Facebook Timeline for Pages

Have you switched over to the new timeline format for your business page yet? This Friday is the deadline according to Facebook for everyone to switch over. We changed at the beginning of the month to get used to it so when everyone is changed over we would be ready. It's definately a BIG change from the current format. We've taken polls and asked how many like it and how many don't. There is a huge majority that said they dislike it. Since we switched, all of our insight stats have gone down. The number of new likes, the reach, the number of people talking about us, etc. We expected this to happen. Our biggest pull for people was to allow them to post ads on our wall. We still allow this, but with the new format you have to click an extra button to actually see the full post. There is a "Highlight" box to click and from there you can click 'posts by others" or "posts by page" to filter what you want to see.

 Another big change is you can now add a cover photo as long as you follow Facebook guidelines. We've seen some great ones that people have added to their page. Frogjunkiee's Creative Creations made a great one for us, but after some though we've decided to not use a cover photo. The reason being, it takes up a good amount of a page and we decided that since our page is about giving exposure for businesses, we will save the room for that. Having said that, A BIG thank you to Shannon for making ours. We will use it somewhere in the future.

A nice feature that has been added is the "pin to top" option. Now you can take one of your posts and "pin" it as the top post on your page. This comes in handy when you have an event or sale, etc. You can leave it as the top post and continue to post underneath it.

Don't give up on Facebook to promote your business just because of this change. We believe that when people get used to it, that we'll still find this a great tool to get exposure for what we all do. Think of the time before facebook. How many people knew of our businesses then? And, how many know of it now?

We also, believe that networking pages such as ours, will still be important. People will still go to networking pages to find new fans and hopefully potential customers for their businesses. If not for networking pages, imagine how hard and long it would be to attract new fans. We know the answer to this because when we started there were only a couple other networking pages.

In closing, always remember to get your business out there wherever you can. Make sure the pages you post on allow it. Never post an ad on a page without asking if it's ok. Most networking pages allow it. And remember, getting a new like is only half the battle. Keeping it is the other half. Most people that like our pages (we estimate about 90-92%) will never come back. So, make sure to take care of the 8-10% that do :)

Have a great week ahead,

TCS