Business Pages 

Cover Images - thebestofcoventry 

The dust has settled since the announcement at the Facebook Mission Control conference (fMC) that Facebook pages for Business AKA ‘Fan Pages’ are to get the new timeline similar to Facebook personal profiles. 

There are lots of new ways to engage with your target market (Fans) but are you familiar with the ‘New’ T&C’s for Facebook Business Pages. 

One off the major changes is the ‘Cover Image’ that whopping great big picture at the top of your page.

This is one the highlights of the New Facebook Timeline for Pages, for the first time Facebook are giving brands and businesses a large chunk of ‘Real Estate’ to showcase what you do and show what you are about.. But, there are rules..! 
Below is a copy of the guidelines regarding ‘Cover Images’ supplied by Facebook

Use a unique image that represents your Page. This might be a photo of a popular menu item, album artwork or a picture of people using your product. Be creative and experiment with images your audience responds well to. 

Cover images must be at least 399 pixels wide and may not contain:

• 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" 

All cover images are public, which means anyone visiting your Page will be able to see the image you choose. Covers must not be false, deceptive or misleading, and must not infringe on third parties' intellectual property. 

You may not encourage or incentivize people to upload your cover image to their personal timelines. 

So in short, No ‘Calls to Action’ including arrows pointing to the ‘like’ button, telephone numbers etc. 

So while there are some limitations to the ‘Cover Image’ this is a great addition to the new timeline for pages and remember that all your contact information ‘sits’ right under the cover image anyway! NB depending on what type of page you have. 

There will be lots of ways to add ‘calls to action’ on your page and we will be discussing these in detail shortly. 

So what do you think of the new timeline for pages?

Will you be adding a ‘Call to Action’ on your Cover Image or sticking to the ‘Rules’..? 

We would love to know your thoughts, so please leave a comment below. 

Quick Tips: 

The ‘Minimum’ size for the cover image is 399 pixels – The maximum is 850 x 310 pixels (Facebook will automatically re-size images) 

Remember, your logo will partially cover a part of your cover image so bear this in mind when you design the image. 

The new logo size is 180 x 180 pixels which will appear as 30 x 30 pixels on Facebook feeds when you post comments, pictures etc 

The new timeline is ‘Mandatory’ for all pages and will come in to effect on 30/03/12 

My personal recommendation is to get ready for the switch over by preparing your logo, cover image and things like ‘App images’ now and wait until nearer the time before going ‘live’ so any ‘bugs’ can be fixed by facebook 

NB there is a known problem with Facebook pages not re-freshing once somebody has ‘liked’ your page when landing on a ‘Fan Gate’ or ‘Reveal’ page, so if you are using Facebook Ads it may worth holding of a while until this is fixed. 

If you have any questions, comments or need help setting up your page the ‘Right’ way why not get in touch?