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Copyright 2012, David Husnian, All Worldwide Rights Reserved You have the right to make a copy of this document and pass it on, unchanged, to anyone you choose as long as you are doing so in a legal and ethical manner. You do not have, in any way, the right to use this report as SPAM, for illegal purposes, or with malicious intent.

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The Publishers have strived to be as accurate and complete as possible in the creation of this book, notwithstanding that fact, the Publishers do not warrant or represent at any time that the contents within are accurate due to the rapidly changing nature of the Internet and the topic. This information is provided "as is". The Author, Publishers and Marketers of this information disclaim any loss or liability, either directly or indirectly as a consequence of applying the information presented herein, or in regard to the use and application of said information. No guarantee is given, either expressed or implied, in regard to the merchantability, accuracy, or acceptability of the information. This book is not intended for use as a source of legal, business, accounting or financial advice. All readers are advised to seek services of competent professionals in legal, business, accounting, finance and other applicable fields. No guarantees of income are made. While all claims are accurate for the specific situation the Author does not know the Reader, their skills, work habits or any other factor that can impact results. The Reader assumes responsibility for use of information contained herein. The Author reserves the right to make changes without notice. The Publishers assumes no responsibility or liability whatsoever on the behalf of the reader of this book. Any trademarks, service marks, product names or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if we use one of these terms.

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Table of Contents
Introduction.........................................................................................6 Major Facebook Design Changes.............................................................7 Review of the Timeline Look................................................................9 Photos at the Top of the Page ......................................................... 10 About Your Company..................................................................... 11 Views and Apps Tabs..................................................................... 12 Friends Activity ............................................................................. 14 Greater Control of Your Timeline........................................................ 15 Pinned Posts................................................................................. 15 Highlighted (Starred) Posts ............................................................ 16 Milestones.................................................................................... 17 New Administration Capabilities............................................................ 19 Administration Panel ........................................................................ 19 1. Notifications Section .................................................................. 19 2. Direct Message Section .............................................................. 20 3. Likes Section ............................................................................ 20 4. Facebook Insights Section .......................................................... 20 Activity Log..................................................................................... 21 Why People Are Scared?...................................................................... 23 Can't Set the Default Landing Page .................................................... 23 Cover Photo Restrictions ................................................................... 24 Loss of Investment .......................................................................... 25

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Its More Work................................................................................. 27 It Aint All Bad (Its Mostly Great!) ........................................................ 28 Admin Panel and Activity Log ............................................................ 28 Post Management ............................................................................ 28 More Automated Control Over Posts ................................................... 29 Cover Photo .................................................................................... 29 Better and More Personal Customer Engagement................................. 30 Direct Messaging ............................................................................. 31 Increased Social Proof ...................................................................... 31 Wider Tab Pages.............................................................................. 32 What You Should Do ........................................................................... 33 Set Up Your Timeline Now................................................................. 33 1. Create a Sensational Cover Photo................................................ 33 2. Create/Update Your Profile Photo ................................................ 33 3. Update Your About Section Information ....................................... 33 4. Organize and Spruce Up Your Tabs.............................................. 34 5. Build Your Timeline.................................................................... 34 Update Your Existing Pages............................................................... 35 What You Need to Do On an Ongoing Basis ......................................... 36 Post Regularly .............................................................................. 36 Monitor the Interactions................................................................. 37 Consider Facebook Advertising and Offers ........................................ 37 Bonus Tricks ...................................................................................... 38

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Spy on Your Competitors .................................................................. 38 Finding Hot Prospects....................................................................... 39 Dont Waste Your Profile Photo Link ................................................... 41 In a Nutshell ...................................................................................... 43 Resources.......................................................................................... 44 Facebook Resources......................................................................... 44 Other Resources .............................................................................. 44

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Introduction
Facebook is making changes to their Pages starting on March 30, 2012 and the online business community is flooded with commentary about how this will ruin online businesses thatve been relying on Facebook as a marketing channel. That is just plain ridiculous. Of course, there are also floods of opportunity seekers madly rushing to create new products and courses to market to all these scared people and businesses. That is equally ridiculous and downright dangerous for the people who buy those new products. While it's still very early and nobody truly understands what will be happening and what impact it may have, we can look at what we know and make some educated guesses on the advantages and disadvantages based upon what Facebook has told us so far and on research and testing done since their announcement. In addition, I'm going to tell you why I think the changes actually a net gain; that is, that the advantages of the changes far outweigh the disadvantages. So, let's get started...

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Major Facebook Design Changes

On February 29, 2012, Facebook announced that they were removing the option to set a default landing page and will start using the Profile Timeline look instead as the default page for everyone, heres an example:

Sample Facebook Page with Timeline Look I want to be clear here, and I will be emphasizing it throughout this document, that Facebook is not removing any pages, and they are not changing, at least in a negative way, how your pages work. Understand that the primary change is just that you cant set a default landing page, everything else you were doing works as it did before or better.

