One of my favorite features of the new Timeline is the cover photo. The cover photo is displayed at the top of the profile and extends for the entire page width. From what I’ve found, the ideal size for this space is 850×315 pixels but no smaller than 720 pixels. Since this a large photo area, a high-res photo is optimal to avoid pixelation. Your “profile pic” is now a 125×125 image embedded in the lower left corner of your cover image.

In Facebook’s help section, it details the difference between the profile pic and the cover picture:

A cover is the larger photo at the top of your timeline, right above your profile picture. Note: Like your profile picture, cover images are public, which means anyone visiting your timeline will be able to see them.

We’ve found that people have a better experience viewing your timeline when they see a cover that is as unique and individualized as you are. This helps people learn more about you. It also helps us prevent spam, fake profiles, and other content that can detract from your experience on Facebook. An easy way to ensure your cover image is unique is to choose an image from your life, like a photo from a wedding, day at the beach, or birthday party. If you want to use a photo to show solidarity or express support for a cause or organization, you can still post a status or a photo and feature it on your timeline.

As mentioned, cover pictures, like your profile picture, are public which means anyone who comes to your profile can see this image. There is some question about whether Facebook is making efforts to control this space to keep it free from promotional and business images. The above quote seems to be Facebook’s effort to encourage people to keep it personal.  Facebook profiles have always been meant to be more personal than for business and some users are reporting a message from Facebook when they first load their cover image that discourages promotional or commercial images in that space. The cover picture is a great way to make your profile stand out and really make an impression, so put some thought into the image you will be using and feel free to change it up once in awhile.

With the new Timeline, no new information is being shared and none of the privacy settings for any of your old posts have been changed. You may however, want to go back any new posts that are surfacing in the timeline and change their visibility to “Only Me” if it’s a post that you no longer want viewed. Using the “Activity Log” page is the best and easiest way to go through your posts and do this.

Another feature of the new Timeline is that you can go back and add “Life Events” all the way back to your birth. Of course, Facebook encourages you to add these events but certainly it is up to you how much more of your life you’ll be willing to share with Facebook.

For additional information about the new Facebook Timeline, see the resources below:

• The Complete Facebook Timeline Guide on Mashable

• Facebook Help Section for the Timeline

What are your thoughts on the new Timeline for personal profiles?

• How to measure success in social media

• Where I see social media going

• What brands I think are doing an incredible job with social media

• Why some companies are not very successful with their social media efforts

• How my business and social media services have evolved in the past couple of  years

And more.  You can read the full interview HERE.

The other post that you might find of interest is over on my other blog Magic Fan Pages (where I try to cover the different aspects of using Facebook to help market your business- however, this poor blog is woefully neglected.) I wrote a post about Facebook Privacy and Account Settings that you need to know. There was a recent report that indicated 93% of Facebook user accounts are not that secure. So, in response to that, I thought it would be good to put up a post with some important privacy and account settings to know about to help make your personal profile more secure.  You can read that post HERE.

This is yet another feature that local businesses need to be on top of and figure out how to use it to their advantage. Foursquare and Yelp already have proven track records of helping driving customers to businesses. Now, the biggest player of them all has stepped into the ring. Most business have heard or know that they really should have a presence on Facebook with a Business Fan Page.

How Facebook Places and Deals Help Local Business

• Build loyal customers
• Visibility- when someone checks in at your Facebook Place, it shows up on their profile and in the News Feed for all their friends to see.

In order for a business to be able to create a deal in Facebook, they will need to have claimed their Facebook Place first. Then you can create a Facebook deal, wait to get it approved by Facebook and then promote it.

Users can find Facebook Deals when they check in at different locations using Facebook Places for Android or the Facebook iPhone App. There are four kinds of deals currently available.

• Individual Deals- Discounts, freebies and coupons  for individual users that check in
• Friend Deals- You and other friends check in together to claim a deal.
• Loyalty Deals- Earn a deal or a discount based on checking in a certain number of times.
• Charity Deals- Choose to donate to a cause when there is a check-in.

