As we all know, Facebook rolled out their Timeline recently and various features were removed from or added to the social network. While Facebook Marketers will likely miss the calls to action and default landing page of the old Facebook, a handful of new features have shown promise when it comes to capturing the attention of users. These features, when used properly, have the potential to broadcast the Fan Page owners message to even more people than the old Facebook. Here is a small dose of what I am talking about.

#1: Create Milestones

Definition: Milestones are what many people think about when they use the traditional usage of the word ‘Timeline’. A timeline is a chronological scale that has various milestones marked on it and Facebook Milestones are no exception.

You can tell the history of your company here, which will help your customers know the humble roots of your company and be entertained as well.

A few details about Milestones

• To create a Milestone, simply go to the status update bar where you usually make posts and click “Event, Milestones +”.
• Milestones are highlighted automatically, that is, they take up the width of both columns of the Timeline.
• You can, of course, have multiple Milestones on your timeline. Just like a traditional Timeline.
• You can create Milestones for the current date or go back in time to put them on the appropriate date they belong.

Strategies

Be sure to always include an image to your milestone, this will make sure that it catches the users attention.

Include a call-to-action of some sort, perhaps with a link, in your Milestone. This link can lead to a main website so the user can learn more about said milestone, or it can lead to a related event regarding the Milestone.

If you are a brick-and-mortar store, create a Milestone for when you were founded, complete with nostalgic photo.

You can use Milestones to highlight accomplishments, such as a car company rolling out on a different continent or the launching of a flagship product.

Create Milestones for new products and services and encourage your fans to click a link to learn more. This can be done for the present or the past.

#2: Pinning Posts

Definition: When you pin a post, you manually choose a status update to stay at the top-left column of your Timeline.

This can be useful since, as we all know, older posts will quickly become buried beneath newer posts and be sent farther down the page where readership levels are much lower.

A few details about Pinning posts

• Pinning a post moves it to the top of your left timeline column.
• Only one post can be pinned at any one time.
• Pinned posts will stay pinned for seven days unless manually removed.
• To pin a post, look in the upper-right hand corner of a status update for an edit pencil icon and click it, then choose “Pin To Top”.
• To unpin the post, click the same edit pencil icon and look for “Unpin the Post”.

Strategies

        One option is to use pinned posts to build fans or an email list by offering something in exchange. Pinning the post will make sure that many more people will see it and take part, driving up traffic, likes, emails and reach.

Alternately, or in addition, you can use the pin feature to make sure that first-time visitors see the post first and therefore see the message it conveys, such as calls to action to click ‘Like’. This is increasingly useful considering the demise of the default landing tab.

You can create a welcome video or image introducing people to your page and keep it pinned to the top so that your visitors will be sure to see it and know what your page is about.

You can also simply use images in conjunction with the pinned post feature to help generate traffic for meaningful posts. For example, when promoting an event of some sort, create a banner image for the event and put it in the post announcing the event and don’t forget to pin it to the top. The ideal size for pinned images, by-the-way is 404 by 404 pixels.

 

#3: Highlighting Posts

Definition: Highlighted posts are status updates that you have chosen to expand across both columns of your Timeline. The thought behind this is that it will help draw more interest than posts assigned to either the left or the right columns.

A few details about Highlighting Posts

• Pinned posts are still more likely to get more visibility than highlighted posts since the pinned posts are at the top of the page. This does not mean that highlighted posts should not be used, however.
• There are no time limitations for highlighted posts, unlike pinned posts.
• You cannot both highlight and pin the same post.
• To highlight a post, hover over the upper-right corner of a post and click the star icon that appears. Click again to un-highlight the post.
• Highlighted posts stay in chronological order, unlike pinned posts, and thus are pushed down the Timeline with every new update.

Strategies

Use highlight to give visibility to customer testimonials. You can take a screenshot of the testimonial or rewrite it into a post.

Leverage the fact that you can use multiple highlighted posts and create a rule, such as highlighting certain types of posts (picture posts, videos) or using it on a weekly basis to give your Timeline a bit more order.

You can use highlighted posts to roll out new services or have highlighted posts or images reserved specifically for a time-delayed post campaign.

 

For these three features simply be creative and use them to bring attention to what you want your visitors to see.