Facebook will update all business pages to the Timeline layout today. So how will Timeline change communication between businesses and their clients? Timeline is much more visual than the old Facebook page: the cover photo is an eye-catching space, perfect for displaying a large, attractive picture of a product or an image conveying the idea of your business. The profile picture space remains, which can now be used to show the company’s logo. The info section is more visible as well, making it a great place for a short summary of your business, a mission statement or an inspirational quote. What is more, Timeline enables better interaction with fans by letting them exchange private messages with you. For instance, complaints can now be dealt with privately rather than appearing on your wall. The actual Timeline can feature milestones in the history of your business, showing the growth and positive changes that took place since its inception. This is also a great opportunity for creating an emotional connection with your fans – imagine someone posting a photo of their child wearing your company’s t-shirt or tagging themselves in a post telling everyone that their girlfriend accepted a proposal while having dinner at your restaurant. Last but not least, new insights has been integrated with the admin panel, making it easier for you to access your page’s analytics and find out how many people like it or have mentioned it in a post, and how many users it is reaching. Timeline allows you to sort posts by importance – you can ‘star’ a post to enlarge it or ‘pin’ it so that it stays on top of the page for up to a week. All in all, a business Timeline can be much more appealing than a website, but in the long run it might turn out not to be as revolutionary as it now seems in terms of functionality, because the businesses’ posts will still be showing on the fans’ news feed in the same way. Sadly, after ‘liking’ a page most users never come back to it, so the news feed remains the most effective way of reaching them. Did you know that Redline Company has the expertise to help you to harness the power of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter? Contact us to find out how we can harness your Twitter account and Facebook page to drive potential clients to your website and create messages and tweets that offer valuable information about your business.
