INTRODUCTION

WHAT IS FACEBOOK? Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by facebook inc.. As of February 2012, Facebook has more than 845 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups, organized by workplace, school or college, or other characteristics, and categorize their friends into lists such as "People from Work" or "Close Friends". The name of the service stems from the colloquial name for the book given to students at the start of the academic year by some university administrations in the United States to help students get to know each other. Facebook allows any users

who declare themselves to be at least 13 years old to become registered users of the site. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. The Web site's membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It gradually added support for students at various other universities before opening to hig

Type

Public Cambridge,

Founded

Massachusetts, United States (2004)

Founder(s)

Mark Zuckerberg Eduardo Saverin Dustin Moskovitz Chris Hughes

FACEBOOK FOR BUISNESS

With Facebook becoming the most powerful social network as well as most popular social media platform over the internet, it has opened the door for business owners to make a solid base business by strengthening the relationship between them and their customers. Now its becoming a very powerful traffic source that youll need to have in order to grow your business online. Today Facebook has more than 500,000,000 users, so youll be lagging behind if you dont make use of some of those potential customers. The other great thing about it is that you can implement a great deal of your marketing plans for free via Facebook. Like every service on the internet, Facebook has hundreds of advantages along with a small number of disadvantages. Thats what makes it very popular and very useful, but also a strategy that you should think through before implementing. Quick ideas for Facebook marketing

Facebook Contests: Running a contest is fairly easy on Facebook. The typical scenarios include pushing for increased Likes and interactions with users. The pricing for Facebook contests is usually very reasonable. Contact Fruition today to find out more about Facebook contest setup and management. Custom Facebook landing page setup: Weve setup a lot of custom landing pages for clients. This extends your brand into the Facebook arena and keeps the messaging consistent. Facebook ecommerce setup: In 2011 we generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in ecommerce sales directly on Facebook by extend a few of our clients ecommerce platforms to work directly within Facebook. This allows for a user on Facebook to purchase a product without leaving Facebook. This greatly increased revenue for a few social media clients.

HOW TO USE FACEBOOK FOR BUISNESS? Get the basics on setting up and building your business with Facebook Step 1: Create your Page Facebook Pages are a simple, free product for businesses to create a Facebook presence and connect with new and loyal customers.

Add content Include important information such as your location, links, hours, photos, or menus so that people can get to know your business Claim your Place Connect your physical store location to your Page by claiming your Place so people can find you and check in Invite your customers Invite current and new customers to like your Page, and promote it with in-store signs, flyers, emails, and website links

Promote your Page on your website by adding a Like button where people can engage with your Page and share it with friends. Step2: Engage your customers

Join the conversation Use your Page to post regular updates about your business and provide exclusive offers to generate comments and drive engagement

Build deep relationships Get to knpowerful stories that drive word of mouth for your business.

Step 3: Promote your business

Create Ads Use highly effective Facebook Ads to get the word out to exactly who you want using targeting criteria such as interests, location and more

ADVATAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF FACEBOOK FOR BUISNESS

Provides you with a very specific marketing plan: This is very useful when doing marketing for your business because you need to choose the right customers for you that are worth your time and effort. With Facebook you can search for whatever specifications you want like age, geographic location, interestsetc. With these powerful search features, youll save yourself a lot of time by searching for customers that have an interest in what youre offering. Great for local businesses: With its very powerful search features, you can filter the lists of your potential local customers instead of spending hours and hours on worldwide customers that have no interest or need for your product or service. Connect with experts: This is a great advantage for your business, as Facebook connects you with professionals in your field so they can help you or exchange valuable information with you. Gives you authority and leverage, with Google and among potential customers: There is no need to go for the old marketing way, because with Facebook you can do your marketing very easily and very fast at the same time. It can also act like a media to leverage your brand and get more authority so users can trust you. Targeted traffic: Facebook is considered one of the most valuable traffic sources available over the internet. Thats because it can provide you with targeted traffic that has an interest in what youre offering; this will give you a very good conversion rate.

Easy way to communicate: It provides you with very useful tools that help you communicate with your customers and share valuable information with them.

