Quick guide to the new Facebook Pages

If you hang out on Facebook you must have heard of the big change for Pages...the new  layout and timeline. The change was implemented several days ago and until March 30, 2012, everyone can still use the current design. The new change in design is already well known among the Facebook community as personal Profiles look pretty much the same.

What are the changes then? There are many but the most important are:

• A big Cover Photo (851 x 315px) with your Profile Picture, see an example below from Muscat's coolest boutique TOTEM.

Please note: you cannot use the big photo as an advert, it cannot contain calls to action, cannot include any contact information, including web address, products prices, or any references to Facebook features like “Like our Page”, copyrighted info, etc.

• The applications you previously had as tabs on the left hand side of your page will now appear as boxes just under the cover pic. You can choose what order to put the boxes, I suggest your arrange them based on importance. This is an example from Kia Oman.

Please Note: the size of customised tabs has been increased to 810px wide but you will still be able to keep them as they are, i.e. 520px. This change will give a greater design freedom.

When posting new updates you will now be able to:

• "Highlight" updates to give them more prominence by extending them to 2 columns.
• "Pin" your status update: You can “pin” status updates to keep them at the top of your updates for up to 7 days.

Please note: Pin and Highlight will be very useful for brands as they can drive visitors to a specific tab with a link in the post.

• Pages can add milestones with images, to any point on their timeline. Brands can use this to highlight important date in history and events. This is a great opportunity to educate the public, humanise the brand and remove a perception of corporate anonymity.

The last big change is that you can now send private messages to Pages. When on a Page, click the “Message” button below the Cover Photo to write and send your message. This is something to watch out for as spammers could take advantage.

There are a few negative aspects too in my opinion such as not having the choice of setting a default landing tab and not being able to date an object in the ‘Timeline’ prior to 1905. Having also a 2-column layout will fragment conversations.

Let’s see if these changes will improve engagement and interaction between brands and their fans.

There are many other changes such as the Activity Log and the New Admin Panel; you can find them all in details here as well as a nice video tutorial here.