Now personally I haven’t my personal Facebook page over to the new Timeline look because frankly I find it confusing. I liked the one column which to me was nice and clear but Timeline with it’s two column presentation is now coming to Pages as well.
If you don’t make the changes yourself by March 30th 2012 then Facebook will simply change it across for you. However there are some major changes so if you don’t want your Facebook Page to look a mess then you should act before the March 30th deadline.
New
Cover page photo
There are strict rules that this cannot have any contact info, price info, FB features (for example telling people to like the page), or any calls to action. The photo can signify what the business does though and the help suggests that you get creative.
To change the cover photo once you have one, place your mouse over the cover photo and a change cover button will appear and you can either select or upload a new photo.
The fact that you have changed photo will appear in your timeline with the new photo. This can be hidden if like me you changed your photo several times before you decided on the right one.
In the help it states the width of the photo should be 399 pixels but that doesn’t look very good and 850 pixels wide looks better it my opinion.
Highlight post
With your mouse hover over the right hand top corner of a post and a star and pencil will appear. If you want people to notice a post you click on the star to highlight it. This means the post is spread across both columns. To un-highlight the post you repeat the process.
Edit post – pin and change date
When your mouse is hovering over the right hand top corner a pencil appears as well as the start. If you click on pencil you can pin the post in place (so the post will always appear at the top of the column).
Below pin to top there is an option to change the date of the post. So you can decide where a post appears in your timeline.
You can also hide the post from the page or delete the post completely.
How to navigate new page
When someone clicks on your photos or other apps then can either use the back button on the browser or click on the name of the page (see image below). Either one will return them back to the timeline.
Post visibility
Now you check a box to have a box on your page that allows people to see posts by others, otherwise people will see all posts.
You can select to only show posts by that page and by friends until the posts are reviewed by Admin.
Removed
Landing page
Before the new changes a page could have a landing tab where your could put a welcome or a call to action. This has been removed so people visiting your page will only arrive on the timeline page.
Old Facebook Page
New Facebook Page
Check out the new Mount Gambier Website Design Facebook Page
Time will tell which one works better to keep in touch with current customers and also to attract new ones.
Let me know what you think of the new Facebook page.