How Brand Timelines Piece Together The Social Media Puzzle

by on March 1, 2012 at 11:46 am in Blog, Facebook

By Christine Varriale

 

If there is one social network that gets everything right, it’s Facebook. At yesterday’s Facebook’s Marketing Conference (fMC), Facebook executives and social media professionals reiterated how important the story of a brand is to the success of its timeline. Human engagement on Facebook was brought to the forefront with the introduction of timelines for brands. Facebook is great at adopting aspects of other social networks and piecing them together to form the most comprehensive, engaging online presence for brands.

Pinning

Facebook integrated “pinning” into timeline.  A post that you pin will be kept at the top of a timeline for up to seven days. Facebook followed the Pinterest trend closely. The ability for brands to “pin posts” will allow page administrators to prioritize content. For example, if a brand is running a promotion or specific contest, the pinned post will remain at the top, which will let fans engage for seven consecutive days.

Rich Media

Facebook is not scared of Google+, but they are smart enough to know they must adapt to the changing world of social media. Timeline for brands elevates engagement and focuses on rich, colorful photos.  Many brands, like Old Spice, are using photos to tell their story.

Old Spice

Brands should feature important milestones from their history. Showing milestones is a way for brands to share their stories and have fans share theirs as well.

Reach Generator

Facebook announced, “Reach Generator,” a new advertising feature. The idea behind ”Reach Generator” is to put a brand’s sponsored post in the newsfeed. These new Facebooks ads are estimated to reach 75-85% of a brand’s fan base, compared to the historical rate of 16%. Similar to Twitter, promoted trending topics have been hugely successful for brands.

Do you think Facebook has it right? Is their puzzle complete yet? Share with us in the comments! Download our free webinar recording How Brands Can Leverage Facebook’s Timeline and All of Facebook’s Newest Changes. 

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  • Tom Hannon

     Cant be all things to all people. Facebook has ruined itself from what it was. I hardly see all the posts anymore and facebook telling me what I want to see from my friends is step in wrong direction. Re business I think all we would hope for is for all the fans to atleast get a chance to see our posts, I would rather pay a yearly fee for the page then have to advertise. It is good for the companies that can pay the weight of that ad, but not for smaller companies.

    • http://twitter.com/certaintragedy Christine Varriale

      Hi Tom,

      I know these are a lot of changes for Facebook, but I think their core idea of making brands into a story is great for human engagement. brands will have to think deeper into their social media strategy beyond promotions and paying for ads for page views. This will create great conversation between brands and fans. I can’t wait to see how it all pans out.

      Thanks so much for your input on Facebook’s new brand timelines!

  • http://twitter.com/certaintragedy Christine Varriale

    Hi Allie,
    I’m going to assume you are referring to the fact that you can see all of a brand’s posts on their timeline without liking their page. Please correct me if I am wrong.

    In terms of fan-gating, a fan still needs to like a page to see its other apps (formerly tabs). If a brand creates beautiful and simple app thumbnails, it will entice a new user to click on these to learn more or enter a contest. Here is where you can use a call-to-action to like the page.

    Let me know if you have anymore questions! Thanks for reading!

  • http://twitter.com/certaintragedy Christine Varriale

    Love it! I like imagining a world where we can reference Facebook like Wikipedia. It’s a dream of mine.

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