Each of these different types of deals have clear advantages to businesses. Deals is currently rolling out across the county and already big businesses have already sign up to offer deals including Gap, Chipotle, McDonalds and Starbucks.

You can read more here directly from Facebook about Deals. TechCrunch also had a pretty comprehensive post covering the Facebook announcement where they note that currently Facebook Deals will only be available to US businesses.  Facebook will also be offering the Deals service to users for free which will make it hard, if not impossible, for other geo-location services to try to charge businesses for offering deals to users.

I’ll be keeping up on the best ways to use Facebook Places and Deals for local businesses, so be sure to drop me a line if you have any questions.

Among the biggest change is that users no longer “Become a Fan” of a fan page. Instead they will now “Like” a page and people will no longer be listed as fans, but will be “People who Like This.” Facebook explains the change here:

Why did “Become a Fan” change to “Like”?

To improve your experience and promote consistency across the site, we’ve changed the language for Pages from “Fan” to “Like.” We believe this change offers you a more light-weight and standard way to connect with people, things and topics in which you are interested.

They also explain here what it means to “Like” a page:

What does it mean to “Like” a Page?

When you click “Like” on a Page, you are making a connection to that Page. The Page will be displayed in your profile, and in turn, you will be displayed on the Page as a person who likes that Page. The Page will also be able to post content into your News Feed.

So far I’ve found this page in Facebook’s Help Center to be the most comprehensive explanation of how all the changes work and tie together. Along with the “Like” for fan pages, they are launching Community Pages which will link to your profile info so that your interests become links to community pages that reflect these interests. You also have the option of linking your interests to specific fan pages.

This, of course, means increased public visibility for your profile an the information in your personal profile. Along with these new features come new privacy settings that everyone should know and be aware of. Listed below are some of the posts and articles that have come out about these changes and how they affect users.

Connecting to Everything You Care About. Source: Facebook Blog

Facebook to Link Profiles and Pages. Source: Mashable

If You Link Your Profile Data to Pages, then You Make that Information Public by Default. Source: Inside Facebook

Facebook Launches New Privacy Section That May Make Your Head Hurt. Source: TechCrunch

Google Twitter Announcement

This means that updates from Facebook Fan Pages are currently being indexed and included in Google’s real time search feature. This includes links, photos, videos and status updates but not comments by fans. While updates from personal profiles can also be posted publicly by users, it doesn’t appear that those updates are being indexed as part of the real time search.

What is Real Time Search?

If you’re not familiar with real time search, here’s an example. Currently trending on Twitter is “Canadian Joannie Rochette” from Olympic events. If you go to Google and type in “Canadian Joannie Rochette,” you will get quite  few results, but if you scroll down about mid-page, this is what you will see.

As you can see, there is a scrolling box which shows real time results as they are happening.

The addition of Facebook page updates to real time search joins Twitter, MySpace, FriendFeed and others. Mostly what I’ve seen so far in real time search are updates from these networks about trending topics. This probably means that big brands on Facebook with large fan bases will likely get the most of amount of love from real time search right now. However, it does become yet another reason why businesses, organizations, non-profits and others need to seriously considering creating a solid presence on Facebook because now it means that just one more way to get yourself found on Google.

Need help with setting up your business Facebook page? Shoot me a message and let’s talk about it or come find me on my Facebook page!

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• Google Takes First Shot at Facebook Search Results (readwriteweb.com)
• Google Adds Facebook’s Fan Page Updates to Real-Time Search (insidefacebook.com)
• Google Adds Facebook Pages to Real-time Search (mashable.com)
• Facebook Pages Now Part Of Google’s Real-Time Results (allfacebook.com)

Just a short and to the point post that will actually be a list of references for Facebook. You might be surprised how much information you can on Facebook about using Facebook!

