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Tips to Help You Get Even More Out of Your Facebook Page

June 28th, 2012 ::

Facebook Timeline

By now, you’ve probably adjusted your Facebook strategy to leverage the new features of Timelines. But, are you sure you’re getting all you can out of your Facebook page?

Here are six easy ways to use Timelines features in your company’s Facebook marketing strategy.

1.  Make the most of a smaller profile photo

Unfortunately, Facebook profiles have shrunk from up to 180px by 540px to 125px by 125px. However, you are virtually free to do anything you want with this image, so get creative. You can create a special image to grab fans’ attention or experiment with the combination of the profile picture and cover image to create eye-catching effects. Of course, you can always use this smaller space for your company logo and save the larger cover image for more creative displays.

2.  Experiment with a large, bold cover image

You have plenty of room – 851px by 315px – to get as creative as you’d like with the new cover photos. Just be careful not to break any of Facebook’s rules for cover image use, such as using the space to offer discounts or other marketing offers.

Instead, use the cover image to enforce your brand with a relevant, communicative photo. You may also want to include pictures of your products or your team in this valuable piece of Facebook real estate.

3.  Channel your visitors with custom tabs

Timelines has custom tabs, which link to applications, directly below the cover image. The photos tab must remain in place, but you can customize the others to direct visitors to important information on your page, such as a new product announcement or invitation to an event. In addition to the photos tab, you can have up to 11 additional tabs to use creatively.

4.  Highlight special announcements or sales pitches with pins

You can create sticky posts with special offers for your customers by using Facebook’s pinning feature. These posts won’t get buried under your other Facebook content, so you can use them for time-sensitive deals or breaking news from your company. Now, you can be sure your visitors receive your most important messages, no matter when they visit your page.

5.  Draw attention to important posts with stars

Starring posts is another way to highlight them, but instead of sticking to the top, they will remain in your Timeline as wide screen-style posts. The larger size of starred posts make them stand out, so you can keep important information easily accessible for your fans. You may want to star a post announcing contest winners or an upcoming speaking engagement to give this information prominence on your Timeline.

6.  Study your competition’s Facebook activity                        

This final tip is a bit sneaky, but it is completely on the up and up, and it works quite well. According to blogger Raag Vamdatt, you can check out your competition on their Facebook page by clicking on the box with the number of Likes in it. When you click, Facebook displays insights – or analytics – about your competitor’s page. You can see how many people are talking about the page, study the page demographics, and look for trends regarding new Likes, etc. You can use the information you gather to enhance your own Facebook tactics.

***

Have you discovered your own special way of leveraging Facebook Timelines features? We’d love to hear from you! Please leave your comments in the box below.

Image courtesy of reface.me

The views expressed here are the author's alone and not those of Network Solutions or its partners.

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Tags: , ,
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | 7 Comments »

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 28th, 2012 at 9:00 am and is filed under Marketing, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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  • JESS K

    Interesting, but sure would be nice to have a link “How to do this” for each of the six! For us Dummies!!!!

  • Anonymous

     Hey Jess – thanks for the comment.  This is a “how to do” post – do you feel the instructions aren’t clear enough?

  • JESS K

    I am that “left brain right brain” thing.  Often when people write their ‘instructions’ they are writing to an audience at their level, where as the masses are at a little bit lower level.    A lot of assumptions were made about, ‘stars’ and ‘tabs’ etc. that the average newbie on FB simply do not have the knowledge of those things. So NO I do not think the info was clear enough, for the masses. BUT this is NOT surprising that ‘techies’ so, “oh this is easy” ….  it may be easy if you know how to do it, but not so easy for people trying to learn. [NOT being mean or rude – just uninformed! …. as I said…. “For us Dummies”. 

    I have been in Sales for way too many years, and have always been told, pay attention to your own business and not worry about competitors.  Lots of wasted time to try to ‘keep up with the Jones’.  
    In my case my “competitors” COPIED our name, copy our post, and other things like that, 
    so may I am the one doing the right thing!!! LOL!!! 

    I’ve gone back and read the posts again, and still feel they are over the head of the masses!!!  I have asked several people that are way more clever with FB, and none of them knew about ‘stars’ or ‘tabs’.

    I think I do OK with #1 #2 #3  it is the #4 #5 #6 that baffle me
    I tried the sticky note suggest, and it went no where! and did not stay at the top of my page, 
    as I thought it might. 

    BUT thanks for trying to make FB better for those of us that are trying to use Social Media
    for marketing.  I am in a much depressed industry, so I am happy whenever I get any response.
    We have about a 75% close rate.

    We do not care how many ‘hits’ we get.  We only care about how many clients request a product from us!  Lots of people get thousands of hits, but no business, we do not get thousands of hits, but we are garnering business from our Social Media. 

     

  • JESS K

    I am that “left brain right brain” thing.  Often when people write their ‘instructions’ they are writing to an audience at their level, where as the masses are at a little bit lower level.    A lot of assumptions were made about, ‘stars’ and ‘tabs’ etc. that the average newbie on FB simply do not have the knowledge of those things. So NO I do not think the info was clear enough, for the masses. BUT this is NOT surprising that ‘techies’ so, “oh this is easy” ….  it may be easy if you know how to do it, but not so easy for people trying to learn. [NOT being mean or rude – just uninformed! …. as I said…. “For us Dummies”. 

    I have been in Sales for way too many years, and have always been told, pay attention to your own business and not worry about competitors.  Lots of wasted time to try to ‘keep up with the Jones’.  
    In my case my “competitors” COPIED our name, copy our post, and other things like that, 
    so may I am the one doing the right thing!!! LOL!!! 

    I’ve gone back and read the posts again, and still feel they are over the head of the masses!!!  I have asked several people that are way more clever with FB, and none of them knew about ‘stars’ or ‘tabs’.

    I think I do OK with #1 #2 #3  it is the #4 #5 #6 that baffle me
    I tried the sticky note suggest, and it went no where! and did not stay at the top of my page, 
    as I thought it might. 

    BUT thanks for trying to make FB better for those of us that are trying to use Social Media
    for marketing.  I am in a much depressed industry, so I am happy whenever I get any response.
    We have about a 75% close rate.

    We do not care how many ‘hits’ we get.  We only care about how many clients request a product from us!  Lots of people get thousands of hits, but no business, we do not get thousands of hits, but we are garnering business from our Social Media. 

     

  • Anonymous

    Gotcha!  Yeah, I tend to write at a higher level, as most readers already have a basic understanding of social media and how to use it. I will be writing a beginner’s guide post soon, so keep an eye out for that – I will keep it as basic and detailed as possible. 

  • dRed

    What’s a px and how do I adjust it?
    How about some click by click directions?
    How do I change the cover image? Where do I go to do that?
    How do you change tabs, use pins and stars?

  • Anonymous

     Px stands for pixel.  If you want super detailed Facebook instructions (I write at a higher level as you can tell!), check out Mari Smith’s blog – http://www.marismith.com/.