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In some ways, you get a lot more control of how your pages look but, in a few ways, you have less control but one positive change is that the new page layout lets your visitors interact more easily with you. According to Facebook designer Sam Lessin, Facebook has "seen that most businesses have a core group of loyalists, but those loyalists also have friends." He also said. "Weve made it easier for people to connect with a business through the lens of their friends Its a much more personalized experience." As a reference for you, an example, of the old default landing page, if you didnt change it, looked like this:

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The new default landing page will look like this:

Review of the Timeline Look

As I mentioned, the default Facebook Page will now have the Profile Timeline look which, as you just saw, is a dramatic change from what the Facebook default page looks like before March 30, 2012; assuming you didnt set it to be a different page. It organizes updates on a time-based, vertical "timeline", grouping posts in chronological order by month and year; making for a more visual experience and it allows for larger photos on the page; let take a quick look at the specific parts of the Timeline.

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Photos at the Top of the Page

Like the existing personal Timeline view you can have 2 photos at the top of your default page: (1) the cover photo and (2) the profile picture.

Cover Photo and Profile Picture The first thing people will see is the Cover Photo, which is a large, public, banner at the top of your page, but there are strict guidelines about what this header image can and cannot have in it. Wel go into this later but some quick examples: a Timeline Cover Photo cant be promotional, with discounts or encourage people to "Like" your page; you can learn more at the Facebook FAQ page on cover photos. Facebook wants this to be the visual identity of your brand and wants you to use a unique image that will represent your page. It can be about you, your company, your products and services, your mission statement or whatever, but it needs to be big and bold like the picture here. Facebook states that the ideal size is 851 by 315 pixels and that it must be at least 399 pixels wide; if they are smaller Facebook may resize it.

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Because of that, Ive found you will get the best results if you optimize your image to the preferred size yourself and then upload it. Your Profile Photo -- a smaller image that appears next to your status updates -- sits in a box that partially overlaps the Cover Photo so factor that in when you decide on a cover. If youve been using one of those longer profile images people, including myself, were recommending, you should create a square one, at least 180 by 180 pixels, or Facebook will distort it on your page. To change your profile photo just, hover your mouse over it and click "Edit Profile Picture". Remember that the Profile Photo is the photo thats used to identify you throughout Facebook; when you comment or do other things on Facebook it is resized down to 32 by 32 pixels so make sure what you want to use looks good at that size.

About Your Company

The "About" section (also called the Page Summary box), is now along the top, on the left, right below the photos.

About Section Heres what Facebook says you should put in the About section: You can edit the information that appears in your Pages summary box below its profile picture, but you cant choose which fields display there. The types of information that appear in the summary box are specific to your Pages category.

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For example, Pages for restaurants show price range, address, phone number and hours of operation in the summary box, while artist/musician Pages show the About field of the Pages basic information. Because of its high visibility, its position, and the fact that many people either didnt put anything in the about section or they put too much you should make sure it properly highlights you or your company. It needs to be short and on point, highlighting the most important things to your prospects and customers; save the history for your Timeline. This is one place where you can put a link to your Web site or other contact information. As you can see above, Magnolia Bakery is highlighting: (1) that they are a bakery; (2) their telephone number; and (3) their Web site address. You need to decide what the key things you want people to know about you and your business and put that in the About section; note, depending upon the type of business, you may not be able to put exactly what you want.

Views and Apps Tabs

Custom tabs are moving to a new location, on the right side immediately below the Timeline Cover Photo.

Views and Tabs Section Make sure you order your custom apps so the most important ones are first because when the new Facebook Timeline page is loaded, only the first 3 of them will be displayed.

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Note, you have no control over the first tab as its always the Photos tab but the next 3 you can control by ordering your tabs; the other tabs you have are available in a little arrow drop down to the right of the fourth tab (not seen in the above image). Also note that while you can have as many apps as you want Facebook will never show more than 12 tab icons at any time (the Photos tab and up to 11 others) so keep that in mind when you order your apps. Facebook gives you the ability to change the page tab icons; it's as easy as hovering over the icon to see the choices appear and editing the settings; you cannot change the icon of the Facebook provided tabs, just custom tabs. This is something you can use to your advantage by creating very appealing and enticing icons that make people notice them and want to look to see whats behind them; the icons should be 111 by 74 pixels in size. There are also currently no restrictions like there are with the Cover Photo so you can make them promotional, show pricing and discount information, have a call to action like Click Here to See Why , etc. Look at what Ford has done for an example, I think you can see how some more creative thought can make their icons much more appealing and invite more clicks but a few of them just call out click me, click me!

Expanded Tabs View Another thing that people wanted that Facebook has added is that the tab pages can now be up to 810 pixels wide; the old size was 520 pixels so they are letting you have a 56% increase in the amount of space you have on those pages to get your message across.

