We all know Facebook “forced” us to change our appearance to the timeline. And we’ve all whined about it, posted about it, complained and shaken our fists in the air. How about using it to improve your business presence? Here are five ways:
1. Pin your images with purpose.
Pinning is a new feature of the timeline that allows you to “pin” your post to the top of your page for 7 days (you have the option to unpin it earlier, if you want). To pin an image, hover over the post, click on the editing pencil, and select “Pin Post.” An orange ribbon in the upper-right corner marks the post as pinned.
But don’t just pin willy nilly – pin with a purpose! Use eye-catching graphics, and don’t forget the almighty call to action. And, when you post and image, you can choose a geographic location, so you can customize your pinned images for your businesses local customers.
2. Get out your Highlighter.
Highlighting a post changes the size to cover the full width of the timeline and make it stand out. To highlight a post, hover over the post and click on the star image. You can have as many highlighted posts as you like, but consider what you are highlighting (and what you should pin instead) to avoid overwhelming your visitors:
- events that are important to you or your company
- new products or service offers
- other peoples comments on your wall if they are relevant or interesting
- testimonials from others
- accomplishments and milestones
- posts that have the high engagement
Important to note: you cannot simultaneously pin and highlight the same post at the same time. Pinned posts have the greatest visibility, but highlighted posts have the great retail space. However, a good trick is to highlight a post before you click pin to make it automatically revert to the former whenever you decide on the next thing to pin. Pinning the newest post then makes the previous pinned item revert to highlighted.
3. Milestones aren’t just for marathon runners and historians.
Another great feature of the Facebook timeline often overlooked is Milestones. Milestones allow you to add past posts or events in time, and have it appear in the correct chronological order on your timeline. Milestones give visitors greater insight into the inner workings of your company. You can show growth, reliability, longevity and relationship building.
To add a milestone, find the icon for updating your status and look to the right for the “Milestone” and select it. Enter your details, and click “save”. Important business milestones could include:
- when your company was formed
- when key people were hired/promoted
- business acquisitions or revenue markers
- biggest achievements
- past events that are memorable or meaningful to your business
4. Distribute your Facebook email address.
Did you even know you had one? While business pages don’t have facebook.com email addresses (yet) your personal profile does. And with that email address, people can email you using any traditional email system, and the emails will show up as messages. So, why not add this email address to your email signature on your correspondence and drive traffic from your personal profile to your business page?
5. Take advantage of the new and improved profile picture size.
At the end of April, Facebook increased the size of your profile picture. The new profile picture size is 160 x 160 pixels and sits at 23 pixels from the left and 210 pixels from the top of the page. If you use this image in conjunction with your cover photo, you should note the distinction in size. This extra room is an opportunity to incorporate messaging, and, more importantly, calls to action into your photos.
What tips do you have to best utilize the new features of Facebook’s timeline for your business?
