Category Archives: Facebook Tips
Design challenge: Facebook Timeline Cover Images
The profile image/logo has a prominent placement within the Timeline cover image. As we design branded Covers, we find it is best to work with the profile image rather than fight with it.
This reminds me of a time I was watching my dad finish a painting. He was getting ready to put in his signature. I asked him if he always put it in the same place. He said, no, you have to find a “home” for the signature in the painting. So the size, location, and color of the signature would vary from painting to painting.
I was thinking about this in relation to the Timelines Cover images. The profile image really needs to have a “home” within the Cover image.
In this example for Rink Strategic Communications, the colors of the image work with the logo. For example, the black in Susan’s camisole anchors with the black in her logo — it also calls attention to her as the important person in the photograph (besides the fact that she is in the center 
Could a tagline have also been included here in the Cover? Maybe, but I think the text would have been too busy and would have competed with the R. What you want for many Facebook Cover images is a compelling photograph or design that complements the profile image. With Facebook Timeline Covers, you have to know when to walk away.
When planning the Timeline image for other clients, I also look at the Cover in terms of balance and composition. For example, there is a good space in the upper right corner. You don’t want to crowd the left side too much, since the profile picture is there.
That is the approach we took with this design for the Keenan PR Facebook Page. This is basically a banner ad she already (created by another designer) that she liked that we reworked for her as a Timeline Cover.
We flipped the image so the Silver Anvil award is on the right, and we moved the text and changed the font. So, the result is a more balanced composition that works with her logo, which is her profile image. See how the logo points at the message and the award? Cool, huh? That was almost accidental
This is also a good example (we didn’t design) from Constant Contact UK that gives the profile image a “home” in the Timeline Cover and makes good use of that upper right corner/sweet spot… You can tell this image was designed expressly for Facebook.
There is also a really nice flow, composition, and a great match between the Cover image and the profile image in this example from Manchester United (we did not design this one, either).
Look, by contrast, at this one from the New York Times. I suppose with that red staircase that it’s an interesting photograph. But does it make a good Timeline image? In my opinion, no. Nothing about the image communicates anything about the attributes (or a single attribute) of the New York Times (other than they have a lot of employees and a really cool staircase). It’s not memorable. It doesn’t play nicely with the profile image. I think they should give this one another shot….
Facebook is a fun and friendly environment, and it has a certain cool factor. Being overly corporate on Facebook would be a mistake just as it would be a mistake to use business jargon at a backyard barbecue. Brands have a real opportunity with these Facebook Page Timeline Covers. It’s worthwhile to design them well — to delight the viewer, as well as convey a message.
Related articles
- Time to Update Your Facebook Page with a New Cover (fletcher-prince.com)
Like this:
Time to Update Your Facebook Page with a New Cover
Remember back in September when I blogged that Facebook would most likely shift Pages to the Timelines format? Well, that day is here. You can implement the changes right now, or spend the next few weeks getting ready for them, because the changes will go into effect for all Pages on March 30, 2012.
To illustrate, here is what the Fletcher Prince Facebook Page looked like before the changes:
Fletcher Prince Facebook Page -- Former Layout
And here is the Fletcher Prince Facebook Page after the changes that will take place for all Pages on March 30 (you can go ahead and change your Page now).
Fletcher Prince Facebook Page with the new Cover image
Are you ready? The main thing you are going to need right away is a branded Cover. You have a month to work with, and we are ready to help you. Depending on the complexity of your design, we can create a new Page Cover image for your Facebook Page for about $125 to $375, estimated.
The new Page format is visual and wide. The look of your page will change. Photos will be getting top billing, by default, and as you may know, photos are what get engagement on Facebook Pages. The photo that is featured on your Page front is the most recent photo you posted on your wall, in landscape format. So that is something to consider.
The first two “tabs” you have on your Page will be featured most prominently with thumbnails, and the rest of your links will have a click through, so pick the two tabs you like best and move them to the top of the list of your tabs.