These are just few Facebook advantages that can help your business. Now lets have a look at some disadvantages: Disadvantages of Facebook:

You dont own the information on Facebook. When you spend time and money on Facebook marketing you need to be driving traffic and users to a property that you own. Yes, you are leveraging Facebook to build your business however you do not own the relationships with the users. Thus, you are at the whim of Facebook to determine how, where, and when you can use the data that you generate. Most companies cannot build a successful business just on Facebook they need to drive the users to their own website or app to truly capture the value provided by Facebook. It takes a long time: To use Facebook as a marketing media, you need to be patient, because it takes time and a lot of effort to find interested parties and build relationships with your customers.

WHAT IS FACEBOOKTIMELINE?

A: Timeline is a section of a Facebook user's account that replaces the Profile and Wall pages, and merges them together. It shows the story of your life, as you choose to tell it or as Facebook has recorded it, in a visual, scrolling, reversechronologically ordered timeline. It's a cross between visual blog and online scrapbook. Fun fact: Facebook Timeline was accidentally released very briefly to the public back in

December 2010 when it w

as called "Facebook Memories, " but it was promptly removed.

Introducing Timeline

Tell your life story with a new kind of profile.

CHARACTERSTICS OF FACEBOOK TIMELINE

Facebook Timeline is a radical new profile page design that Facebook will launch around the end of September 2011. It was announced by Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook's F8 conference following an introduction from SNL's Andy Samberg.

Facebook Timeline changes the default profile from a list of your most recent updates to a complete summary of your entire life since birth. It includes photos, videos, status updates and locations you have visited. The new Facebook profile is divided into two main columns, with a line down the middle representing the passage of time. Users are encouraged to add life events which were not captured by Facebook, particularly those that occurred before the person joined Facebook. Timeline uses an algorithm to assess the most important moments of your life, which can then be edited to your satisfaction. Unwanted updates can be hidden from the Timeline. The new profile pages are thought to constitute one of Facebook's most extreme redesigns so far, completely reimagining what a social networking profile can be. Timeline also means that Facebook now bears fewer similarities to Google+, a social network from Google which currently uses the standard format of showing the most recent updates first. Facebook made Timeline available for testing on September 22, 2011 : Facebook Timeline has yet to be launched to all of its 800 million users

FACEBOOK TIMELINE FOR BUISNESS PAGES

. Not everyone is cheering over the recent switch to Facebook Timeline for businesses. But the reality is, the new layout will present many great opportunities, particularly if companies properly use it to merchandise their products..

1. It Encourages Fresh Content and Active Conversation

With the new Timeline, business pages now look and behave like personal profile pages. This means a Facebook storefront can no longer be the landing page for new visitors using the old default tab setting. While this was useful to ensure more visibility for the storefront, it was also a crutch for not actively creating fresh content, which is the most effective way to drive new traffic to the store. With the new Timeline layout, building exposure for the storefront and its products will rely on frequently posting promotions and deals. While a post can be pinned at the top of the Timeline for up to seven days, smart sellers will create a daily posting plan to develop continuous awareness with their fans. Better yet, they will look for ways to actively encourage comments on their posts by asking questions, creating polls, or publishing other content designed to provoke responses and make their stream an active discussion forum.

2. It Provides a Richer Canvas for Seller Expression

The new Facebook pages give sellers more real estate to showcase their brand and products, starting with the cover photo While there are some content limitations for the cover photo, it is a really great way to attract new visitors and engage current fans with a core brand message. The ideal dimension for a cover photo is 850 pixels wide by 315 pixels tall, and its a good idea to create several for regular rotation. Storefront applications will also be a more visible part of the page. The old tabs on the left of the page have been replaced by a large 111 pixel by 74 pixel icon that can be placed just under the cover photo. This icon is automatically filled by the storefront application, but the seller has the option to create a custom icon.

The new application canvas for the storefront will also play a larger part. All of the profile information that used to be on the left of the page will move to the top, allowing sellers to deliver an 810 pixel wide experience for shoppers instead of the previous 520 pixels wide. This means more products above the fold, or larger product photos, or both.