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Friends Activity
The Friends Activity section is near the top of your company page and is where people who visit your page will be able to see what their friends' interactions with your company have been.

Friend Activity Section This gives a more personal feel to those visiting your page, because they see people they know having dealings with you. This helps build trust in your brand because people visiting your page will see the communication and interaction their friends have with your company right at the top of your Timeline but this means you need to think closely about how this impacts your pages. A big advantage is that your pages will have a more personal feel and people seeing their friends have positive experiences with your company will make them more likely to have dealing themselves with your company because of the trust it builds in their minds. The downside is that a negative mention from a visitor's Facebook friend is also likely to show up here and if they see their friends having negative experiences with you it will be a lot harder for you to gain that persons trust

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and they will be significantly less likely to become one of your customers or do much of anything you want them to do. You need to think about how this will impact you and how to deal with it.

Greater Control of Your Timeline

Pinned Posts
You will now have the ability to "pin" any one post to the top of your Timeline Since its the first post anyone will see this is perfect for you to highlight a post you want people to see for a longer period of time than they might otherwise, particularly on an active page where posts quickly get pushed down.

Pinned Post You can tell a post is pinned when it has a little orange ribbon (or flag) in the upper right corner of the post (see above for an example).

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A post will only be pinned for a maximum of 7 days after which Facebook will return it to its "proper" location; itll automatically move to its position in the Timeline based upon the date of the post. You can, however, change the date of a post which will let you keep your most important post at the top of the page for a longer period. You can have only one pinned post at any one time but since you can unpin a post at any time you control what shows at the top of your Timeline.

Highlighted (Starred) Posts

Besides pinning, you can control the look of a post by highlighting or "starring" it. What that does is let you feature the post more prominently in your Timeline by having the post take up the full width of the Timeline; if there are photos in the post make sure they look good at the full width because Facebook still has problems sometimes when they change the size of photos.

Starred Post

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Unlike pinning, you can highlight as many posts as you would like and you can even highlight every post if you want to, although doing that seriously takes away from the impact of highlighting, so I dont recommend it. Also, unlike pinning, a post will remain highlighted for as long as your want, even forever, as a post will stay highlighted until you unstar it. One final thing, you cannot both pin and highlight the same post at the same time, that is, a post can be in only 1 of 3 states, it can be: 1. A regular post that isnt pinned or starred 2. A pinned post that appears at the top of the Timeline 3. A highlighted post and takes up the entire width of the Timeline. While you can highlight content on your page in several ways, you'll also want to delete spam messages so they dont reflect poorly on you and your company or imply that you are endorsing them or their comments. I am not suggesting you delete negative comments because that will look bad, usually cause you worse problems than the comment itself and, in my opinion, not only is it bad marketing its just plain wrong. A much better solution is to deal with the negative comments directly and publicly show that you care about customer satisfaction and aim to get the people with the negative comment to post a positive comment including how well you handled their initial problem. Doing it this way is an example of how you can use Facebook as a powerful customer service tool which, in turn, improves your bottom line.

Milestones
You'll also have the ability to create "milestones" on your Timeline. These give you an easy way to prominently feature events that happen in your business -- maybe the release of a new product or a positive mention in the press. They should be the important moments and events that you particularly want to highlight to solidify the appearance you want to convey. They can highlight the history of your business through the key events and, like starred posts they are shown at the full screen width so they are highly visible in your Timeline.

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Milestones can be a powerful feature if used properly. You can tell a milestone by the blue flag (or other blue icon) right above the posts title (see below).

Milestone Post *Milestone Indicator

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New Administration Capabilities

You'll find 2 new ways to manage and administer the activity you and people who interact with you have: the Admin Panel and the Activity Log. Lets take a quick look at each.

Administration Panel
The Admin Panel, which appears above your Cover Photo when you are logged in, shows you a variety of things as you can see from this screen shot.

Admin Panel

1. Notifications Section
First, you see the Notification section in the upper left hand corner. The Notifications is where you will find all your notifications about things like when someone comments, Likes or tags you; this lets you see, react and manage things from one central place; my suggestion is to respond, thank, or Like their comment or whatever else they did.

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Facebook will also send you an e-mail notification when someone does something or you can turn off that feature because it can quickly fill up your inbox if you have a lot of notifications.

2. Direct Message Section

The section in the upper right corner is where your direct messages can be seen and managed. Direct messages are a much requested feature and are obviously a great way to communicate You can send and receive private messages to other Facebook users although you can't initiate the first message to others you can respond to messages sent to you. This is a particularly good way to handle specific issues and those that require sensitive, private information. They can also help keep complaints from public view and turn a bad situation into a testimonial. A quick note, you can disable the direct messaging feature if you want, if you do that then nobody will be able to send you a direct message.