Facebook Restrictions about Page Covers
There are some restrictions from Facebook about the Cover image. You may not put a call to action in the Cover image — you cannot say or suggest someone “like” the Page or share the Page. Facebook specifically restricts this. You cannot include price or purchase information, or any kind of promotional wording.
Choose a Cover image — or have us create one for you, because we would love to do that! — that is a creative and original photograph that sums up what your Page is about. For example, if you were a realtor, it might be an image of homes. If your Page was for a restaurant, it might be some menu items or the restaurant interior. If your Page is for a product, it might be an image of people using your product.
While you don’t want to get overly promotional, there’s no rule that says you can’t change your Cover from time to time. So, think about seasonal and holiday versions of your Covers, if that is appropriate for your brand. We will offer that design service for Page owners who would like that option.
Please contact us to update your Facebook Page Cover Image, and your client’s Facebook Pages. And remember: we also create branded Google + Page banner images, LinkedIn Business Profile banner images, new YouTube layout graphics, blog headers, Twitter profiles, and more. We can create a whole suite of branded social media images for you.
Facebook Page Administration Basics (Video)
If you administer a Facebook Page for your company or nonprofit, you know what a bear EdgeRank can be. Here’s a few tips for getting the most out of your Facebook Page from Fletcher Prince’s Mary Fletcher Jones and check out our portfolio of Facebook Pages http://www.FletcherPrince.com
Recorded at RHED Pixel October 2011. Thanks to Richard Harrington and the RHED Pixel video production team for producing the video.
Visit Fletcher Prince on Facebook http://www.Facebook.com/FletcherPrince
Writing for engagement: tips and best practices (video presentation)
I had the opportunity to speak at the RHED Pixel annual Open House last week on best practices for effective social media updates, and wanted to share the video with you today.
I enjoy this event because the speakers are terrific, it’s informal and interactive, and free! So mark your calendars for the Open House next year.
Thanks so much to Richard Harrington for inviting me to present and to Adam Martray and the terrific RHED Pixel team for coordinating and taping the event (which featured a lot of other speakers, including Richard Harrington).
If you didn’t have a chance to go (the room was packed!) or watch the presentations live on UStream, I’ll share the link to those recorded presentations when they become available online. Meanwhile, the folks at RHED Pixel have generously shared the video of my presentation and if you have the time, check it out. I’m sharing tips for marketing your business, nonprofit, association or govt. agency with blogs, Facebook Pages, Twitter profiles, YouTube and more.
These are my highly subjective opinions about what has worked for me and what I have observed. If you concur, or you believe differently, or have tips to share, please leave a comment. I would love to hear your views.
For more creative and affordable marketing tips, please subscribe to the Fletcher Prince blog http://fletcher-prince.com/blog
Presentation recorded October 25, 2011 in front of a live audience at RHED Pixel, Falls Church, Virginia.
Related articles
- How to Get More Readers for Your Blog (fletcher-prince.com)
Have a Facebook Page? How’s it doing? Want to find out?
Checked Fletcher Prince's Facebook Page EdgeRank: check yours at http://www.EdgeRankChecker.com
If you’re a Facebook Page owner, you may be frustrated by the mystery of knowing if your fans (friends, followers, whatever) are ever seeing your Page updates in their newsfeed.
It’s kind of a like being a parent to a 12-year-old boy. You’re just never sure if they’re really listening.
Anyway, parenting angst aside, EdgeRank Checker is a way to measure how your Page is doing (in addition to the metrics provided by Facebook). I got an excellent score of 29 for Fletcher Prince so I’m happy.
Is it a reliable way to measure your Page’s effectiveness? I don’t know. But it’s free to check, so you might as well give it a spin. Caveat: it only really works well if you have 100 fans or more for your Facebook Page.
