Facebook Timeline: What it Means for Businesses
By now you would have heard about, or are possibly already using the Facebook Timeline. This is an introduction to the latest Facebook addition, and what it could mean for your Facebook business page.
What is the Timeline?
The timeline is the latest update to Facebook which allows people to add more information to their personal profiles. Basically, it is an visual chronology of your life.
What it means for users
- You can add more information about your life, including key dates and events that occurred before you signed up for Facebook. You can even add a photo to go with the day you were born.
- The layout of the profiles have changed, and one of the more notable changes is the inclusion of a cover photo. The cover photo is basically a banner at the top of your page that displays a photo of your choice.
- Maps are a more prominent feature. When you check in to places through Facebook, it logs the location and shows on a map all the places you have been.
Here is an example of the top of the new profile page layout (with person information blacked out):
What it means for Business Pages
- Recently, word emerged that Facebook will be rolling out beta Timeline Brand Pages to select businesses at the end of February. However, it is not known when the feature will be rolled out to all Facebook Business Pages.
- Until Timeline Brand Pages come out, Business/Brand Pages will remain the same.
- According to sources, Timeline Brand Pages will have a similar look and feel to personal Timelines, but they will not be a carbon copy.
- No one is exactly sure what changes will occur, but things such as a change to apps on the side of pages and businesses being able to chronicle the history of their business (e.g. Coca-Cola could cover its entire history from when it was founded in 1982) have been hypothesised.
- Some sites have even created mock-ups of what they believe new Brand Pages may look like, such as this one of Coca-Cola below, courtesy of Mashable.
Have any thoughts or suspicions about the timeline feature on Facebook? Share them below in the comment section.
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