3. It Offers Deeper Engagement Insights and Tools

The older version of Facebook Insights did not deliver real-time data, so it could take up to two days to get analytics on a post. With the new Insights, sellers can now track how a post is doing within five to ten minutes after publishing, allowing them to immediately tweak their posts depending on how they are performing. Sellers can then immediately amplify the reach of wellperforming posts by turning them into a premium ad or a sponsored story. Some other new or enhanced metrics include:

People Talking About Engagement: This is the total number of people that have engaged in any way with your page, including users liking your page, commenting on or sharing a post from your page, or answering a question youve asked on your page. Sellers can use this to measure engagement with their brand across all Facebook activities and track the success of their programs beyond likes and clicks. Friends of Fans: This is the total number of friends all your fans have. Sellers can use this to track the growing (or declining) influence of their fan base. As the average goes up, so does the potential reach for a sellers campaign or promotion. Reach: This is the total number of people who have seen content associated with your page. Understanding how far and wide messages are traveling will enable sellers to optimize their content to generate maximum reach. Virality: This is the percentage of people who saw a story from your Page and talked about it. Again, knowing whats being shared can help sellers assess what is actually of interest to their fans and customers.

Facebook Timeline is a radical new profile page design that Facebook will launch around the end of September 2011. It was announced by Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook's F8 conference following an introduction from SNL's Andy Samberg.

Facebook Timeline changes the default profile from a list of your most recent updates to a complete summary of your entire life since birth. It includes photos, videos, status

FACEBOOK TIMELINE FOR BRANDS

Facebook told marketers that its new Timeline interface would improve consumer interaction with brands. Timeline is living up to that promise, according to a new study.

1. Updated Look and Feel

Whats new: The format of Timeline for brands is quite similar to Timeline for personal profiles. It employs a cover photo at the top of the Page, and the Page is separated into two main columns by a dividing line, which represents the passage of time. This format provides brands with new options for self-expression: They can outline their corporate history with milestones (such as product l launches, store openings, etc.) to construct a narrative for their audience. Recommendation: Milestones present an important and dramatic opportunity to educate the public, humanize the brand and remove a perception of corporate anonymity. Our analyses of Page engagement have continually shown that brands posting content that depicts behind-the-scenes activities, exclusive updates or promotions encourages user interactions and promotes higher engagement rates. Using interesting milestones to craft the story of the brand over time (and updating the Timeline with new milestones as they happen) can help to stimulate conversations around major achievements.

2. Reduced Tab Visibility

Whats new: The new Timeline format does not have the left-side panel of links, which could include hundreds of different tabs. While applications still exist, theyll display differently, in rectangular panels underneath the cover photo. The width of the Timeline and the space allocated for native apps like Photos means that only three tab panels are viewable at any given time. To see m more, users must expand the tab panel by clicking a drop-down box. Recommendation: For marketers, this major change means that the three above-fold tab apps need to be considered carefully this will be one of the first things users see when interacting with your

brand on Facebook. Brands will want to switch up which tabs are visible above the fold, according to current company objectives or project popularity. A good Page analytics tool will be u useful for determining which tab to promote on a day-to-day basis.

3 3. No Default Landing Page

Whats new: With the new Timeline Page format, you will no longer be able to set a default landing Page, a favored feature for many savvy brands. The option was one of the primary ways to control the first (branded) impression a user encountered. Since there are no more tab Pages, there is no way to set one as a default. This will drastically change user impressions when they first visit a b brands Timeline Page. Recommendation: You will need to apply new and careful attention to all the top messages in the Timeline, as they will be the first objects seen by visiting users. Likewise, Facebook ads for brands will become ever important, as ads will be one of the major ways brands on Facebook can control a users experience. Setting up an advertising campaign for a Facebook promotion or new application will be the only way to guide new and clicking users directly to that application (as landing on this P Page cannot be achieved by default).

