New Facebook Pages with Timeline Design

Need more info? Be sure to check out 28 Things You Need to Know About the New Facebook Pages! This post includes additional and new details about the Timeline design for Facebook Pages.

Last night, I decided to try out the New Facebook Pages with Timeline for my freelance writing page. Facebook plans to change things over on March 30th anyway, so you might as well prepare early for what’s coming, and for pages, there are lots of preparations to be made. Here are some of my initial observations about how Timeline affects our favorite Facebook fan page features.

Pros: More About Space & Direct Link to Your Website

Probably one of my favorite changes that comes along with Timeline is the easier to find About information.

This means you can squeeze in more details about your page, brand, or business. Keep it around 165 characters if you don’t want anything important to get cut off, and be sure to include your links for a possible increase in click-through rates to your website from your Facebook page.

The only down side is if you set your Facebook fan page up as a local business. Instead of your About information with website links showing, your contact details will show instead. If you want your website link in this area, the tradeoff is you have to remove your phone number. This is what I had to do with my husband’s Facebook page for his new business as a Arizona wedding photographer.

It’s just a matter of deciding whether your Facebook visitors are more likely to want to visit your website or contact you by phone. I countered that by using the Pagemodo Contact Us app (aff link) which makes it easy to find additional contact information.

Pros: The Timeline Cover

Forget the 540 x 180 pixel banner. Now you can have a Timeline cover photo size that is 850 x 315 pixels. I went with minimalism using this shot taken by my husband, Jason Hines.

As you can see, Timeline covers for Facebook Pages is going to be huge for graphic designers, photographers, and anyone who can create a good image for their page, brand, or business. Just be sure that your Timeline cover photo does not include any of the following, as stated in the Facebook Pages guidelines.

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”

They also say…

This space is not meant for promotions, coupons, or advertisements. Your cover photo should not be primarily text-based or infringe on anyone else’s copyright.

Sadly, this means you can’t replace your lost default landing tab fan gate or promotions with a fan gate or promotional Timeline cover photo.

Pros: Highlighted Items

Just like you can on your personal Timeline profile, you can now highlight important stories on your Facebook Page’s wall by clicking on the Highlight star.

This is a great way to make your most important updates stand out. There’s also an option to pin updates to the top of your Facebook Page’s Timeline.

You can pin one update to the top at a time, but unfortunately you cannot also make it a highlighted update which seems to take away from its ability to stand out.

Pros: Build Audience Options

Remember the option to share your page with your friends? It seems to be back again under your new Admin Panel > Build Audience > Invite Friends. You can choose friends based on recent interactions, locations, groups, or friends lists.

Suggesting your page will make it show up in your friend’s notifications.

Other options to build your page’s fan base include inviting email contacts, sharing the page on your personal profile, or creating an ad.

Pros: At a Glance Insights

The new Admin Panel makes things simple by showing you everything you need to know at a glance including notifications, new people who have liked your page, overall insights, and messages to your page.

Speaking of Insights, you can now see page insights in relation to when you made a post on your Facebook page. Beneath that, you can also see detailed insights about your individual posts including reach, engaged users, users who have interacted (liked, commented, etc.) with your post, and virality.

Each column can be sorted so you can see which posts on your Facebook page are most popular. This will give you a better idea of what posts are best for your audience.

Pros: Private Messaging to Pages

As mentioned above, people can now privately message your page using the prominently displayed Message button, and you (as your page) can respond privately to those who contact you. This might be a good thing for online reputation management as some people may use the private messaging system to discuss issues they are having rather than post them publicly on the page itself.

Cons: Lack of Recent Activity Looks Really Bad

The Timeline design makes lack of recent activity on your Facebook page stand out. A lot.

This means that you must start updating your page before your page is converted to the new design. But don’t do it with only third-party apps because…

Cons: Status Updates by Third-Party Apps Don’t Stand Out

Unlike posts made directly to your Facebook page on Facebook, posts made by some third-party apps will look like this.

Above, you can see recent updates made by the NetworkedBlogs app vs. a link I posted directly on my Facebook photography page. When you are looking to increase click-through rates to your website, posting directly on Facebook will make a big impact.

Cons: No More Default Landing Tab

This one is really getting people up in arms – the loss of the default landing tab. No more putting promotions, fan gates, or other customization elements first by default. You can, however, go to your landing tab on your Facebook page, copy the URL, and then link to that URL so people do go to the specified tab.

This would only work if are not using a Facebook plugin like the Like Box which cannot be linked to a specific tab on your Facebook page. The official plugins will only link to the main page itself, aka your Timeline.

Cons: Only Three Obvious Custom Tabs

With the new design, you can only have three of your custom applications / landing tabs prominently featured on your Facebook page. Additional apps / tabs will be hidden unless a visitor to your page clicks on the down arrow.

The Photos cannot be moved, however the number of Likes to your page can be swapped with your other apps.

This could be a good things for people who want to put less focus on a low amount of likes to their page and more focus on their custom apps / tabs. If you do want to display your number of likes, then you can only have two prominently featured custom apps / tabs. Choose wisely!

Ps. Speaking of custom tabs, these are now 810 pixels wide. Design accordingly.

Cons: No More Featured Likes

One of my Facebook marketing suggestions has always been to like your other Facebook pages with your Facebook pages and make them Featured Likes so visitors to one Facebook fan page will see your other fan pages as well.

Featured Likes are now placed on your Timeline. Depending on your amount of activity, that could mean they are buried pretty far down.

Cons: Recent Posts by Others Are (Sometimes) Not Featured

This is a con depending on how you look at it, but posts by others (such as when someone writes on your wall or tags your page in their status update) are sometimes not prominently featured on your Timeline.

I’m not sure if the difference is due to the fact that Brankica’s link was to a her new Facebook page and the others were links to other websites or just comments. But for those who like having other’s posts display on their Facebook wall, they will be missing it in the new Facebook page Timeline design.

Now it’s your turn. What are your favorite and least favorite things about the New Facebook Pages with Timeline Design? Have you switched over yet? Share your thoughts in the comments!