3. Likes Section
The section, in the lower left corner, is where you can see everyone who has said they Like your pages, comments, etc. It only shows the most recent Likes on this page, obviously because over time you will have hundreds or thousands of Likes, but you can see all the Likes by just clicking the See All link in the upper right corner of the box to open a page with all your Likes.

4. Facebook Insights Section

To the right of the Likes section is the Facebook Insights section.

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Facebook Insights is Facebook's mini-analytics tool and, while not something new, is something that most people don't even know about. With it now being more prominent on the Admin Panel it's much more visible and more likely to be used. What is it? In short, as you can see, it lets you know information like who is, and how many people are, talking about you and your company. Since it also shows you when you make a post you can see if particular posts caused spikes which, in turn, tells you the post was something of interest (positively or negatively) to people coming to your page.

Activity Log
The activity log is where you see all the activity that has occurred on your page and where you manage your posts; lets take a look at the activity log.

Activity Log

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Its easy to manage your post in the activity log, just click and select an option as seen here:

Managing Posts in the Activity Log

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Why People Are Scared?

Different people are concerned about different things but there are a few concerns that standout and that are causing most of the doomsday talk.

Can't Set the Default Landing Page

This is the biggest complaint I've heard of and, I'll admit, when I first heard it I was concerned myself; I'm now convinced that this will end up being an advantage and help honest, ethical, serious marketers and online business owners be more successful. Whats the Problem? In the past, you could define what specific page people saw when they came to your default Facebook page; this is called the default landing page. Now, the Timeline view is the default landing page and you cannot change it to be any other page; however, you do have some control over how the Timeline looks, as we saw above. As I emphasized at the beginning, you dont need to worry because your original default landing page is still there and you can still use it as you did, you just need to send people to it, some of the ways to do that are: Link it to one of the page tab icons at the top of your Timeline, you can even make the tab icon have a call-to-action on it. Put a link to it in a post and then pin that post to have it at the top and/or star the post so its like a full screen width ad. You can also have direct links to it from other tab pages, from ads on Facebook or other ad network (like AdWords), from your blog or other Web properties, even RSS feeds. Really, anywhere (inside or outside of Facebook) where you can put a link, that link can point to any of your Facebook pages.

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Cover Photo Restrictions

As I mentioned, there are restrictions to what your Cover Photo can contain. Facebook shows you this message when you click the Upload Photo choice: Note: This space is not meant for promotions, coupons, or advertisements. Your cover photo should not be primarily text-based or infringe on anyone elses copyright. What that means is that Facebook doesnt view the Cover Photo as advertising space whereas to a marketer and business owner its prime advertising real estate. The primary restrictions that relate to us are: You cannot include any pricing (only $9.99) or discount (40% off) information; no prices, no discounts, no specials or anything else that is price related. You cannot include any purchase information no Download it instantly at our website or order at or anything else that would tell someone how to buy. You cannot have any type of call-to-action, for example, you cant say things like Click Here to Buy, Add to Cart, Get Your Free Gift or Get It Now; you cant even do innocuous things like Tell your friends or Like Me. You cannot include Facebook elements or even any mention of Facebook elements no Like, no Share, or any other Facebook features; and you cannot include arrows or indicators pointing to the Facebook elements on the Timeline such as to the Like button. You cannot include contact information of any kind, for example, you cant have your mailing address, your Website address, e-mail address, or even your Twitter address; Facebook believes that type of information belongs in your pages About section. Doing those things is such a prevalent practice this it has caused a lot of ranting, raving, and wringing of hands.

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While I cant imagine how Facebook will enforce these restrictions with the billions of pages they have, even with automated processes, but it is against their policies so there is no reason to risk it. With a little creativity, youll find that this can actually be freeing and your cover photo can provide a level of excitement and attraction that you wouldnt be able to achieve by using it as a less than subtle marketing vehicle.

Loss of Investment
One thing that a lot of people are upset about is that they have made investments, sometimes big ones, in time, graphics, programming, traffic generation and other things to develop their Facebook marketing campaign now they feel their investment is lost. Its not unreasonable to be concerned about this but I believe the reaction is blown way out of proportion to the reality of the situation. First of all, not all investment is lost because existing pages dont disappear; its only that none of them can be the page people see if they go to your default landing page. Even if you have more than 12 pages, youll just have to be more creative getting prospects to your various pages; this is a bit more work but the cost of creating the pages was probably high enough to make it worthwhile to do this small extra amount of work; if not, maybe the pages shouldnt be there. Anyway, for specific promotions, it probably wasnt wise to send visitors to a default page in the first place; although there were a few good reasons to have a default page, sending people for a specific promotion wasnt one of them. And you can still drive traffic directly to your original default landing page (or any other page tab) just use the Web address (URL) to that page in the links you create; this is the way I always did it and the way I always recommended to do it and it still works great. I think youll find that pre-filtering the prospects via the message they hear before they get to your pages will make a nice improvement in your conversion rates that more than offsets any perceived loss from having less actual traffic.

