Hay There!  Are you hearing a lot about the new Facebook Timeline?  In today’s blog, we’ve outlined some key points about this important new Facebook change to keep you up in the loop!

Remember, you can listen to the full podcast of Emily A. Hay talkin’ Timeline on the Internet Advisor show on WJR 760AM in our media section.

What It Is

• New upgrade to personal profiles on Facebook – currently limited to personal pages only (not business pages)
• Replaces your “wall” and “profile” – the new lingo is “Facebook timeline”
• An article came out the week of 1/22/12 from Facebook that says “over the next few weeks” it will rollout a conversion to all users – the new format won’t be optional

– To activate it today, visit: Facebook.com/timeline

• You have 7 days to preview your new look before it goes live.  If you like it right away, simply click “publish”
• Exciting new visual feature is the “cover image” – which is always public

Why It’s Supposed to Be Better

• Move from social graph (friend connections) to “OPEN GRAPH” to allow 3^rd party web applications to integrate into your FB experience – FB is the common denominator of our internet use/life!
• Summary of your life – incorporates your posts, photos and apps to tell a more complete story of your life
• Groups all things together that went on around an event…your birthday for example

How to Use It’s Features

– On your main timeline page, you will see a button that says, “ACTIVITY LOG” – click that

• From there, you an update your “about”, photos, friends, etc
• Add activity, life events right from the “status” bar where it says “What’s on your mind”
• NUMEROUS automatic choices from “health and wellness” to “work and education”

– Apps – Main purpose of the apps is to help tell your story – 80ish+ apps now, more coming soon!!  Examples today include:

• Yahoo news
• Spotify
• Pinterest
• Nike GPS running
• Foodie
• Fab.com

– Discover apps by seeing what your friends are doing in your newsfeed or ticker – you can click on your friend’s story and you’ll be prompted with a screen to add a new app

– Share what you’re buying, what you’re watching, where you’re running

– All new apps you add prompt you with a screen like any other account on the web

• It tells you what parts of your information it will access
• What it will share
• Which of your friends it will share with

– Any app you add creates a LIVE connection with your timeline so its always up to date with your latest activity

– When you update through an app, it posts to your timeline and subsequently goes to your friends newsfeed and ticker

– If you want to see what activity you’ve been doing via comments, friends and apps, click on “ACTIVITY LOG” and this view is only for you to see

• From there, you can choose who can see your posts and you may choose to delete it

Key Take-Aways

– Facebook wants us to be able to do all things on the web via their platform

– We can anticipate a change to business pages sometime as well

– As a small business, you want to be sure people are engaging with your products/services

– Apps exist for large brands now.  If you are a small business, leverage apps that are available today…for example:

• Pinterest – Hay There Social Media helps clients leverage this app fully for their business today

– New apps will come out that small businesses can take advantage of

– It’s critical to ensure someone is accountable for staying up on social media changes for your business!

For help with your timeline and other social media management services, contact Hay There Social Media today!  Thanks for reading!

Contributed by Hay There Social Media Team Member, Betsy Critchfield and Emily A. Hay

Recommended Posts

Facebook Safety for Children

What is Facebook Graph Search?

How to Get Fans Talking on Your Facebook Business Page

How Dentists Use Social Media

How to Schedule Facebook Posts

Are you a “Facebook challenged” parent?

4 Reasons Why You Need to Allow Reviews on Your Facebook Business Page

Instagram for Personal and Small Business Use

WJR 760AM Updates: Facebook “Donate Now”, Instagram Advertising & New Layouts

How to Check Facebook’s Spam Filter