Advertisement

Customizing Your Facebook Fan Page Timeline

Part of the Facebook All-in-One For Dummies Cheat Sheet

The Facebook Fan Page Timeline is a central place for a business to connect with its customers and share its stories. Fan Page Timelines also enable you to offer information with special access to fans only and build apps to run promotions within Facebook. Customizing the look of your Fan Page Timeline helps deliver a branded experience to your fans. Use the following tips when customizing your Fan Page Timeline:

  • Cover photo: The cover photo is the most prominent part of your Fan Page Timeline. You might say that a good cover photo sets the mood for your Timeline. You can use any image that is at least 399 pixels wide. To create a custom image, the exact dimensions are 851 x 315 pixels.

    Facebook has restrictions on what the cover photo can be used for. You can’t have pricing or purchasing information, contact information such as web addresses, mailing address, or e-mail addresses. (Use the About section for that information.) The cover photo also may not include calls to action such as “call now” or those related to the Facebook interface such as “Like Us.”

  • Profile picture: The profile picture should identify who your company is in a clean and simple way. The profile picture is a square that displays at 160 x 160 pixels; however, the photo that you use must be at least 180 x 180 pixels. The ideal profile picture for a business is a square version of the logo, so that fans can instantly recognize it in their News Feeds.

    The profile picture overlaps the cover photo on the left side starting at about 23 pixels from the left and 210 pixels below the top of the cover. You can easily change your profile picture at any time by clicking the profile picture in your Timeline view and selecting one of the options displayed.

  • Application Pages: All promotions that your business conducts on Facebook are hosted within Application Pages. Applications Pages are images or applications hosted within iframes displayed on your Facebook Fan Page Timeline. Application Pages are 810 pixels wide and dynamic length. They’re great for offering custom information and experiences within the context of Facebook.

    Users are directed to your application via a direct link that you may put within an e-mail, or through the Views and Apps icons directly below your cover photo. These boxes can be customized with images that indicate what these pages are; for example, a restaurant could have an app box that says Menu as its icon within the box. These boxes are 111 pixels wide and 74 pixels tall.

  • Pinning stories: If you have a particular story that you’ve shared within your News Feed that you would like to feature for a longer period of time, you can pin a story so that it remains at the top of your Fan Page Timeline even after you post new content. You can pin a story by clicking the Edit button on the top right of the post and selecting the option to pin the post to the top.

  • Featuring stories: Part of customizing your Facebook Fan Page Timeline is sharing the stories and milestones throughout time for your business. Featuring stories allows you to make stories of your choice occupy the full width of your Timeline to draw more attention to them. You can do this by clicking the star at the top right of a post and then selecting to feature the story.

blog comments powered by Disqus
Advertisement
Advertisement

Inside Dummies.com