Facebook Pages Timeline: Friend or foe?
By Lee-Anne Peters
Many people these days have a facebook page or two! These are fantastic ways to spread your message, bring more exposure to your business or product/service and to meet new people. On the other side of the coin, there are many people out there like us, who love to interact with people, businesses and messages in this way by joining pages. As we have come to quickly learn from facebook - they like to change things! Just when we seem to get used to things looking and being a certain way... wham!! A change comes, and then another and another... so how can you make the most out of the *new* facebook pages timeline?
I started my facebook page journey in early 2009 with the intention of inspiring others and having a place to share what was happening with my business - incorporating the same name ‘The Temple of Balance healers’ page came to life. Back in those days it was not ‘common’ practice to have pages, so to have a few hundred was a big deal, these days everyone seems to be joining pages. Now I have over 40 facebook pages, some public profiles, some featuring my books and publications, some specialising in areas of expertise I have developed. With over 30,000 connections spread out through my pages and 95% of my website traffic coming from facebook, these are one of the best forms of spreading the word about your work. Having said that I am personally feeling that facebook is on the decline now... I see that interaction since the pages timeline has dropped by at least half and many people with mobile internet and slow speed are finding the pages take far too long to load, so time spent there is becoming less; however this is topic for a whole new blog.
Let’s get back on track, I wanted to share some tips and tools to help you flow with ease into the facebook pages timeline...
Please note: I am no expert, what I share here is only based on what I have found to work for me. This is not based on facebook information, but my information. Please use what you want to try and discard the rest – Thank you.
PHOTOS |The new sizing for photos has been a little bit of a hassle (especially with 40 pages to adjust), so that may be the first thing you want to focus on when converting your page to the timeline... these are the sizes that work for me:
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| Cover photo: 833x312 pix |
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| Profile photo: 651x651 pix |
MANAGE PAGE | The next thing you may want to do is to look into the managerial aspects of your page. Go into MANAGE and then EDIT PAGE. In the MANAGE PERMISSIONS there will be new options there, including if you want people to be able to message you on your page – personally I do not like this option, I had it open for a few days but got all sorts of messages that wasted my time.
APPS | Applications can be a little tricky, however I have found a great ORDER FORM app, which then goes into a tab under the cover photo.
- Go to the application here: http://www.facebook.com/revealtab - then select GO TO APP on that page
- Then select the page/s that you want to add it to from the list.
- Pop over to Freedback website and create your ORDER FORM - http://www.freedback.com/
- After you have created it, Freedback will show you a <html> code
- Paste this code into the application, by going back to your page... MANAGE > EDIT PAGE > APPS... Look for MY TAB (the new one you added to your page at step 1)... click on GO TO APPLICATION... then paste the <html> code there as directed.
To change the app tab pic – Go to MANAGE > EDIT PAGE > APPS... Look for MY TAB... select EDIT SETTINGS > CUSTOM TAB IMAGE
SHUFFLE TABS | Go back to your main page that everyone sees. Click on the NUMBER with arrow down to the right of the tab section. Then hover your curser over the individual tab and you can shuffle the TABS around to where you want them to be.
PUBLIC POSTING ON THE TIMELINE | This is not very admin friendly, as we have to look on the list to the right to see posts people have made on the ‘wall.’ So keep an eye out there.
TIPS TO HELP BUILD YOUR PAGE FANS | I have found that writing short (not much longer than a tweet – about 2 lines or less) is best, as people don’t need to sit and read. Post eye catching photos / pics that you are allowed to use with your posts – will encourage your fans to share. You may also like to share some posts back to your private profile to encourage interaction. People love games, and giveaways which you can incorporate from time to time (however please read facebook’s policy on this). Be as active as you feel comfortable, but at least one - three posts most days is recommended if you are serious about building your profile on facebook.
NEW PAGES | I have set up a fairly new page which is not allowing @tags or sharing like my older pages. I am yet to work out why.
I feel that facebook is changing everything to encourage people to buy advertising and this will possibly be the downfall of facebook. I hear of more and more people who are leaving, however I am not at that stage yet. I recommend that you keep your options open and maybe be mindful not to put ‘all of your eggs in one basket.’
Personally I like the timeline and how it is more visual, welcoming larger images and the cover photo. I also enjoy the notifications at the top so I can see the new comments from fans. I am not liking the zigzag posting to look for – I personally prefer it to be straight down, and I don’t like how you can’t clearly see fans posting on your wall. I also don’t like the slowness of the page to load as I feel this deters browsers and admins sometimes too!!
I trust this information will be helpful for you, happy playing with your facebook timeline!
Lee-Anne Peters is an author, artist, mentor, speaker and radio host. Lee-Anne is well known for her inspirational facebook posts and her multi-admining dozens of pages and groups. Browse a full list of Lee-Anne’s current facebook pages HERE
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Thank you so much for taking the time to help make some sense of the much dreaded Timeline. I'm sure that others will appreciate your time and effort as well. I know that i truly appreciate it.
ReplyDeleteThank you again Lee-anne! <3