7 Best Practices that

Small Businesses Can

Follow to Leverage on Facebook's

Timeline

After Facebook automatically converted business fan pages to

Timeline design, many are having a hard time adapting to such a

change. If you are one of those who aren’t happy with the shift, it is

important that you do not waste your time complaining.

After all, Timeline is here to stay and you won’t be able to do

anything about it except to take advantage of what it has to offer.

You may not know it , but Facebook Timeline actually

brings more branding opportunity for your business.

It doesn’t matter if you only have little budget allotted for your social media marketing because you can have your own share of your target market for free over at Facebook.

Below are some useful practices you can follow to make a buzz for your business using the features and tools available on Timeline.

Timeline is more visual than the earlier version of Facebook pages, and this is the perfect opportunity for you to get your camera or your

Smartphone to work for you.

Images count, so take the time to snap photos

This will show your fans how your business works from the inside and it is also a human-centric approach

to build awareness about your brand.

In a new eye-tracking study, it has been found that most consumers pay more attention to a brand’s

cover photo than any other posts on the wall.

Make a lasting first impression with your cover and profile photos

This goes to show that since your cover photo is the first thing that people get to see when they visit your page, you need to channel your creative juices and make a high resolution cover photo that captures the real essence of your brand to make an excellent first

impression.

Change the cover photo as often as you like, but make sure that you do

not tout promotions, contact details, pricing discounts and

purchasing information as all these are against Facebook’s guidelines.

Of course, do not forget the traditional profile photo that is situated in the lower left hand

corner of your cover photo. This is the perfect spot where you can

place your company’s logo. Such a thumbnail image will define your brand since it will accompany all

the comments and posts you make.

Timeline may seem like all things chronological, but this isn’t actually the case. You can now draw more attention to one of your posts by

highlighting it.

Pin or Highlight key information like you would on your cork board

Simply choose the star icon on the right corner at the top of any of

your post and this will automatically be updated across

the width of your page.

Meanwhile, if you would like to extend the life of your post for

seven more days, you can do so by pinning it. For example, if you have

a contest going on and your post about it is being pushed back by

newer posts,

simply hover to the right corner of that post and choose the “Pin to

Top” option underneath the pencil icon. When you do pin a post, it

becomes larger and it becomes the first item in your Timeline, staying

there for a week.

Functioning like a scrapbook, though in a digital format,

Timeline is the most ideal platform to tell your business’s story.

Give due credit to your businesses milestones

Hence, in order to let your fans know the most important events in

your business, take the time to compile a list of the key days of

your enterprise such as when it was established and product launches

just to name a few.

Don’t forget to include photos. Milestones make it possible for consumers to know more about your business accomplishments and they are a great feature to subtly market your product or

service.

Just below your cover photo are the applications that get more visibility

compared to your posts. You can organize these applications to make your page less

cluttered and you can even take advantage of other custom-built apps on

Facebook to customize your page.

Organize and customize your applications

Analytics wise, Facebook provides you with all the help you need to

track the metrics around your content. By carefully analyzing the

trends on the way how users engage with your posts,

Take cue from your insights

you will better understand which ones generate more attention and if

your efforts are yielding better results. So, take advantage of the insights wisely to improve your

content.

You have to understand that all of your Facebook marketing efforts will go

down the drain if you do not give time to engage with your fans. Bear in mind that communication is always the key to keep people coming back to your

page.

Give love and engage with thy fans

Therefore, create posts that will grab the attention of your visitors.

Interesting questions can trigger conversations and responding back to

your fans’ queries is a great way to send them the message that you are listening to what they have to say.

Likewise, you might want to run contests, show off the photos of your

fans, or send a shout out to them to let them feel how much you value their

loyalty.

As you can see, you can make Facebook Timeline your best friend when it comes to building buzz about

your brand. All it takes is for you to make use of the available tools and take the time to make engaging and

compelling content hat worthy to liked and shared.