Since I’ve been contacted by a slew of retailers asking if Timeline is really going to be mandatory on their business pages, thought it wise to echo my response here:
Yes.
And it’s going to happen, whether you help it along or not.
If you haven’t switched your business pages over by next Friday, March 30, Facebook is going to do it for you. What you’ll see, in that scenario, is a big blank space at the top of your page, and a profile pic that’s been cropped down to a square (translated, if your current profile pic is anything other than a square, or is too large a square, it’s going to be sliced down and will look awful).
AT THE VERY LEAST, you must get a Cover and new Profile Pic uploaded, then publish in Timeline if you want to stay ahead of this thing. The dimensions are:
Cover (the big photo that will fill the top of your page: 850 x 315 pixels
Profile pic (same purpose as before): 125 x 125 pixels
Don’t worry about your personal pages so much…I’m not clear on whether or not those hit a mandatory changeover (since I finally bit the bullet and converted mine ten days ago).
For those of us who rely on custom tabs, apps, and HTML pages, racing to beat the Timeline clock has been a royal pain (due to a scant 30 days’ lead time, thankyouverymuch Mr. Zukerbuckets). For most, however, the Cover and updated Profile Pic will do the trick.
Another heads up, in case you aren’t aware of it….
Timeline adds an updated Message feature, similar to its personal profiles counterpart. What’s that mean? The little icon at the top of your screen is about to start showing bigger red numbers.
For businesses who have a manageable audience (less than 500, maybe 1000), it will be relatively painless. For those of us with five figure audiences and no office staff, however…gulp. It’s wildly unrealistic to think they (read: me) will be able to handle yet another jam-packed communications pipeline—especially one that comes with an expectation of personal, immediate response. Remember, this will be in addition to normal wall conversations and inbound emails.
Essentially, Facebook is handing us another email account with a whole lot more regular users attached.
Once you’ve converted to Timeline, then get the hang of what’s available, you’ll be blown away. Lots can be done in the new format that wasn’t possible before.
Just hurts like hell getting there.
Click here to tell me what you think....
Cinda, the messaging feature is not as bad as we thought it was going to be. I actually kind of like it, in a way, because we are getting feedback from customers who I don’t think would post publicly on the main Wall, but also are not going to take the time to go to the website and email us. So far, we have not been flooded with Facebook messages, but we have gotten a couple. And honestly, if someone has a complaint, I would much rather have the opportunity to address it privately, over messaging, than have the person post their complaint on our Wall, and have to deal with it from there.
Editor’s note: Glad to hear it’s been a better experience than expected. One question, though: Is your fan count above 1,000? For most merchants, messaging will be a fairly easy addition; for larger groups (such as The 3/50 Project, whose fan count exceeds 89,000), we’re talking about considerably higher message volume. As it is, we’re averaging 350-400 inbound emails daily. Add direct Facebook messaging to that, and…well…it’s gonna be a tough to respond quickly enough to prevent fan frustration turning into even more frustrated wall posts.
thanks Cinda! I’ve been dreading (read: avoiding) this and reading your post makes it feel a little more manageable.
@Barb:
Thanks! Am always happy to help.
The key is to start with baby steps. Get the Cover and Profile Pic taken care of first, turn on Timeline, then allow the rest to follow, even if that means after Timeline “turns on.” For the majority of merchant pages, that works.
Can’t wait to see what you put up for your Cover—you have such a great store to work with!
For smaller fish in the pond the shift to Timeline was easy and we’re pretty pleased with the results.
Now we can’t wait to find background customization capability for the actual timeline- templates don’t seem to exist yet. (There are tons of options for the cover and profile templates). If anyone has seen them please let me know.
Your project sounds line a bear… the down side to a large fan base, if there is such a thing! Good luck with the shift Cinda – all in good time I suppose!