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If you dont like those ugly Faceboook page Web addresses for a direct link, just use a simple redirect or a URL shortener to make it look prettier. For example, maybe your current Facebook vanity URL is Facebook.com/BestNYBagels which showed a special 2 for 1 coupon on bagels that people could get if they Liked your page. If your Web site is BestBagelsInNY.com you can use a redirect to go to the same Facebook page but the Web address now could be something like BestBagelsInNY.com/Get2For1. It looks as nice, or nicer, than the old Web address and its specifically targeted and you can have lots of promotions running at the same time using nice redirect links without worrying about the default landing page; I list the redirect software I use in the resources if youre interested in doing this. So, only a fraction of your investment in creating and promoting a custom landing page is at risk; after all, the page still exists and can be used and making the page tab icon visually attractive and appealing to click will help mitigate that risk. Another way to mitigate any loss is by using a pinned post where you highlight the promotion that would have been on the page and provide a link to it in the post. Obviously, thats not quite the same thing but it will help. Other than the default page and maybe some link building and traffic generation losses, there really shouldnt be any loss of investment. And really, this is just the cost of doing business on Facebook. They have a history of making changing, as do many other online companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. as well as offline companies and you should understand that you will need to change and adapt when Facebook changes and factor that into the budgeted investment of a marketing campaign; at worst you can use some of your budgeted contingency funds. And when you factor in the immense advantage of having what amounts to a free, targeted marketing channel and platform of, soon to be, billions of prospects the net gain is very high compared to other options available to you.

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Its More Work

The last big thing I hear people complain about is that it just makes more work for them. Running a business and marketing takes work and the new Facebook Timeline does require you to do some work but successful marketers already understand that constant care is what drives sales. Will this change cause you some extra work? Yes, it will, particularly at the beginning when you need to go through everything to make sure your Timeline is just how you want it to be. It might also be some additional ongoing work but its also a great opportunity to engage with the people who visit your page and this will build better relationships will real prospects and that is more important than getting a Like or even getting an email address; having the e-mail address of somebody who doesnt even remember who you are and could care less is worthless and can even cost you money. Its really so much better to have a smaller core group of loyal customers and fans than a huge group of I couldnt care less people who have Liked a page to get a free gift they probably never even looked at. Ultimately, successful people will adapt and do the work necessary and then reap benefits from the changes just like successful people have been doing over the centuries.

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It Aint All Bad (Its Mostly Great!)

Despite the loss of a few things there are a number of things to like with the changes and I find that Ive gotten back more than Ive given up.

Admin Panel and Activity Log

The first thing to like is the Admin Panel and Activity Log as it will save you and your team lots of time and effort as its easier to manage content, messages, notifications and things like that; and things will be getting done more quickly with fewer mistakes. Having a single dashboard (or rather two) will provide a quick overview of recent interactions and make the whole process of engaging with people who come to, or otherwise interact with, you and your company a satisfying experience. It will help you be more responsive and let you more easily build relationships with prospects and customers. It will also let you more easily see which posts are popular, which are confusing and any number of other things depending upon your situation. Then you can adapt to better showcase the popular and engaging things your customers want and make changes to the things that arent working as well as you hoped. This immediate feedback will make the process of improving be a faster and easier job.

Post Management
The ability to have more control over your posts is a great benefit of moving to the Timeline view. The ability to make certain, important posts standout from the rest of the posts can make a huge difference in the number of people who actually see your important messages; when everything looks essentially the same then the good stuff can get lost in the clutter. As mentioned above, the two main ways of doing that are to star posts or add milestones. Also, being able to pin a post to have it be a sticky, featured post at the very top of your Timeline can be used in a number of ways (think launches,

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promotions, videos, news, and countless other interesting ways) and get your marketing messages highlighted in a less in-your-face way. Even the 7-day restriction is good because it will force you to think and plan to work on your business to use Michael Gerbers term. And, there are ways around the 7-day restriction for those situations where its necessary to have a message remain at the top of your Timeline. Finally, its much easier to make sure your posts are how you want them because you can now do just about anything add, replace, delete, hide and even rearrange the order of the posts just by changing the post date. So, if you see that things arent the way you want them, or if you want to make an overall brand/persona change, just go in and fix your Timeline exactly how you want it and with the activity log nicely listing the posts its even easier.

More Automated Control Over Posts

A change that I also like for brands and businesses is that specific keywords can be blacklisted. That way, if someone tries to post with one of those keywords, the post will be marked as spam and wont be shown unless and until you approve it. In some niches this can be a big deal and great time saver; for people like myself, who have lots of posts in lots of niches, it really saves time. Of course, for a while at least, theyll still need to be reviewed because they wont all be spam and you dont want to restrict discussion and opinions but it lets you can schedule that review for a time when nothing else of greater importance needs to be done.

