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Posts tagged facebook timeline
Facebook Timeline for Brands kicks in today, 30 March 2012
Facebook Timeline for Brands comes into effect 30 March 2012!
Attention all Facebook Fan and Brand page owners and admins: the time has run out for the old Facebook layout that we’ve all come to know and love!
Ready or not, the new and improved timeline for brand pages comes into effect today, 30 March 2012.
This is great news for anyone with a Fan or Brand page actually, as the timeline (among other improvements) makes the interaction between fan and brand/company much more personal. Get ready to tell your brand or product’s story, and showcase your business.
Among the bundle of changes Facebook has made, the highlight for us is the ability to engage with fans through private messages directly from the new (and vastly improved!) admin panel on page.
The entire layout and design principle makes for a great user experience and ease of use from a page administrator’s perspective.
Good luck with the transition, and give us a shout if you’d like any help!
Facebook Timeline for Brand Pages!
Facebook Timeline for Brand and Fan Pages
The time has come.
Facebook has announced the roll-out of timelines for Facebook brand pages.
This. Is. Awesome.
The buzz and atmosphere around these announcements has been met (mostly) with positive responses and (as usual) some discontent…
We see the changes as hugely positive as there are many new and exciting opportunities opened up by the changes to the way that brands will interact with users and followers within the Facebook social marketing context.
Either way, it is a case of adapting as quickly and effectively as possible because love them or hate them, the new changes will only be optional until the end of March 2012- after that, everybody’s going to have ‘em.
The specifics of Facebook timelines on your fan and brand pages:
1. New design aesthetic and updated feel and functionality.
The changes to brand pages and inclusion of the Facebook timeline for brands is a step in the right direction- the new layout closely mirrors the functionality of timelines found in personal profile pages, making them familiar to users. Also, they look really good. Nice!
2. No more page tabs. Horror!
The new layout phases out the fan page tabs we’ve come to love and utilize as social media marketers.
Provision however is made for app tabs to be displayed beneath the header image, and this position is prominent enough if used correctly. Although their visibility is somewhat reduced, they are still able to serve their most vital function: delivering content and functionality within the brand page context.
Another bonus is that Facebook has generously given brands a whopping 810px of screen real-estate to work with as opposed to the previous 520px, which is a huge improvement any way you cut it. This opens up limitless possibilities when it comes to delivering you brand’s content. Great!
3.Goodbye default landing page! 
Yep. There is no way to set a default landing tab, which means that the new Facebook timeline for brands takes a totally different route in delivering ‘front door’ messages. Of course, this means that social media and brand managers will need to make radical changes to their strategy and campaign ideas.
4. The big one: Private messaging between brands and users.
This is the singular biggest improvement in the new brand pages design and functionality, also a long-awaited and much-needed improvement.
This will allow admins and managers to respond to users and followers directly and (if need) privately, reducing the amount of clutter of the timeline.
** These are just a few of the changes Facebook has made to brand pages, we are certain many more will follow!
What is the Upshot of the changes to Facebook brand pages?
Once again, we are never sure of what the next changes will be or in which direction the platform might take us.
One thing however is certain as recent history proves: changes will be made!!
We choose to roll with the punches. Essentially, the principles which make Facebook such a massive success in the context of social networking, are now available to every social media marketer, brand manager, company, corporation and brand wishing to utilize Facebook as a marketing tool. The timeline is social by design, which means in essence that brands are better able to do what everyone who advertises on the internet wishes to do: tell their brand’s story.
This is central and vital to the success of any marketing campaign: user engagement. The timeline for brands ushers in the new age of social media marketing that very effectively enables each brand to do just that- engage users more effectively.
What do you think about the changes? How will you adapt and where will you make your first updates?
Tell us by leaving your comments below. We’d love to hear from you!
Is Facebook getting too complicated?
Is Facebook getting too complicated?
This article below from mashable.com explains and echoes the sentiment of many users.
Ever noticed how the remote for each new TV you check out seems to have more and more buttons? Or how that online game you used to enjoy is feeling less like fun as the options pile on? It’s not your fault. It’s a well-documented phenomenon, found in hardware, in software and on the Web: feature creep.
Engineers, bless their hearts, want to give us access to all the exciting new functions they’ve come up with. But they’re not great at making them simple enough for the average user, or at removing the buttons we no longer need. When a company does have the courage and discipline to slash away at its engineers’ wish lists, and adhere to the KISS principle of design (Keep It Simple, Stupid), it can rise head and shoulders above its rivals and delight its users. Apple is a great example of that, as is Nintendo (the Wii being one of the most simple — and successful — game console designs of all time.)
Unfortunately for its 800 million users, Facebook does not appear to be that kind of company. It used to be, and its inherent simplicity was part of the reason it was so successful. But now it is falling victim to feature creep — and a roster of settings that are becoming increasingly complex. Take the Ticker, for example, that real-time stream of information which now crowds the right-side of your Facebook page with a lot of distracting noise. Or look at the Like button, which recently celebrated its first birthday. That was a very popular all-purpose tool that spread rapidly across the Web. Everyone knows what it means to Like something. But Facebook couldn’t leave well enough alone.
At this year’s f8 conference, Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook Gestures, which will allow you to [any verb] a [any noun]. As Zuckerberg pointed out, this will allow you to “read” a book or “hike” a trail rather than like it. That’s great if you like a lot of granularity in your News Feed, but I fear that for the vast majority of us it means more confusion, more noise, and the decline of the social network’s single most iconic feature.
What We Think
We agree with the idea of simplicity.
Even Albert Einstein said “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
The “not simpler” is the interesting part here. As far as the Ticker and Gestures go, we think both are genius.
The ticker brings every Facebook profile to life- and with a little simple tweaking, allows each user to create an up-to-the-minute live feed of happenings in their friends’ lives. It is well executed, and we agree, it takes some getting used to, the movement at top right feels unnatural in the Facebook environment, but we like it.
Gestures are also a vital component to the flexibility that we’ve come to expect from the social network’s engineers.
At the end of the day, all arguments for or against all these new changes will boil down to subjective opinions, and no amount of analysis is going to reveal a ‘better’ way of doing things. As has so often happened in the past, the world rejects changes to their familiar social network at first, adopts them a short while later, then eventually utilizes them eagerly and comes to love them. It’s natural.
What do you think?
Join us on Facebook here and post your comments and questions or let us know what you think.
