If you have gone recently in your Facebook page, you have seen that Facebook will change the look of Facebook pages again. You can preview the new look and make changes and then publish it already. Latest on March 30th, 2012, all Facebook pages will change to the new timeline look.
Here are the new changes:
Cover photo: your cover photo should represent what your page is about. The image should be 851 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall. Your photo should be at least 399 pixels wide. Facebook specifies that your cover photo may not contain:
- Price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it at our website”
- Contact information, such as web address, email, mailing address or other information intended for your Page’s About section
- References to user interface elements, such as Like or Share, or any other Facebook site features
- Calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends.”
- Additionally, cover photos must not be false, deceptive or misleading, and must not infringe on third parties’ intellectual property. You may not encourage or incentivize people to upload your cover image to their personal timelines.
Your profile picture: your profile picture can’t be a banner anymore, but will be just a small picture that will represent your Facebook page in other parts of Facebook. The picture should be at least 180 pixels wide.
Photos, likes and apps are now at the top of the page. With the apps, you can see 4 apps on the page. The photo app is first and can’t be changed. The other 3 visible apps can be moved and ordered as you want to. You can show a maximum of 12 apps.
Control of your content:
- Weekly pinned post: this means that the post that you pinned, will be anchored to the top of your page for 7 days. Use this to highlight your most important content since it is the first thing people see when they visit your page
- Starred post: a post that you star will become larger and take up the entire width of the page.
- Milestones: emphasize important event in your business. Milestones have a flag icon and will also use the entire width of the page. Examples are a new product launch or an event that you are hosting or participating in.
- Change post dates: you can now give a post a past date in order to populate your timeline.
Activity log: activity log helps you manage your page’s timeline. You can hide or unhide posts, star posts or change dates.
Admin panel: the new admin panel helps you keep up with all the activity on your page. You can see notifications, insights and messages all in one.
Privately message to pages: yes, you can now privately message to pages.
Personal experience: people have a more personal experience on your page since they will see how their friends are engaging with your page.
Facebook has a great video on how to change your Facebook page to the new timeline look: http://www.learnfacebookpages.com/.