Facebook Timeline will weed out the bad marketers

Many businesses have been moaning and griping about the changes that Facebook have made to their business page. Since Timeline was introduced, features such as custom landing pages and page tabs seem to have disappeared and they can’t use their page the way they used to. One business owner I spoke to recently even said he would be ditching all business ties with Facebook because of the changes!

Facebook Timeline is here to stay, the changes are public right across Facebook and businesses need to be aware of that and take control. The best way to use Facebook now is to let Timeline tell your story – the story of your business. Events, milestones, featured customers and clients, and tales from the office can all be presented in a much better, more attractive way now.

The biggest myth about the new Facebook Timeline changes is that custom tabs are dead – which means no more user interaction. On the old layout we were able to create custom landing pages that people saw before they visited our wall for the first time. Using these landing pages we were able to code lead capture forms, present videos or encourage people to hit the ‘Like’ button via a big red arrow.

The changes mean you can’t choose where people land now – they’ll always land on your Timeline view . However, all is not lost. Instead you can create a Facebook App, add it to your favourites section using an image with a “call to action” and then link the image to the app page. When people click on the image they’ll see something that looks just like your lovely custom landing page!  (Favourites can be found under the new Cover Image on Timeline.

Here’s an example for you – go to our MD’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/anthodges.fb and look our for the ‘Start Here’ image.

It links through to a landing page that looks like this.

Using Apps in this way there’s really no change in use from the old system of custom pages and tabs on our old Facebook pages.

“These changes to the Facebook Timeline and the ability to now tell a story rather than just promote content will weed out the poor marketers and promote those that do engage more with their audience,” says Managing Director of HodgesNet, Ant Hodges. “The Facebook Timeline changes are designed for every business, not just the big name brands, and you don’t need to have 100s or 1,000s of likes and fans to make it work for you. You just need to learn to engage your audience with more interesting content and you’ll be quids in.”

We will be holding a Social Media Insight day on 26^th April 2012 in Swindon, and one of the sessions will be on Facebook for Business. The Social Media Insight Day is a full day of training and insight into the world of Social Media and how you can develop a comprehensive strategy for your organisation or business. You can find out more and book your place here.

If you would like any help creating landing page apps for Facebook, or need any further assistance with anything else to do with Social Media, please get in touch with us on 01793 608777 or use the form on the top of this page to contact the team.