• Facebook Marketing Page: A page run by Facebook which provide tips for using Facebook for marketing and brand loyalty.

• Facebook Pages Product Guide: Light overview (PDF) document by Facebook about what pages are, how they work and the various elements that make up a fan page.

• Facebook Promotions Guidelines: Facebook’s guidelines for promoting your Facebook page outside of Facebook. Includes an easily downloadable (Facebook approved) graphic to place on your website to help visitors click through to your Facebook page.

• Facebook For Non-Profits: A fan page that serves as a resource for non-profits and other organizations on Facebook who work towards social good. Often they highlight other non-profit fan pages or will post news about brands or companies who are using Facebook for social good.

• Facebook Fan Pages: Another page administered by Facebook where they share news, best practices and examples for administrators of Facebook pages.

• Facebook’s Official Privacy Policy: Facebook’s official policy regarding your privacy on the platform.

• Facebook’s Blog: This is another good place to find all the latest announcements and news about Facebook. Facebook often posts about upcoming changes and events there before they happen.

Of course, working with an experienced social media virtual assistant who is already aware of these resources and keeps tabs on the latest happenings with Facebook can help you navigate using Facebook efficiently and effectively.

Image via Wikipedia

After seeing this update, I went over the Army’s Facebook page to see just what was going on and it seems as though the Army’s fans were posting their opinions on the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy. Obviously, this is a highly charged and highly emotional issue for many people on both sides of the issue.  The parts that particularly caught my interest was:

1. The response from the Army’s admins for page who were actively engaging with their fans and letting them know they were being heard. It also appears Admins are actively watching the page to delete any completely derogatory and profane messages. But the ones that are on there seem to be posted by people on there who are willing to post their opinions without resorting to name calling or hurtful words.

2. That this issue was being so openly discussed at all on their fan page.

While fan opinions on Facebook may not change whether the policy continues, it does seem entirely feasible that at the very least, these comments will be forwarded to those in the higher ranks and quite possibly to congressmen and women and other policy/decision makers.

I believe this speaks to power of social media today. Not only is the US Army using Facebook to connect with people but those people are using the platform as a way to make themselves heard and they’re doing it without a second thought. Just a few short years ago, (heck, even just a year ago), the ability of the public to get their opinions directly to an agency like the Army would have been limited to poll or survey agencies or to sending a letter directly to your congress person…something that only small percentage of people would actually do. Additionally, it also shows how much more comfortable people have gotten with discussing such highly charged issues in a very public forms.

Is it a good thing? I think so. You need to remain objective though about whether the majority of opinions on the Army’s Facebook page are in support of the policy or if they oppose it. They currently have over 148,000 fans and one would venture to guess that a significant portion of those fans support the Army and it’s principles so opinions may be skewed in one direction or another. You also have to consider that the Admins may be removing the most inflammatory posts.  However, a good portion of the comments that I read seemed to mostly support not discriminating against any of our service men or women based on race, gender or sexual orientation.

I think its an example of a good use of social media.

Facebook recently changed not only how news and updates are delivered to users, but they’ve also implemented a formula for deciding which news is delivered. When you log into Facebook, you will most likely first see “News Feed.” (Unless you’ve moved Status Updates to the top of your left side menu, in which case, you will see just the Status Updates from your friends.) What shows up in your News Feed is determined by Facebook based on their own formula.  The News Feed typically will include content from your Friends and from the Fan Pages that you belong to. However, unless you click on view “Live Feed,” you are only going to see the content that Facebook has decided you might be interested in.

This means Facebook now takes into account what Fan Pages your friends like, or what Fan Page stories they are commenting on, which fan pages you interact with frequently and which fan pages you visit most often.

What does this mean for Facebook Fan Page Administrators?

It means that engagement and interaction on your Fan Page just became much more important if you expect to get your Fan Page to show up in your fans’ News Feeds. No longer can you just post on your Facebook and expect that it will get seen by your fans by showing up in their News Feed. It will still show up in their Live Feed, but the Live Feed is not the default and we have no idea how many users are actually moving from their News Feed to the Live Feed.

