As you know by now (I hope) since September Facebook has given pages the opportunity to showcase their brand’s personality with the timeline cover photo. And even though I’ve seen hundreds of them, I’m still wowed by the creative images brands come up with.
I’ve been researching the topic for a while now, and I wanted to share some tips and tricks that I’ve learned along the way. But before we get into the fun stuff, we need to talk about the appropriate image size.
If the image is exactly 851 x 315 it will fall right into place perfectly. If it seems a little blurry or off to one side, check the file size and make any necessary changes.
Note – If you plan on doing more work with images on your timeline, you must print out this image size cheat sheet.
In terms of actual content on your cover photo, there are only a few rules. Facebook allows pages to upload cover photos with text, but it’s against Facebook’s terms to upload images with:
- Calls To Action
- Price Information
- Contact Information
- Terms “Like” Or “Share”
These guidelines don’t say anywhere that you can’t put a call to action in your image’s description though – just sayin’…
For more information on what you can’t do, check out Facebook’s cover photo guidelines.
Okay, now that the bureaucrats have taken their leave, let’s talk about what you CAN do. Really, the sky’s the limit! Here are some common cover photo themes and examples to help get your creative juices flowing.
- Showcasing A Product - I love how Lulu’s, the online clothing store, exhibits their monthly focus products in a fun, eye-popping way.
- Showcasing Lifestyle - Any company can do this, it’s merely taking your brand’s image and putting it into a story. But I’ve noticed outdoor, nature, and adventure companies do it really well. Protect Our Winters, The Clymb, and K2 Snowboarding are some of the many, we can all take lessons from.
There are a lot of pages, big and small, that are producing fantastic timeline cover photos. One of my personal favorites is the San Francisco NPR affiliate station, KQED.
KQED uploads cover photos quite frequently, and why shouldn’t they? Every time a new cover photo is uploaded it goes out into the news feed. This creates an opportunity for fans to like and comment, and in turn will improve KQED’s edgerank score.
KQED uploads a variety of cover photos. Some show behind the scenes of shows, professionally designed marketing messages, and fan photos from the bay area. These pictures do a fantastic job of showing community, the arts, and eduction, the things that make public radio so great.
But enough about what others are doing, we want to hear about what you’ve done! Please leave us a comment explaining how you’ve personalized your brand’s page, or what you plan to do in the future. Feel free give us a link in the comments so we can check out your Facebook page.
