Expert Business Advice by Kerry Ensor
So what do these changes mean for all the marketers out there? Broadly speaking Facebook now offers more diverse ways to enhance an authentic brand experience away from a base level of direct promotions and brand messaging.
Last month changed the landscape of Facebook for Business. The introduction of the Timeline for Pages was not unexpected but the extent of the changes has surprised some. As with everything on the everchanging landscape of social media, we will soon adjust and forget the old ‘Wall’ and the new ‘Timeline’ format will become second nature. By introducing this new style for business pages, Facebook have done the equivalent of turning a diary into an online magazine with columns and features – all providing great opportunities for branding and storytelling. If you wish to update your Page yourself, there are a lot of how-to articles available including a nice overview pdf from Facebook. But as with any social media platform the ‘set-up’ is always the easy part, it’s making the page work for your business that takes more time and effort.
True to the core values of Facebook, this ‘magazine’ format is designed to present engaging content and storytelling. This reflects the interests of the consumer – essentially people are not on Facebook to be sold to. They are there to engage with ideas and areas of interest and to interact socially – a great opportunity for any business that wants to differentiate themselves by sharing their brand personality and adding value to customer service. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, content is always king. Changing our thinking from the traditional ‘push’ marketing – delivering one-way sales messages to customers - to supplying information which adds value and creates a relationship of trust with your customers is the new approach, commonly termed ‘pull‘ marketing.
These changes underline this change in marketing approach. Businesses need to move with the times if they wish to communicate with their customer base effectively and be noticed on social media platforms. 1. Increased Visual Branding Opportunities – how your Page looks
With the help of a graphic designer and good imagery the new Cover picture, likened to a website banner, gives a company great branding space. Working within the FB restrictions you can represent your brand here, with a simple logo, web banner or clever use of graphical elements and imagery of your branding. This slideshow on mashable. com shows some great examples for inspiration. If you have existing imagery you just need to ensure that it works in a
horizontal banner format (851 x 315 pixels). For some businesses this will not be easy – if you just have square images or photos, plain logos, especially if they are in low resolution, you may find that you would better to get some graphic design input. However, if you have patterns as imagery this may be effective on its own, or with the addition of some wording.
With the old style Facebook your branding space was a welcome page and a side-bar avatar and you had free range of ‘advertising space’ to show and say what you liked there. Whilst this is great opportunity for branding, there are some restrictions to consider (note: these are new): 1. No website address or contact information 2. No call to action, like Buy Now 3. No reference to the words Like or Follow, so no ‘Like our Page’ 4. No reference to price offers The Thumbnail avatar is the second piece of visual branding. We can get all very creative and excited about our Cover Pic, but it’s worth remembering that this little 32 x 32 px thumbnail remains the image that people will see most often. So it’s important to ensure that this picture represents your brand and is highly recognisable because it represents your ongoing opportunity to create brand awareness. A simple logo or a product picture or a photo of yourself (if you are your company’s brand) would be most suitable here.
A less obvious branding opportunity is the potential to customize the navigation tabs. The links to your Photos and other Apps (formerly sitting on the left hand sidebar of your Page) are now displayed as navigation buttons just below your Cover Pic. When you first change to Timeline there will be default images inserted here. You can change the order of these buttons and use any appropriate visual or call to action here that best promotes your brand. The process behind changing