New features in Facebook Timeline for Pages

You might be wondering over what the launch of the Timeline for Pages mean to your brand? Is it an opportunity to boost the engagement or new control over it? First of all, bear in mind that it require lot of work initially. From today, a host of new features are available for all the Pages across the world with the option to upgrade to the Timeline. Here we have listed the new features and how to work on these.

Activate Timeline

Go to Timeline for Pages Preview Manager and then select it to add the feature to your page. After this, you will enter the curation period of 30 days during which on the admins can see the Timeline and the fans will see only the old design as before. Once you are ready with all the features, you can click on Publish now at the top of the page to activate it to all.

Cover Photo

The redesign displays a banner of 851 x 315 pixels that is stretched at the top of your page. This can be used to symbolize what the organization is about. For instance, a menu can be displayed on a restaurant's page. All you have to do is to select a high resolution image that will attract the visitors and make them scroll down to glance at the updates.

About Section

The standard profile picture of the Page, name and two stats like Likes and number of users talking about it will be at the bottom of the cover. The About section displays a description of the brand or the address and the contact details for the local businesses. Users can unfold a map and also view the other basic details through this link. Ensure that you give a punchy and short description to enhance the identity of your brand.

Page Apps

The Page apps have been moved from the left sidebar to the right of the About column which is actually a disadvantage of the Timeline for Pages. These appear in the form of thumbnail pics rather than text links and so they can be overshadowed by the huge cover photo. Four app titles will be displayed of which the first one is for the Photos permanently. The others are for Maps, Events, Videos, Likes and other custom apps.

Messages

Timeline allows the users to send private messages to the Page directly. This is like a customer service where the users can come up with their concerns and publicly discuss about it on the Wall/Timeline. Pages cannot send messages proactively but can just respond to the ones sent by users.

Highlights Feed

When the users visit the Page, they will see a lot of stories that are published by friends, others and by the Page itself. This is way too different when compared to the previous look. Users can opt to see those feeds dedicated for them however. The navigation bar on the left enables users to go to the different years in the history of the brand.

Pinned Posts

The brands can pin a best post either new or old to the top left of the Timeline feed for a week. This can be used to inform the users on the promotional activities, to show off a special photo or to display timely status update. Leaving besides the pinning of posts, you can also select the important posts to highlight them throughout the Timeline.

Friend Activity

At the top right of the Timeline for Pages, visitors can have a glance at the number and those of their friends who like the page also also a update from a friend mentioning about the Page. You have some control on this and make sure that you keep the negative mentions about the Page hidden or delete. Composer

Along with the traditional photos, videos, status and question updates, you can also select to publish the special Milestone stories like the date of founding and some other accomplishments. This may receive positive impressions on the news feeds.

Admin Panel

The Timeline will have a new Admin Panel that drops down and appears overlaid on the Page. It will display the notifications of the recent activity like the posts by fans, most recent conversations, new likes, total reach and more. Each of these sections can be drilled in for a more detailed view. The Manage button reveals the Edit Page that allows to configure the settings.

Activity Log

This shows all the posts that have been published by the Page and also the ones that users have mentioned. This also lets you to delete the ones that are written directly on the Timeline of the Page. You can curate the Timeline easily with this Log and make sure that they are having the best ones.