Cover Photo
The big, bold Cover Photo at the top provides a chance to make a stunning impact when someone first comes to the default landing page. The restriction from putting promotional content in the header image is freeing and lets you start connecting with the viewer before trying to sell to them.

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It wont reek of hard sell and make a visitor think someone trying to get something from me and, hence, make a better first impression; it makes me a bit embarrassed that I did it any other way in the past. Now, dont get me wrong, Im all for getting a marketing message out and Ive done enough marketing and copywriting over the years to understand the power and importance of persuasive language. But, its my belief that, particularly for cold leads and traffic, starting a relationship will yield better results than immediately marketing to them or having a call-to-action in their face as they first thing they see. This works well with the marketing method of sending pre-filtered, warm or hot leads not to the Timeline/default page, but to a page that directly targets their specific interest at the time and matches the promotional message they saw that got them to click in the first place (from an e-mail, paid ad, article, blog post, etc.) Anyway, the larger cover photo is a much better way to capture and engage than any of the previous ways that Facebook made available.

Better and More Personal Customer Engagement

Ive mentioned personal customer engagement a number of times throughout this document because I believe it is one of the most important and powerful things in marketing and building a successful business. I think Facebook wants this too and its the belief of myself and others, that Facebook is moving to the Timeline view for brands and companies because the previous, frequently static landing pages were diluting fan engagement and disillusioning them. And really, honestly, after the novelty wore off, wasnt it getting frustrating to always go to someones page and have to Like it to see anything at all of value (as much as you might understand and use gated/reveal pages.) It was frustrating for me and it seemed that the free line was moving backwards and that nobody was giving things away for free on Facebook. Ill admit, I was as big an offender are everyone else, and am glad that this change is a sort virtual slap to remind me of whats important and what marketing tactics are historically more successful.

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Will I stop using gated pages, no I wont, but Ill be more conscious of when and where Ill use them instead of just using them without a thought. Now we can get back to the opportunities to better connect with our prospects and customers on a more personal level and engage them. Gaining their trust and providing them with value builds a bond that makes the sale so much easier, all the while still having enough marketing so that the bills get paid and the kids get to college.

Direct Messaging
With the ability to have direct messages you can have conversations directly with customers and prospects to, among other things, answer questions, deal with problems/ issues, and provide support and training. In fact, the personal feel of providing help and support through Facebook direct messaging can significantly improve the customer experience and their satisfaction because direct messages have that feel of directly talking with someone even though they may be half way around the world. And what better way to promote your satisfied customers but to get them to post right there and then on your Facebook Timeline!

Increased Social Proof

Along those lines, social proof is something everyone understands even if they dont know what the term means I can explain it simply If youre looking to get something, any product or service really maybe a dentist or a place to get your car brakes fixed or even know whats a good book to read -- and your brother or sister (or other trusted friend or family member) recommends a specific product, person or service then you are immediately much more likely to consider it even if youd heard of it before. In fact, even if you overhear a stranger recommending something you are still slightly more likely to get or use it than if you never heard or saw anything except maybe an ad or you passed it on your way to work. That is social proof. And, since the Timeline view always puts Friend Activity at the top of the Timeline, it will be one of the first things people see and many, if not most, people will actually look there first to see their friends social stories.

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This means there will be improved social interaction and gain you better brand favorability; its also much more likely that people viewing your Timeline will take further action. If you arent planning some serious marketing to take advantage of this social proof then you really need to start planning because it can be a powerful, positive force in improving your marketing.

Wider Tab Pages

Facebook used to restrict the width of your pages to be only 520 pixels wide, which is very narrow for todays larger, widescreen style computer displays; since most of the recent smart phones can display about 1,000 pixels across 520 is pretty small. Now Facebook is letting pages be up to 810 pixels wide which is a significant 56% increase in the amount of things your visitor can see without scrolling or without scrolling so much; this is a very nice addition. Usually, it isnt even hard to make wider, many times its just a minute or two of work, despite what all the hucksters trying to sell you something say. Here is something to give you a sense of how much more room youll have.

As you can see, the difference is quite significant and will give you greater flexibility and more options to get your messages across.

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What You Should Do

Set Up Your Timeline Now
Since you wont be able to use your current default landing page starting on March 30, 2012 when Facebook will be switching your over to a Timeline, there are two options: 1. You can take control and carefully craft your Timeline to be just how you want it to be or 2. You can do nothing and let your Timeline be however Facebook wants to display it. Which do you want? I bet youll answer number 1, so you should immediately go into Preview mode and take your time planning out and creating a Timeline that matches your specific business and marketing goals. Here are the steps you need to take:

1. Create a Sensational Cover Photo

This should be big (851 by 315), bold and appealing, something that makes the page visitor be attracted enough to want to check things out further; this is analogous to a headline on a sales page.