How EdgeRank Works
So, you know, EdgeRank is an algorithm that ranks objects in the Facebook News Feed. Pages with high EdgeRank Scores will be more likely to show up in the news feed, than Pages with low EdgeRank Scores. How you get your EdgeRank to rise is to get lots of “likes” and comments on your updates from your fans. If they don’t interact with your posts, your EdgeRank will sink, and then you won’t show up in their newsfeeds, and eventually, maybe no one’s.
Affinity, Weight and Time Decay
The EdgeRank score for your Facebook Page is made up of 3 variables: Affinity, Weight, and Time Decay.
- Affinity has to do with the relationships the fan has with the Page creator — how many times did the fan comment or like?
- Weight is determined by the type of update on the Page, such as a photo/video/link/etc. Apparently, links have less weight. That’s probably because Facebook is not eager to have users migrate off Facebook to read articles somewhere else. Photos and video you upload have higher weight. Ostensibly. The algorithm’s secret, so who really knows?
- Time decay just has to do with how old the post is. The importance of this variable means that you really have to know when your fans are on Facebook and post then, not at other times. Which means you may have to make your Page updates at night, or on Sunday mornings, or on rainy Saturdays, depending on what your fans do.
New Changes in Facebook Settings
It used to be that you could encourage your fans to click a setting in their newsfeed that would display ALL the content from Pages they liked in their newsfeed. That was a neat trick for Page owners but most fans didn’t do it. The setting wasn’t in the most obvious place. Now, Facebook has (irritatingly) removed that option.
So, we’re back to the drawing board: trying to get engagement on our Pages. Doing anything it takes to get likes or comments in the newsfeed of the Page (forget those other tabs). Or paying for traffic (advertising, sponsored stories).
Or just concentrating on other marketing tactics.
Related articles
- Facebook, the new Timelines, and what this means for Page Owners (fletcher-prince.com)
Facebook, the new Timelines, and what this means for Page Owners
The new Facebook Timeline for Profiles -- will probably be a reality for Pages, too, soon
Well, they did it again.
Facebook will be rolling out Timelines to users over the next few weeks. Developers, like me, have access to the new Timeline right now, to experiment with it. Timelines will also most likely be impacting and changing Facebook Pages. I know a lot of you are using Facebook Pages, so here are my preliminary recommendations for getting ready for these changes.
1. The look of your Page(s) will change, and so will the branding
The new profile format is visual and wide and will probably come to Pages in the same format. Get ready for the look of your page to change (sigh – again). It will be 720 pixels wide. You can still have the square profile photo, but you’re also going to need a 720 pixel branded banner image — Facebook calls these “covers” for your Timeline. You might as well work on that now.
2. If Facebook is important to your brand, then a camera is your new best friend
Get ready to share lots of photos as updates — but they have to be higher resolution because so far I’m seeing fuzzy for low res images, if you highlight them on your timeline.
Why do you want to share photos? Because people will tag them (if they’re the right photos) and when they do, that’s an interaction with the update that gives it an “edge” in the EdgeRank score and increases your post’s likelihood of appearing in the newsfeed of your fans.
Remember, featured photos will appear 720 pixels wide and be cropped, unless you upload the exact size.
3. Ditto for video
Some writers are saying video is even more heavily weighted in EdgeRank than photos. In other words, it’s better. Why? People tend to react, like, comment, or share video more than almost anything else. So, get ready to upload lots of video, rather than text updates or links.
4. No more auto feeds of blogs to Notes
Facebook wants your fans to be interacting with you in “real time.” They are discouraging and soon eliminating feeds from other websites. Soon, you will not be able to feed your WordPress blog posts to Facebook Page notes. My guess is that the same will be true for Twitter. You might as well stop auto-feeding your blog to Notes because Facebook is going to take away that Page privilege pretty soon, anyway.
5. Engage in real time …. forget links to articles
Do you remember where posting a “Link” on your Facebook profile used to be an option — and then this month, it just kind of disappeared? And then, in its place, were polls? Yeah, well the new status Timeline for profiles doesn’t have an option for links, either, and my guess is this will be the same for Pages.