4. New Way to Feature Content Whats new: One major new feature that marketers will love is the ability to pin certain posts to the top of the Timeline. Similar to marking a blog post sticky, so that it remains at the top of a blog for a specified period of time, pinning a post to the top of Timeline allows it to precede any other content. A pinned post is distinguished by a small, orange flag. Brands can pin only one item at a time, and the pinned item then exists in two locations as the top item on the Timeline itself, as well as within its chronological place. Once unpinned (which happens automatically when a new item gets pinned, or the item has been pinned for more than seven days), the post remains in the c chronology of Timeline posts, but there is no visual history that it was pinned in the past. Recommendation: Since you can no longer create a default landing Page, pinning items to the top of the Timeline will become every marketers go-to strategy for highlighting new and interesting content. We will begin to see savvy brands design posts specifically to be pinned, whether images, a well-designed call-to-action, a statement about brand value, or a message calling for the user to c click one of the tab panels under the cover photo.

5. Current Tab Content and Applications Become Outdated Whats new: The new Timeline layout displaces Facebooks existing Page tab configuration (including a tabs 520-pixel width), and replaces it with a new 810-pixel layout. As a result, existing Page tab content will look centered in the middle of the 810-pixel layout without any adjustments. All applications that remain on a brands Page will need new application icons (the new dimensions a are 11174). Recommendation: The most pressing updates for brands will be to update the images and tab functionality of the above-fold two apps. As these are the first tabs users will see, they will likely be t the first to be interacted with, or entirely ignored if not optimized for the new experience.

6. Private Messages Between Brands and Users

Whats new: Finally, brands will be able to send and receive private messages with users. This allows for much deeper consumer interaction, and will also enable Page managers to take extended c customer inquiries off the Timeline and into a private message. Recommendation: Be mindful of noise in the Timeline. Since the real estate allocated to each post depends on how engaging it is or how much interaction it has received, it can be easy to clutter your Timeline with customer inquiries. When these inquiries can be better serviced in a more one-on-one manner, reach out to the consumer with a private message and resolve her question. Its a good o opportunity to yield both a happy user and a clean Timeline. Timeline for brands will certainly shake things up for social media marketers who seek to make an impact on Facebook. One thing is for sure though: The way content is shared and viewed within a Timeline Page is incredibly important. Brands that constantly create engaging updates and share important milestones will stay at the forefront of users attention. Create and rotate new apps for engagement, pin relevant and timely content, and update the feed with user-friendly dialogues to stay relevant in this new space

ADVANTAGES OF FACEBOOK TIMELINE FOR BRANDS

. The 3 important advantages of Timeline for brands that can be used by social media marketers are: 1. Telling the story of your company: As you know, you can decide which updates can be shown in the Timeline for each year. So, you can highlight the most important moments/achievements of your company back to the year of foundation! Thats a great way to tell a story of your company. Thats a great tool for branding. 2. Pinning the most important updates to the top of the page: Have an important update but dont want to post it multiple times (and look spammy)? The great new solution is available in Timeline for your business! Now you can pin an important update to the top of your page. The pinned update will stay there for 7 days or until you remove it, after that it will return to the right position on Timeline. This is a very useful feature. Lets say you promote a conference for your company. You can just pin the post with a short info and link to the registration page, so you dont have to post it again and again. 3. Highlighting important updates: When you highlight an update it spreads to the full width of your page and its highly noticeable. It is another great way to make sure an important update from your business wont be missed. This makes social media marketing a lot easier. 4. Wider iframe applications for your business page: Since there is no more left column with the links to the aps your page uses, you can create

wider applications for your page.Now iframe applications are not limited to 520 pixel width, they can be spread to 810 pixels, which means more room to express yourself, more room for call to actions, and so on. As you can see, there are definitely more advantages in Timeline for Facebook pages, and those little disadvantages can be easily displaced by all the new opportunities the new brand pages can offer for social media marketers.

