Many Facebook changes are often met with hesitancy and resistance among users. Despite some opposition to the new design, Timeline is here to stay and all business pages go live in a few short weeks at the end of March. Timeline is the new overhaul of Facebook’s user profiles that has now rolled out for business fan pages. The new look and feel offers many advantages, but you may need to re-think your design strategy as you go through the upgrade.
New design tactics are now needed in place of the old ones and the challenges are to be even more attractive to your fans, to immerse and captivate their attention and encourage them to consume and share your content. The new cover image feature has a lot more potential to generate a strong visual impact, so a design for a strong consistent image or a plan for rotating cover images will help you prepare to look your best, make that critical first impression and keep fans intrigued and coming back to your page. Understanding what’s most meaningful to your target market will help with the new Timeline’s reduction in tab visibility and as well the disappearance of the default landing page. The new method of featuring content that most resembles the default landing page is the ability to pin posts to the top of the page. Designing posts for the purpose of being pinned will be a strategy you’ll begin to see used often. Additionally, some of the icons on your page may need to be re-sized or redesigned to fit into the new page structure. As you repurpose, restructure, or even throw out your old designs, it’s important to keep in mind these different aspects of the Timeline layout that give you the opportunity to create traction with fans.
The best way to make sure your branding and design for the new Timeline layout is aligned with best practices is not to think of your Facebook Business Page as a place for static content to reside. Instead think of it as a launch pad where posts are viewed then shared. The social aspects of sharing help generate greater visibility, and encouraging that behavior is at a premium. It is even more important than how long someone views your page. Being conversational, interesting and stimulating to your target audience will achieve greater brand awareness and ultimately more sales. To get your customers to interact with your content, it should be more about them than about you. Videos are commonly shared items on Facebook, and creating engaging videos your fans can share with their friends will help broaden your reach. The influence friends have in their trusted networks is huge so making your fans feel compelled to share exclusive deals with their friends can help increase sales. Limiting deals or offers can help customers share only with those they trust and therefore they will be incited to share only with those to whom they can make a strong recommendation. Once your content is resinating with your customers they practically sell your product or service for you, and that’s great news!
Archway Internet Marketing Inc. is a Chicago based company known for serving small businesses with social media, design, strategy and content to help bring new customers through the door. We pride ourselves on being available to our clients to play a crucial role in their marketing decisions. If there is anything we can help you with, please schedule an appointment by calling 1-877-50-TWEET.