The kinds of Facebook Page updates that will get ranked higher and have a better chance of making an appearance in your fans’ (…friends…followers…whatever) newsfeeds are photos, videos, and highly engaging, in the moment updates (seriously, about the weather or whatever is headline news), and polls, and what not. If your Facebook Page updates are not receiving lots of likes and comments, expect to have your Page put into Facebook purgatory where your updates will not show up, or not that often.
If you’re going to post a text update, a good idea is to ask for interactions. Depends on how bold you want to be about this. You can be direct and ask for the like. You can ask people to respond to a question or leave comments. It’s up to you.
6. Get out your wallet
Facebook is engineering it so that Facebook Pages will be “encouraged” to purchase advertising and sponsored stories to drive traffic to their Facebook Pages, because, let’s face it, organic results in news feeds are going to be hard to come by.
7. Build an App
Pages will also be competing in the news feed with Apps, which are getting more privileged positioning. If you can think of an App to relate to your business, go for it. You can build it right on Facebook.
8. Liking was just the beginning
Fans are going to be able to “read” a book, “watch” a video, “eat” a burger. I know, we do that already. But we’ll be doing it virtually, online. Just like we “like” stuff now.
I know, I don’t get it either. I mean I get it, I just don’t see the appeal. Somehow, it’s an algorithim linked to advertising, that much I do know.
9. If you’re using third-party tools, like HootSuite, to update your Page stop now
I’ve said it before for other reasons. Now, it appears that third-party (non-Facebook) applications that automatically bring content to your newsfeed, such as HootSuite and possibly Twitter as well, will bring your EdgeRank down, and significantly so. You don’t want that. You do want to be in people’s news feeds. So, stop using those for your Facebook Page updates.
It’s anybody’s guess…
Anyway, your Facebook Page, I’m sorry to say, will be more difficult to administer and it will be more difficult for your fans to navigate, in my opinion. The changes are going to keep social media consultants busy, but I can see small businesses, and non brick and mortar businesses, throwing up their hands. It will be interesting to see what develops.
Follow Fletcher Prince on Facebook
Related articles
- Facebook Announces Timelines and Improvements to Open Graph (hubspot.com)
- Facebook Timeline: A Walkthrough Of Your Entire Life On Facebook (techie-buzz.com)
How to see the content you WANT to see on Facebook
Have you ever noticed that you “Like” Pages (and even friends) and then never see content from them again on Facebook? Do you know why that is?
Facebook has a default setting on your Profile to display content from Pages and Friends you “Like” that also have lots of interactivity: lots of likes & comments on Page posts.
Chances are, you’ll NEVER or RARELY see updates, photos, and videos from Fletcher Prince and many other Pages you “Like” UNLESS you change your Newsfeed settings on your personal Facebook Profile.
If you want to do this, it’s super-easy. Here’s how to do it.
1. Go to the “Newsfeed” section of your personal Facebook Profile
2. On the upper right, you will see the words: “Top News | Most Recent”
3. Click “Most Recent”
4. A drop-down menu will display. Scroll down to the last option “*Edit Options” and select it.
5. Select: “Edit your Newsfeed Settings”
6. Select “All of your friends and pages” (NOT the default Friends and pages you interact with most)
That’s all there is to it! Thanks for taking this extra step so we can stay in touch with you and keep providing you with affordable and creative marketing tips from Fletcher Prince. As always, with a side of fun! Have a great day.
Related articles
- The Facebook Page Visibility Dilemma (fletcher-prince.com)
- 8 must know tips on how to run a quality Facebook Page (thenextweb.com)
The Facebook Page Visibility Dilemma
If you have a Facebook Page for your business, you’ve probably encountered this dilemma: many people “Like” your Page. Not many people seem to see your content.