Fan Page Administrators will now have to work to earn a spot in their Fan’s News Feeds. While this might seem like this approach works against small businesses and works more for big brands with a huge fan base and tons of interaction, it really just means that Facebook is working towards keeping content in user’s news feeds that is relevant and interesting to the user. Fan Page should be places where fans come to interact with a brand or business. It’s never been the intention that Fan Pages should just be advertising billboards who can blast out marketing messages to anyone who becomes a fan. As a social networking platform, Facebook is a place where people go to network and socialize either with people, brands or business which they have *chosen* to interact with.

Next up…How to Keep Your Fans Engaged.

Image by J.Rio via Flickr

Now when you log in you will first see the “News Feed” on your Home page. According to Facebook’s Blog this is

“the most interesting things that happened in the last day in the “News Feed” view. News Feed picks stories that we think you’ll enjoy based on a variety of factors including how many friends have liked and commented on it and how likely you are to interact with that story.”

What this means is that Facebook has “picked” some of your friends and fan page’s updates or postings that they think you will be most interested in regardless of when they were posted and is essentially *highlighting* them for you. This does have some benefits in that you might find a posting or update that is interesting to you from several hours to a couple of days ago that you might have missed when you were not logged into Facebook. However, it also means that Facebook is picking these for you so there may also been people or pages showing up in this stream that really are not a high priority for you.

The Live Feed is a feed of what’s happening currently…the most recent posts as they happen in real time. This is the same as the feed you had before with a few small exceptions. One is the return of information about when friends become friends of someone else, when they are tagged in a photo or video and when they become fans of a fan page. While I’m not entirely too keen on having this information back in my newstream, there are probably others out there who don’t mind it. I do think that the addition of know which friends became fans of which fan pages or members of a new group along with the ability to become a fan or join a group right from the newstream is actually going to be a big benefit to helping fan pages grow their fan page and increase their visibility- something many fan pages and groups struggle with. However, if you have friends who are highly active on Facebook and each and every action they take is in your news feed, then I think there is the risk that more people may be hiding their highly active friends as Facebook has failed to provide people with the option of opting out of seeing some types of items in your Live Feed.

It is also important to be aware that Facebook has initially set your Live Feed to have a maximum number of friends in your live feed to be 250. You can change this to higher number and Facebook informs you this means there will be a higher number of posts. You can also choose which friends or fan pages that you want to see more of and which ones you wish to hide altogether. To do this, find the “Edit Options” link at the bottom of your Live Feed/Home page.

As with most changes in Facebook, this one will take some time to get used to and there are many out there who will oppose the change initially starting different groups and pages with a stated mission of trying to “bring back” whichever feature they felt should not be removed. Ultimately though, these changes will be here to stay. Well, at least until the next change that is.

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• Facebook Releases Big Homepage Overhaul, Receives Mixed Reviews (allfacebook.com)

This is awesome new feature which allows you to create yet another way to engage with your target audience and to bring them in to part of your online social network. It’s also a great move on Facebook’s part to push Facebook out even further into the Internet stratosphere.

To get the code for the widget for a fan page, you must first be an Admin for the fan page. This means you can’t just go and add a widget for any fan page that might grab your attention. As with anything that you post on your site, it should be something that you have explicit permission to post. As an Admin to a Fan Page, when you go to the page, you will see the option just below the picture or your logo which says, “Add Fan Box to Your Site.” There you will actually see two options, one for getting the code for adding a fan box and the other option provides you with code to get a Live Stream box which shows all the updates from your friends and where you can also post your status.

Grab the copy and paste it into whichever pages, site or blog that you want to add it to and voila, you just created a great way for people to connect with your business/fan page via your website. And here’s mine below- if you’re not a fan already…Join me!!