Tuesday Tech: Facebook Timeline for Pages

Blogged recently about Timeline, the latest Facebook change. The grumbling about the timeline format seems to have faded to a muted mutterring as people get used it - and some (shock horror) users even seem to like Facebook Timeline!

Now it is the turn of businesses, not for profits and religious institution. On Tuesday March 6, Timeline came to facebook Pages and eight million brands switched in the first week. (There are 37 million brand pages). My company, People First -Total Solutions was one of the eight million! More than a million Facebook Pages per day have been making the switch since. Some companies have started muttering, complaining about the enforced switch.  All brand pages will forcibly convert to Timeline by March, 30 2011. 

Timeline organises your information chronologically allowing people to move to and from specific dates and timings. The idea is that  the “timeline” profile page layout will allows businesses, brands and organisations to be more visual in the way they express themselves.  


If as a company or not for profit brand, you are still using Facebook as if you were  a person and not a company, they you need to get that fixed first. Do it now! 


What needs to be done to manage switching to Timeline?


Step One: Choose a Cover Photo for your brand
The most obvious feature of the new visual focus is the large (public) Cover Photo at the top of the page. Cover photos must be at least 399 pixels wide to a maximum of  850 pixels wide. Height: 315 pixels.


I have found this a really difficult task. As this is the first thing, people will see, I wanted to be right. Do I show a training scene? Do we use the picture from the top of our e news? Or do I show a more casual shot? The experts are saying that  the picture needs to be  "dynamic and representative".  Facebook have some rules to follow for cover images:

1. No price or purchase information, such as “33% off” or “Find it at our website”
2. No contact information
3. No references to Liking or Sharing
4. No calls to action including “Donate now”, "Buy Today" or “Tell your friends and family”

You change your Cover Photo by clicking anywhere on the Cover Photo. 

Step Two: Update your Brand's Profile Picture

For my personal Facebook, this is easy. I use a photo of myself. For People First-Total Solutions, I oscillate between a picture of me or the logo. Currently it is our logo. You may use a logo, mascot or something else that clearly represents your brand.

Facebook recommends a square image that’s 180 by 180 pixels.

Step Three: Update the About Us Section

On the left hand side is a button labelled  "About ". When you are logged in, click on the about link and when the about page opens,  “edit” buttons will appear. Annoyingly, Facebook won't let me have more than one phone number, and People First have five.

Step Four: Build Your Apps

On the Right hand side are "Apps" which you can use to build your brand. The first "app" are your Photos. This aways is the first app so you cannot move or delete it. All of the otherapps, can be addded or removed easily.

Step Five: Fill Up Timeline

The next feature is the ability to add milestones to the timeline eg when company was founded. or Opened New Office.  When someone visits a page, they can easily scroll through the highlights of the organisation.  





Step Six: Fill Up Timeline

Highlight important posts and milestones on the timeline: There are two ways to do this:

1. Pin a post to the top of your page for seven days. Click on the pencil that appears in the top right corner of the post. It will give you the choice of "pinning, changing date of  post or remove it entirely. 
2. Increase size of a post from one column to both columns. Click the star that appears in the top  right corner of a post and voila!. The post will move down the timeline as new milestones and info is added.

Step Seven: Engaging with Admin Panel

The Admin panel includes: 

• Notifications which tells you key information about vistors
• Messages -people can now quickly and easily send messages 
• New Likes -obvious?
• Insights which tracks users and interactions with the page. Tracking kicks in when your page has 30 "Likes"
• Page Tips giving you Facebook lessons

There are three main options for the Admin Page:

1. Manage: - allows you to edit the page
2.  Build Audience: For example you can invite email contacts from Workshops, outings etc
3. Help-obvious?

There you have it: Using TimeLine

The Cowling Report Readership rises 30% in February

Thank you for your on going readership of this blog. In February, we increased the number of readers by a third. A lot of that growth was connected to a blog post on major, major changes to the Volunteer Centre funding arrangements in Australia.

While there were a lot of readers and a number of comments privately, not many commented on the blog.

I wonder why?