The challenge is that, by default, Facebook shows content in the News Feed of friends that the friends click on or view most frequently. If you wonder why you haven’t been seeing content from some of the Pages you “liked” or some of your friends recently, that’s why. You won’t see everything unless you adjust your News Feed settings from the default.
I’m not sure what the rationale is for this because it really is hard on Pages. Your Page will be visible on search engines, of course (as long as you employ the correct visibility settings), but your Page’s “friends” (who we used to call “fans”) may not.
To test this, I posted an update and asked my Page’s Facebook friends to respond if they saw the update in their news feed. Guess what? Out of 95 friends, only 6 people said they saw the content in their news feed.
So perhaps up to 90% of my Facebook Page friends are probably NOT seeing my updates in their news feeds — which means to them, my Page practically does not exist. And I update once or twice a day! Not good!
If you suspect your Facebook Page friends are not seeing your updates, you have a couple of remedies, but they may only marginally improve your chances:
1) Regularly inform your Facebook Page friends — through means other than your Page — how to adjust their settings to display all Facebook Page content. Depending on how you reach your Fans, you may need to post this information on your personal Facebook profile, website, email communication, or through other means.
Hey, if you are a fan of my Fletcher Prince Page, keep in mind you may not see our marketing tips and other updates (we update once or twice a day) if you have not fixed your Facebook settings to display “All of your friends and Pages”
To fix your News Feed settings from the Facebook default, go to the top of your profile where it says “Top News | Most Recent” Click and scroll down until you see the little “gear” icon (Edit Options). Select: All of your friends and Pages14 minutes ago · Mary Fletcher Jones Facebook will ONLY display the Pages (and sometimes friends) you visit the most, comment on, or click Like on frequently. So if you are not a big clicker, but still want to see the Pages you “liked,” this is the only way to go!
2) Make sure you are displaying your content in other ways, and on other sharing platforms. Start a blog, if you don’t have one, post links on Twitter and LinkedIn leading back to your Facebook Page, send an email newsletter once or twice a month. Don’t just rely on Facebook Page for engagement, because you may only be reaching relatively few of the people who “Liked” your Page.
3) On your Facebook Page, post content that is likely to attract “likes” and comments which will bump up your Page’s status in News Feed settings (to reach those audiences in the majority who have not adjusted their default News Feed settings to display all “liked” Page content). Now this is not an easy thing to do, but what generally will achieve this kind of feedback on Facebook are posts with silly or engaging photos, original videos, posts that pose questions, polls, contests, and posts on topics everyone can relate to, such as a news item or current event, or common/universal “Positive” experiences people natuarally tend to like, such as pets, desserts, and funny updates.
Good luck, and please share what works for you and your Facebook Page.
Related articles
- Can Google See Your Business’s Facebook Page? (businessblogwriting.com)
- News Feed Optimization: 14 Ideas To Get Noticed In Facebook (getelastic.com)
Plan Ahead For Engagement on Facebook
If communicating to people on Facebook is important to your company, or for your brand, then you’ll want to know the latest findings about the optimal times to post updates, so you can plan ahead.
The Best Days to Post on Facebook Pages
According to Buddy Media, the best days reflect when people are most frequently on Facebook, which is not during business hours. This can pose a challenge for professional communicators, who may tend to post updates on their clients’ behalf during conventional business hours. And in fact, 86% of brand posts are posted during the work week.
But to get real engagement, you do have to reach people on Facebook when they are relaxed and apt to comment or Like the Wall posts. The study found the best days were Thursday and Friday. Weekend days were also favorable. But these rates fall sharply on Monday and Wednesday.
But these are only general trends. I thought it was very interesting that the study found engagement went up on certain days, depending on the brand category. For example, Sunday was deemed to be a great day to post updates for retail, sports, and automotive companies. Food and beverage did better during the middle of the week.
The study also found that shorter Facebook Page Wall posts (less than 80 characters) received more Likes and comments than longer ones.
What Time to Post Updates
The study also found that engagement shot up in the early morning and evening hours, even late at night.
