Email LinkedIn Twitter

10 Keys to a Killer Facebook Timeline | Webinar Highlights

1 Comment

March 30, 2012, marked the day that all businesses and brands had to switch their Facebook profiles to the Facebook Timeline.  Was there widespead panic?  Since then, brands have had to adjust to the change.  The good news is that there are great ways to use the new Timeline to your brands’ advantage.

The Vertical Response webinar, “10 Keys to a Killer Facebook Timeline,” teaches how to use the Timeline features to enhance business/brand pages.

Webinar presenter Ellery Long, VR social media manager, believes that the Facebook Timeline is important for businesses that use Facebook for marketing; Facebook acts a second website for your business.

The Facebook Timeline offers a linear look to your page, a “story of your brand’s life.”

10 Keys to a Killer Facebook Timeline

1. Strategy

  • Create objectives
  • What are you trying to create with your timeline?  Raise awareness?  Customer Service?
  • Set metrics
  • Select measurement tools, set a baseline
  • Look at competitors & incorporate their ideas
  • Plan content: Build editorial calendar
  • Organize! Create a policy, select staff and contributors
  • Set guidelines, but allow staff autonomy, empower them

 2.  Cover Photo

  • Large horizontal photo on top of page
  • NY Times uses their cover photo to personify the company
  • Sets conversational tone
  • Size: 851 x 315 pixels
  • Eye-catching
  • Rotate photos
  • Facebook does not allow  contact info, prices, “like” us, call-to-actions on cover photo

3.  Profile image

  • Logo, by design
  • 180 x 180 pixels
  • Keep fixed
  • Make it recognizable

4.  About section

  • Brief company history
  • Share links & contact info
  • Put as much information as you want
  • What can you give your fans
  • Call to action

5.  Tab showcase

  • Compelling, fun, engaging
  • Cover photo = show  your customers
  • 111 x 74 pixels
  • Only 4 in showcase
  • Keep tab names short
  • Create compelling a call to action!

6.  Custom apps/tabs

  • 810 pixels wide
  • “Not just another webpage”:  Trigger Newsfeed messages
  • No default landing tabs

7.  Admin panel

  • Provides page tips
  • Enables direct messaging
  • Notifications
  • Insights

8.  Pinned posts

  • Way to drive traffic to custom tab or promotion
  • Post news
  • Timely info/remains 7 days

9.  Highlighted posts

  • Full page view = Visually compelling!
  • When updating status, add photos
  •  Use text & picture = eye catching

10.  Milestones

  • History of a brand
  • Tell the brand’s story; humanize your brand
  • Make them relevant
  • Use for product releases, events, company ‘firsts’
  • Examples:  The Gap, Wildfire, Coca-Cola

Businesses need a Facebook presence, and they need to make it social and fun.  To create a killer Timeline, set guidelines, but also empower staff and users!  Check out NY Times’ Facebook Timeline for a Timeline example.

And finally, the most important resource when it comes to creating the best Timeline is time, so make the time to beef up your Timeline for optimal results.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Crowdsourcing: The Future of Marketing? OMMA Social Panel Discussion

Leave a Comment

Looking forward to OMMA Social 2012 next week. Here’s a nugget from last year’s.

In social media’s infancy, marketers used crowdsourcing to get involved with social media.  But, as social media got more complex, crowdsourcing tactics had to change to make brands more exciting.

Initially, social media was used to solicit audiences to create commercials for brand contests, but as social media use increased, it is used daily by marketers to communicate with consumers and promote brand evolution.

This OMMA Social panel, moderated by Mel Carson, Microsoft’s advertising community manager, discusses how to use consumers’ opinions to drive brand initiatives, with the end goal to make brands more appealing.

Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing tips

  • To avoid mob mentality, ensure your groups are composed of individuals with real identities
  • Define what you’re looking for: Structure and planning vs. pure creative

Brand tips

Stay current

  • Life cycle of content is 3 hours; the solution is to keep producing more
  • You don’t have a choice anymore:  Quarterly research campaigns are passé, need to stay current on a daily basis
  • Once you dive in and start getting feedback from passionate customers, do something with it

Listen to your audience

  • Trust your consumers
  • Understand them, and then make your plan
  • Do not overlook differing views
  • Have to take the mindset of how will people REACT to your content not how will they read it

Final brand tips

  • Experience and share your surroundings!
  • If you are asking, ask for the smallest thing possible
  • Be transparent: More transparency, more real conversation
  • Social media activation takes strategy and planning, don’t just dive into it

To summarize and reflect on marketing’s initiative, here’s a great quote from OMMA Social participant @brandone:  “Marketing is about mirroring a good idea with the right delivery vehicle.”  Social media can be that great vehicle for marketers, if used properly.  Be super engaged with your consumer, learn what they want, and then plan out the proper brand execution strategy.”

Thank you @JackWagner54, @HeatherCinOC, @ogilvydigital, @katiedel, @thebuddygroup, @HeatherCinOC, @jencorbett, @YahooAdBuzz, @nicoledunc, @brandone, @socmedsoc

« Previous Page
Next Page »