DESCRIPTION OF SOME BRANDS USING FACEBOOK TIMELINE

Timeline marks a fundamentally different approach to marketing on Facebook for many brands, with more emphasis on images and genuine engagement on the wall

1. Fanta

Coca-Cola group is no stranger to Facebook (more on its main page later in the list), and its page for Fanta is no exception - starting things off with a big, bright image that also promotes the current advertising campaign. By promoting the campaign, the page also encourages fans arriving on the Timeline to like the page subtly, being sure to avoid Facebooks stringent new rules about this. Fanta also has one of the best examples of custom app images something many brands havent yet attempted with clear, colourful graphics and some nice engagement tactics, encouraging fans to play games, spread the word and generally become more socially embedded.

Even those of us that have grabbed a day-old footlong on the way home after a night out would be hard pressed to guess the rich history of sandwich supremo Subway.

The NY Times could have chosen a slightly clearer cover pic, but its choice really highlights the feeling of an internal family of workers, putting a crucial human face on things.

Starbucks

Given Starbucks' truly huge presence on Facebook, it would be surprising if it hadnt done something worth checking out - and the new page doesnt disappoint. While the cover is all about the coffee itself, the page includes local content and reflects the intimacy of having a coffee with friends.

Ford Motors

Although the cover picture of the company's headquarters might be a little dry, Ford excels by having great content on display that explores the company history from Model T to supercharged GT500. There are some lovely archive pics included as well, which shows off Fords lengthy racing history and acts as a rich source of wallpaper material for fans

Plus, theres a nice selection of badges for owners to declare their allegiance to Mustang, Mondeo or Escort. Ford's individual product pages really deserve the majority of the kudos here though, with Mustangs design and battle app a particular favourite:

NEW FACEBOOK PAGE OF FORD

. Burberry

Timeline is great for promoting images, so it would be remiss not to include at least one fashion brand on this list. Burberry was one of the first brands to switch, having been allowed to prepare for launch by Facebook. As such, it's been getting a lot of love on its page because of it. Simple, stylish images welcome you to the page, while the Timeline highlights some fascinating examples of classic advertising through the years.
This classic outerwear ad with its images of the golden age of air travel was one of our favourites. Burberry

. Old Spice

Unsurprisingly, Old Spice takes a slightly surreal and very funny angle to its Timeline design. Apps allows you to pit Fabio and Isaiah Mustafa against each other, watch videos about bears with 'B.O.', and in one of the few examples of f-commerce weve seen within the Timeline - even buy a horse-themed t-shirt.

PROBLMES AND SOLUTIONS REGARDING FACEBOOK TIMELINE

A lot of social media marketers were disappointed with the two things mainly: 1. Lack of ability to set up a landing page: Problem: Now you cannot choose a particular application as the first page your visitors (who are not yet your followers) see when they type the address of your page in a browser, come to your page through a link, or find you in search. So if you have a specific application as a landing page where you ask visitors to like the page in exchange of something else this page wont be seen to such types of users, unless they specifically click on it from the new menu under the header. Solution: This doesnt apply to Facebook ads. You can set up an app within your page that will be seen by visitors when they click on your page ad. So you still can use the same proven techniques to improve clicks to likes conversion. You may say: ok, but what if I dont want to use Facebook ads to promote my business page. Does it mean my conversion rates will be low? The answer is probably a little bit lower than usual, but not too much. Usually people who come to your page from a link, search results, or by typing the Facebook username of your company in their browser know what they are searching for and, therefore, more likely to click the like button to get regular updates from your company. 2. Timeline header picture has very strict rules in terms of what can and cannot be displayed there: Problem: According to Facebook rules, now you cant put to the cover image the following: any contact information, any references to use interface elements (especially the Like button!), any calls to action (such as tell your friends). A lot social media marketing strategists were surprised by these rules. How come you cannot publish your essential contact information to the image in the header of your own business page? Why should users make more clicks to find the contact information?

Solution: If you think about this from Facebooks point of view it makes sense: they want to provide their users with a great experience. Had they allowed pages to post contact info and calls to actions, a lot of headers would have become heavily filled with solicitations of all kinds As you can see, there are definitely more advantages in Timeline for Facebook pages, and those little disadvantages can be easily displaced by all the new opportunities the new brand pages can offer for social media marketers.