2. Create/Update Your Profile Photo

Make a 180 by 180 pixel square photo that brands you throughout Facebook and remember that it will be scaled down to 32 by 32 pixels and used as an icon everywhere else you have interactions, for example, when you make a post or comment on someone elses wall or page, so it must look good small.

3. Update Your About Section Information

Because the About Section information is now so prominent you need to make sure this is updated with the important information you want prospects and customers to know. You should make sure you put your most important contact information in this section since you cant put it elsewhere on the Timeline (at least

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where it would be easily seen); it may be the only place people see it and, over time, people will start looking for it there.

4. Organize and Spruce Up Your Tabs

You can and should create exciting and attractive custom page tab icons (111 by 74 pixels) so that visitors to you page have their eyes drawn to them and want to click them. Also make sure you organize your tabs with the more important ones first. Remember that, at most, 3 of your custom tabs will show on the Timeline until the visitor clicks a little arrow and even then only a total of 12 will show; the mandatory photos tab and up to 11 pages you create. Of course, you can create as many tab pages as youd like but no more than 11 of yours will ever show up in the list on the Timeline. Luckily, you can reorder the tabs at any time so, as your business or marketing campaigns change you can make some tabs more (or less) prominent, you can remove tabs you dont want anymore and you can add new ones. As always, you can direct links to any page either from inside Facebook or from outside Facebook and, in fact, I recommend you do so.

5. Build Your Timeline

You should essentially handcraft your Timeline so that it best portrays your company in the way you want it perceived. Dont take this lightly because its the public face of your company on Facebook so you must take the time and effort to build your Timeline to really show off your company. My advice is to start with your milestones. These should be the foundation of your Timeline because they are the important events in your company so define those events and put them in your Timeline as milestones. Then, go through your existing posts and remove any that you dont want in your Timeline; at this time you can move any posts that you feel needs to be in a different place in the Timeline.

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Add any new posts that you feel you missed or that would positively add to your Timeline. Now that youve got your posts updated and in the order your want them, go through your posts and find the important ones, the ones you really want to highlight, and star them. After youve done all that your Timeline should be crafted just as you want it so step back and look at it as a whole as if you were a visitor. Does it convey the message you want? Does it look like it would attract and appeal to someone in your target audience? Does it flow and read well? Make any changes you feel would improve it. The last thing to do is pin a post; remember this is a post that will stay at the top of your Timeline for 7 days. It should highlight something maybe an upcoming event -- so you may need to create this post before you pin it. And there you have it; youre done, and should have a beautifully handcrafted Timeline. If you need to learn how to do some specific things with your Timeline page, Facebooks official learning site has a step-by-step video guide at http://www.learnfacebookpages.com/.

Update Your Existing Pages

If you have existing pages youll probably want to update them to the new 810 pixel width. Here are some of the things youll need to do: 1. If you have a page header graphic itll need to be redone to the wider width. 2. If you have a page footer graphic itll need to be redone also. 3. Depending upon how your page was designed and coded it might look wrong and need to be redone. However, Facebook has done a pretty good job of just centering the existing pages but you should also redo them to take better advantage of the additional screen real estate that you now have available to you.

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It is also a good time to review your pages to see if they need any changes or you may even realize that you dont need some of them at all or that some are missing; when updating, start with your most important pages first. As I mentioned above, taking advantage of the newer page width is a relatively trivial task, at least using the additional space is. Of course, you may need a new, wider header graphic is you used one or you may want to add some things that didnt work well in the narrower page width. As we approach the March 30, 2012 deadline expect to see dozens of people trying to sell you Timeline products. Most, if not all, of these products arent even Timeline related and only are just themes and templates that are pre-sized to the new 810 pixel width. The new page width has no real connection to the Timeline other than they will both be active on the same date; with software, which is what controls everything in Facebook, it is not uncommon that multiple, non-related things are released. Its highly likely you wont need any of these products that will save your Facebook account, depending upon what you currently have, and the way they are and will be marketed will suggest you purchase more than one of these (duplicate) products at sometimes ridiculously low prices. Restrain yourself and invest the money elsewhere, even if its just ice cream for the kids!

What You Need to Do On an Ongoing Basis

There are a few ongoing things you need to be doing to best use Facebook as a marketing channel.

Post Regularly
The new Timeline-based page makes it even more important to connect and build a relationship with your visitors and making regular, valuable posts that will be of interest to them, will keep bringing them back and having them stay longer. Make sure you create and pin a post at least every 7 days; you can use this to your great advantage so dont miss it or just throw something together.

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Monitor the Interactions

There are a number of ways that people can interact with you for example, comments, Likes, direct messages, etc. and you must monitor these interactions. You need to answer questions, respond to issues, and answer direct messages in a timely and professional manner. You should be thanking, Liking and otherwise interacting with the people who are recommending and talking about you. It will provide you with a good opportunity to get, and keep, happy customers and retain a nice clean Timeline.

