Facebook "Timeline" for pages... is coming!

Just when you thought you had social media figured out, Facebook throws "TIMELINE" at you.  Meaning there are lots of "apps" and new designs, and new ways to use it for your business page.

STARTING MARCH 30, FACEBOOK IS REDESIGNING THE WAY YOUR BUSINESS WILL USE FACEBOOK.  YOU SHOULD GET READY FOR THIS TO MAKE SURE YOU HAVE IT LIKE YOU WANT IT!

Everything is changing, but don't worry, ThriftyHipster has your back.  We'll be discussing how to use timeline and how to best use it for drawing in patrons, what apps to install, how to manage photos... This is going to take several posts.

But anyway, we wanted to introduce you to the topic.

To see what your page will look like in TimeLine, Click Here for Preview.

Branding

• Cover Image: A huge image across your page.  You want to make sure this is NOT an ad, but rather, something that showcases what you're all about.
• About Section: a VERY short, punchy description about your business
• Page Apps: Will now be found on the right side of the "About" section, otherwise, you'll have 4 above the fold.
• No Custom Landing Page: Sorry, this is out, so your specials and fan-grabbing pages will be tough to find (we've figured out a work-around)
• "Like" Customization: depending on who your fans are this might be an issue. We'll discuss this in a future post

Customer Service: New Messaging Platform!

This is pretty cool.  Timeline will allow users to send direct, private messages to your page.  It's important that you set up a channel to deal with incoming messages and a policy to deal with them so you're not perceived as ignoring fans.

Highlights Feed

Basically, greater personalization and friend response is what this will be used for. This is very different than your facebook page of before and allows users to read each feed, jump moments in time, and interact on a whole new level... Meaning that a good strategy with posts and images can really open up new fans and opportunities!
Further, you'll have less control over the friend activity section, so you'll want to make doubly sure to respond to negative feedback immediately.

Composing Updates/Videos/Links... And Milestones

This is probably the coolest new addition to this, is the Milestones.  Set important things that happened to the company, and allow a user to quickly navigate to different milestones so they can track your accomplishments, new product launches, and big events you want to pump up for the future.