Facebook Marketing: 9 Good Ideas for Your Business

How to Migrate Your Page to Facebook Timeline

By Amy Porterfield, Phyllis Khare, and Andrea Vahl from Facebook Marketing All-in-One For Dummies

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Facebook Timeline for Pages is almost here. Your Page will be switched to the new Timeline format automatically on March 30. Prepare for the migration by adding a few key elements to your Page now. You can publish your Timeline ahead of schedule or just have it ready to go for the big switch.

The first step is to view your Page as your profile to access the Timeline preview. You may see the notice to switch to your personal profile at the top of your Page when you are logged in as your Page.

Click on the hyperlink to switch back to your personal profile. You will then see the Timeline preview for your Page.

Adding a cover photo to Timeline

Your cover photo is the most important part of your Timeline and sets the tone and branding for your Facebook Page. Spend some time looking at other Pages that have converted to the Timeline to get some design ideas.

Per Facebook, your cover photo can't contain:

Any call to action such as “Click Like” or share our page
Anything about your prices or a promotion
Contact information like your phone number, address, or website

To add your Cover photo, follow these steps:

Select the Add a Cover button in the upper right corner. A pop-up box appears to remind you not to use your cover photo as a promotional space. Select Okay to continue.
You now see the dropdown menu to either choose a photo from one of your current photos or upload a photo.

The picture you use for the cover photo must be a minimum of 399 pixels across (most standard photos are) and the maximum dimensions are 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels high.
After selecting your photo, click the Save Changes button.

Considering your Timeline profile picture

You may need to adjust your profile picture depending on what you had previously. The new profile picture is 180 pixels by 180 pixels and sizes down to 30 x 30 in the Facebook News Feed. To adjust your Profile Picture, mouse over the profile picture and click Edit Profile Picture to select the option that fits your needs.

Looking into Timeline’s About section

The About section is much more prominent on your Timeline. Change the About section to be more descriptive and make sure it has a link to your website. Click the hyperlinked About right below the description to see everything in that section then click the Edit button to make changes.

You can have a call to action in your About section and make sure you have a link to your website. You can also have your phone number listed or other contact information if it’s appropriate for your business.

Checking out applications with Facebook Timeline

You now have 12 Applications you can showcase and only the 4 applications that you move to the top row will appear prominently. You cannot change the position of the Photos so technically you only have 3 Applications that you have control over in that top row.

To edit the position of the Application, hover over the App with your mouse and a pencil icon appears in the upper left corner of the App. Click on the pencil and select which App you would like to swap position with from your list of Apps.

You may want to change the App photo to draw attention to your Application. See how Macy’s has eye-catching graphics in their App photos.

You cannot change the App photo for the Photos tab or the Events tab. Those Apps will show the most recent photo or event photo respectively.

To change your App photo follow these steps:

Click the down arrow button next down arrow button next to the top row of Apps. All your Apps will be displayed.
Go to the App that you want to edit and hover your mouse over the App. Click on the pencil icon that appears in the upper right corner of the App. A dropdown menu appears.
Select Edit Settings and a popup box appears.
Click Change next to the Custom Tab Image (note that you can also change the Custom Tab Name from here, also). You are taken to a screen where you can then upload the custom image.
Click Change link. A pop-up box appears and you can click the browse button to locate the custom image to add to your App. The image must be 111 pixels across x 74 pixels high.

You are now finished and you can navigate back to your Page.

Adding milestones and highlighting to your Facebook Timeline

Add milestones to your Timeline to help tell your story. Add information about when the business was founded, and other milestones relevant to your business. Add a milestone within the Publisher itself by clicking the Milestone link:

The first milestone you will need to add is your starting or founded date.

Add the year and then you are prompted to add a month and date if appropriate.

Also change some Posts to Highlighted posts to emphasize them in your Timeline. Navigate to the post you want to highlight and click the star icon in the upper right corner of the post.

Publishing your Timeline

Once you have your Timeline exactly the way you want it, click the Publish now button at the top of the Page. Note that you cannot “unpublish” your Timeline, this is a permanent change.