Other appreciated articles included:


Monday Motivation:Nelson Mandela: Inaugural Address - Published Jan 2, 2012

An older one- No More Free Training? Published Sep 8, 2011

Tuesday Tech: Korman Social Media learnings - a great one for agencies to reflect on the potential perils of Social Media:  Feb 7, 2012,

My blog post on The Facebook timeline continues to be popular. I will be writing soon about the changes for organisational pages with Timeline. First this Tuesday, I need to talk about the Google privacy changes.

Have a great March,

Using Facebook's New Timeline [Updated]

Timeline or not to timeline has been the question on many fingertips recently as Facebook unveiled its newest update: Timeline. This has been "opt-in" but is now starting to be rolled out for everyone. It will soon not be optional. Some users have loved it- and some have hated it - as many hate every Facebook change. Timeline, however, looks like it is here to stay, despite what some scammers have been suggesting. Don't believe any emails or messages suggesting Timeline will be rolled back. There has also been some hysteria about the changes and impact on privacy...see below.

This video shows how the timeline sequence works. One fears what will be unrolled at people's 18th and 21st Birthday parties in the futureTimeline is being steadily added to Facebook profiles. When you are selected, a drop-down will appear asking you to upgrade to the new profile. There is a set of easy instructions. Follow them and you’ll be switched to the timeline.

Facebook then gives you seven days to check your Timeline before others can view it.  There are four things to consider.

1. Choose a Cover ( the large photo at the top of your timeline, above your profile picture. NB Your profile picture and Cover are Public which means everyone visiting your profile can see them. To add a cover, follow these Facebook instructions. 
2. There may be major life events you want to feature prominently on your Timeline eg new jobs or promotions, relationships, kids etc. Scroll back up to the top of the Timeline and look at the field where you’d type a new status update. Just above it, you’ll see the “Life event” button. This opens a menu of life event options.
3. There may be posts, you don’t want anyone to see anymore. Move your mouse pointer over the story in the Timeline; two icons will appear in the right hand top corner of that story. Click the one on the one on the right that is pencil shaped and you will be given an option to delete that story.
4. Adjust your privacy settings.  Go to "Home" (Right hand side of facebook next to your name) and choose "Privacy Settings". You can then choose your default setting. When you post from now on, Facebook will follow your default setting. 

There are three choices as illustrated here:

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• Public- use this for messages you want anyone to see e.g "Yankees to win"
• Friends- I recommend that you change your default settings to this-  only your friends will see your posts wherever they are posted (see below)
• Custom -which gives you more choices:-

1. "Only Me" (spoils the point of Facebook) but you could post "I have won a million dollars" or "Remember to buy groceries"
2. "Friends of Friends" -use this for messages you want your friends's networks to see eg: "I am engaged"
3. or you can set your posts so that certain people do not a post e.g. "I am too drunk to come into work today"- you may want your friends to see this but not your workmates

You can also change your settings for every post as you post it. 

With every Facebook change, comes myth and fear. One of which is this message which has been circulating: 

"With the new 'FB timeline' on its way next week for EVERYONE...please do both of us a favour: Hover over my name above. In a few seconds you'll see a box that says "Subscribed." Hover over that, then go to "Comments and Likes" and unclick it. That will stop my posts and yours to me from showing up on the side bar(ticker) for everyone to see, but MOST IMPORTANTLY it LIMITS HACKERS from invading our profiles. If you re-post this I will do the same for you. You'll know I've acknowledged you because if you tell me that you've done it I'll 'like' it :) Thanks!"

This is a myth. All that will happen is YOU wont see your friend's events. If your friend has checked friends only, then only their friends including you will see their posts anyway. If they are very nervous about the general public knowing they are eating a sandwich or their mother has tonsillitis, they need to set their privacy settings to friends NOT 'friends of Friends" or "Public" (as mentioned above). Think about this, if you have 400 friends, would you really want to change the settings for all of them. And if you do, you wont see anyone's post.

One more thing on this scam. Every time you see a panicked messgae with CAPS, it is usually a scam. Please do not post this message. If someone does, please correct them and feel free to give them this link: http://cowlingreport.blogspot.com/2012/01/facebook-timeline.html.