This past weekend’s changeover of the traditional Facebook brand Page format to the new Timeline format has some embracing the change, while others are lamenting the move.
No matter your opinion on the format, it’s now mandatory. And, while the changeover may pose some challenges, the Timeline format presents new opportunities for brands to make an impact in the social space.
Tell your story
Timeline provides a distinct forum for brands to tell their stories. From the large header space to the historic milestones, landing page thumbnails, and activity features, brands can use the Facebook platform to communicate with customers in a visually appealing way.
The evolution of online communications has brought storytelling to the forefront. We’ve all seen the effect social media has had on advertising and marketing practices—no longer do we lob messages at our customers and measure ROI based on eyeballs and purchases. The equation has become complicated with the impact of social media-based relationship marketing.
The fact that a brand is able to create a social-based space to tell its story is a powerful thing—you can now bring your brand’s story to a highly engaged audience in a public forum.
Inspire action
Communicating with your customers is crucial, but you also need to compel them to act. With Timeline’s visual focus, you can showcase appealing graphics rights in the Page’s header. The new landing page thumbnails provide valuable real estate to capture the attention of your customers. Use these supplementary landing pages to show what your brand is all about and get customers invested in your business.
Get to know Timeline’s features in order to maximize your social marketing strategy. With Timeline’s implementation, Facebook is really looking to set itself apart from other platforms by giving brands the space they need to launch and manage marketing promotions. Will your company be part of it?
Update: This new Timeline release also bring another great feature designed to help companies and their customers communicate: Messaging via Pages. Now customers can reach company representatives directly through brand Pages, and all correspondence can be handled directly through Facebook. Have you used this feature yet? Thoughts?
About Julie Tyios
Given that the last time I logged in on FB was a couple of months ago that’s probably time to have a look at this timeline thing. Anyway the attitude that FaceBook always demonstrates toward users is an example of ethical fluff.
Happy Easter!
Hi Andrea,
Thanks for sharing your perspective. The new Timeline format certainly has mixed reviews – as a user I’m not so keen to have it on my profile, but I do like the new format for brand Pages. It feels more structured and it’s easier to find the information I’m looking for. With regards to Facebook’s “ethical fluff” – can you elaborate? I’d love to have a discussion on that.
Cheers, and happy Easter,
Julie
@JulieTyios Ha, you’re as bad as @HessieJones for not using the threaded reply option to respond directly to Andrea.
@DannyBrown @JulieTyios @HessieJones No Problem. I’m not offended.
@JulieTyios Well, things like: existing thanks to users but never giving a thought about changing things which might not be good for those users, that is 0 respect; storing gigabytes of data on users and telling them they’re just a couple of megabytes; selling those data; profiling everything; registering everything that happens on every page having a like button; no real privacy for users vs FaceBook; very little privacy for users vs users; forcing to use the real name which everyone knows is bad behavior online due to phishing; those ads or sponsored stories, and sponsored stories seems a scammy name to me; etc. And I almost don’t use it, imagine what could I say if I was an expert.
Summarizing ethic for FaceBook is the same of Don’t be Evil for Google: just PR. The more people will see these things the more they’ll close their profile and move away, probably on Twitter even if there aren’t those “great” games and you can’t publish any picture you take. What’s already happening on Google+.
People once aware doesn’t like to be a kind of Guinea Pig under the microscope of a corporation.
Happy Easter again!
Whoops! Thanks for catching that, Danny.:)
@Andrea H. | The Hypnotism Weekly – Good points, Andrea. I’ve always found it rather interesting – despite user privacy issues and these “ethical” issues, Facebook continues to gain market share. Similar to Google, can you be this big and get away with things, so to speak, or will it cost you?
@JulieTyios @Andrea H. | The Hypnotism Weekly Interesting post over at Samantha Collier ’s website, on how Twitter is the growth darling compared to Facebook:
http://www.socialmediaforlawfirms.com/2012/04/twitter-overtakes-facebook-in-user.html
Be interesting to see how things pan out in the next 12 months or so.
@JulieTyios Well not everyone is concerned about these kind of things just like not everyone is interested in the copyright issue on Pinterest and their particular TOS. Everyone is there and everyone jumps in. A lemmings like behavior. Then once something wrong will come, and it will, everyone will abandon the boat (e.g. Yahoo, MySpace….)
For the being big thing I think it goes down to why you’re in. Are you in for the money? Or are you in because you find cool to provide a great service? It depends from the kind of persons owner are. There are people who cannot be bought whatever the money and others who will do everything for a couple of bucks. Just like politicians.
The thing is: how many Nelson Mandela are out there?
And for the last point once you get this big you can pay for almost everything, or buy anyone, so the cost isn’t that important. At least most of the times. It’s like GMO or nuclear power, they are great until they go wrong, then they become a Tsunami.
@DannyBrown @JulieTyios Samantha Collier First with Twitter you get more privacy, second there are no games, and third probably even if there are some which plaster your account with thousands of useless tweets they are pretty few compared to those you find on FaceBook. And Twitter is much more user friendly than FB.
Clearly FB will make its Make-Up PR move but I guess it won’t be enough. You can’t close the gate once the cows are out and given that they’re in just because it’s a business many will catch this. Also FB is particularly big in USA while Twitter is much more worldwide oriented. Or not? It might be that the rest of the world has a different perception of FaceBook, and of Google+.
@Andrea H. | The Hypnotism Weekly @DannyBrown @JulieTyios Excellent post and discussion! I’m writing this response from my iPhone in lovely pemberton, British Columbia so forgive me if it’s short and sweet! Sometimes smartphones bump you off commenting systems so I’m not going to write too much, but I’m digressing!
I think in regards to Facebook, their policy used to be “act first, say sorry later.” They’ve become a bit better by notifying us of upcoming changes (like timeline), but they will always be in it for the advertising revenue. In the end, it’s a free service we decide to use. It’s basically engrained in our lifestyle at this point so no matter how “evil” it is, I’m sure we will all login for years going forward. I don’t post anything into Facebook I consider private despite my settings. It’s our choice what we post, Facebook isn’t there with a gun to our head
.
All in all, I love the new timeline feature and I also think fb is great for marketing. I’ve always been a fan of both fb and twitter!
Danny, thanks for mentioning my post! It’s always a pleasure!
@samtaracollier @Andrea @DannyBrown @JulieTyios - Agreed, Samantha – Facebook is a free service and there is a balance that needs to be met between features that make it easy for the (free) users, and features that ultimately help them drive their revenue goals. It’s a shame when it doesn’t work out well for the users (but I also question why people always get so angry over Facebook changes), but at the end of the day it’s a free platform that we all chose to use, and Facebook will always innovate and add more useful features to keep bringing us back. That’s how it goes!
Julie, Danny
Sorry to be off topic, but I had to leave a comment about the look of this blog.
Unless I miss my guess, this is the Genesis Balance theme and… it looks absolutely fabulous.
Hope you have submitted it to Studiopress to be shown in their showcase – yes?
All done – thanks for listening.
@wmwebdes Hey there mate,
Good eye – it is indeed the Balance theme, with just a few minor tweaks. Loving the Genesis solutions at the minute!
@DannyBrown
Agreed – latest treleases are all looking pretty good.
I get the impression that Brian G and his boys are really making an effort to increase their market share.
The widgetised home pages are fabulous for creating a good looking website as quick as you can add the widgets.
Timeline is all and well for telling one’s story and inspiring action — but the kicker is in the action. If your fans don’t routinely like/comment/share your updates, they’ll likely never know you post another update. Why? I explain it at http://ariherzog.com/facebook-likers-and-lurkers/