Consider Facebook Advertising and Offers

Facebook has announced it will feature its Premium Ads and Sponsored Stories on the mobile newsfeed as well as the Facebook logout page which, for some companies and situations, could fit into a winning marketing campaign. Facebook has introduced, or will also be introducing, what they are calling Offers which is a free, Facebook approved, way for you to be able to share promotions directly on your Facebook Pages. One reason you should consider using highly targeted Facebook ads is that you can link the ads to specific Facebook pages and bypass the Timeline, giving you better control over the prospects experience and flow through your sales funnel, in fact, its really the only way to get that control and guide your prospects. This way you can use Facebook to get the best of both worlds: (1) use the Timeline to release information, build relationships and do customer service; and (2) use the ads to direct targeted prospects to specific products and or campaigns.

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Bonus Tricks
Spy on Your Competitors
You now have the ability to not only see what your competitors are doing but also what results they got from what they did. When you see a Timeline you will probably see a Like tab icon, for example:

Sample Tab Icons You will see a Facebook tab icon that shows the number of Likes the page has gotten. When you click the tab icon you will see a page like this:

Competitor Insights Page

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What this page shows you is, on the left side, their most popular week, city, and age demographic. This alone is interesting and if, over time, you track this information for the top competitors, youll get some good data that you can use to better target the best audience. However, there is also the graph on right showing you the results of your competitors campaigns and posts. If you match their posts with their results over time, you can see what is working and what isnt. This is information you can use to great advantage, its sort of like split testing without the expense and trouble of actually doing it; just copy the things that work and avoid the things that dont. Be creative and youll be able to think of a number of ways to use this information.

Finding Hot Prospects

Facebook gives you a great way to find people who are having specific conversations about specific topics. These are very targeted leads who are specifically talking about the keyword phrase you typed in. Heres what you do. Do an exact Facebook search (put it in double quotes like I did below). Youll see a results drop-down box with the top results; an example of that is shown at the right. At the bottom of the search results youll see a link with the words See more results for. You must click this link.

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You should see a page that looks something like this.

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Find pages that have a lot of Likes and click into those pages. Look for posts that have comments, hopefully a number of comments, and check the comments. You should find a number of people who interested in and talking about things related to your keyword phrase; if you dont find comments move on to the next page. These are targeted prospects and you can join the conversation here but also go to those peoples Facebook pages/wall and join the conversations there. If you add value to the conversations people will check out your page and what you have. You can also add your own recommendations to the conversation AFTER youve been accepted by the group.

Dont Waste Your Profile Photo Link

When someone clicks on the Profile Photo, the Never Buy Graphic Again they are taken to your profile.

When you do youll see something like this:

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Note that you can put a description and links to wherever you want (your Web site, your old default landing page, or too anywhere!) Be creative with this!

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In a Nutshell
Timelines have and will certainly shake things up for businesses that use Facebook as a marketing channel. Dont let the changes Facebook is making concern you in the least and dont let all the talk and fear mongering scare you because there is no need for concern. Its just a change that needs to be accepted and profited from; embrace it and let your competitors wail and complain while youre adapting and taking business from them. One thing you can be sure of though is that the way that you share content and how you put it on your Timeline page will be very important, so you need to craft your Timeline carefully and constantly create engaging updates. Share your milestones and keep your apps fresh and updated. It is also of critical importance that you consistently pin updated and timely content so that people will always know about the latest and greatest things you offer, have done or will be doing. Stay on top of the interactions people have with your page, including on the page, on other pages, and in direct messages; its your best chance to publicly impress and bond with your best prospects. My advice to you is to get started as Ive suggested above but to not buy any product or course until trusted experts have had a chance to review, experiment, and test and discover the best methods and techniques for using Facebook after the changes. Dont expect that until March 26, 2012 or later though.

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Resources
Facebook Resources
They following resources will be useful to you to discover more about the Facebook Timeline changes Introducing New Facebook Pages: http://Facebook.com/about/pages Introducing New Facebook Pages FAQ: https://www.facebook.com/help/pages/new-design Facebook Page Terms and Conditions: https://www.facebook.com/page_guidelines.php Facebook Page Product Guide: http://ads.ak.facebook.com/ads/FacebookAds/Pages_Product_Guide_0 22812.pdf Learn About Facebook Pages Video Course: http://www.learnfacebookpages.com/ Using and Creating Facebook Offers: https://www.facebook.com/help/offers

Other Resources
The Redirect Software I Use: Easy Redirect The Facebook Page Software I Use: WP Fan Pro Facebook Timeline Companion Webinar

I want to thank Woei Yu Choo over at Marketing Graphics Monthly for all the custom graphics used in this document. Shes provided a special secret code for your use at Marketing Graphics Monthly: MGMSecretCode

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