Facebook Page Timeline Setup Tutorial: Day 5 – Cover Photo

The time has come in the Facebook Page Timeline Setup Tutorial to choose your cover photo. I’ve made this a Friday task because it requires more of your attention, and I’m hoping you have the time today and over the weekend to devote to it. You really want to think hard about what your cover photo will be, because it will be the main element of your Timeline page. I’m going to give you detailed information, hints and tips, and also inspiration from other Timeline cover photos.

Dimensions

851 pixels wide by 315 pixels tall is the ideal image dimensions to fit on timeline. Anything outside of these dimensions will be stretched or shrunk to fit, so it’s best to crop your photo to these dimensions before you load it into timeline for the best quality. Also keep in mind that the profile photo overlaps the cover photo in the bottom left hand corner. Which means you need to make sure that there isn’t any important graphics or images in the bottom 157 x 74 area.

Restrictions

Facebook has some specific guidelines about what can and can’t be included in your photo. The restrictions are:

-No price information.

-No downloading information.

-No contact information (this is intended for your About section).

-No calls to action (For example, “tell your friends” or “call today”)

-No references to Facebook functions (For example, “Click like” or “share this page”)

You can read their statement on these restrictions here.

How to Upload a Cover Photo

It’s very easy to upload or change your cover photo. Simply roll your mouse over the cover, and the “Change Cover” menu options will appear. You can either upload a new photo or choose from the photos you have already uploaded in the past. You can also re-position the photo if it is not the correction dimensions.

How to Choose a cover photo.

Your image should be something that will capture the users attention and make a great first impression, instead of a marketing message that they are conditioned to skip over and ignore. You can put your logo in the cover photo, but I think it would be better placed as your profile photo (we’ll talk about that next week) or as a small branding somewhere within the cover photo.

Make Your Cover Photo Genuine

If you can at all help it, don’t make it look like an advertisement. Make it look real and authentic. This is the NY Times Cover photo:

This is a huge media company, and they could have hired designers and photographers to come up with a cover photo designed to sell newspapers. But instead, they chose a normal, not even professionally done photo of their entire staff. You instantly know their heart, and who’s behind the brand, and you feel more of a connection with them. You actually want to spend time looking at and examining this photo. This is something that your small business can implement very easily. Pass up the marketing messages and show people who you are, what you’re proud of in your company, and why they should connect with you on a friend level.

Crowd Source your Cover Photo

Another great idea is to involve your customers in creating your cover photo. I’m doing this now with one of my clients. Ask your customers to post a photo to your wall, either of them with your product or at your store. Then, take those photos and put them all together as a mural and use it as your cover photo. This is something you can start asking for on Monday so you get enough for the March 30th launch, but you can also keep adding to the mural and updating the cover photo after the March 30th go live date.

More Ideas & Inspiration

If you’re a real estate agent, use a photo of a property as your cover photo and pin the information about the property to the top of your page. (We’ll talk more about the pinning function next week).

If your a local restaurant, take some quality photos of a few of your dishes and combine them as a cover photo. Or, take a photo of your dining area during your busy hours.

If you’re an Etsy shop, take a photo of a product display or take a photo of the product actually being created.

If you provide a service, take a group photo of your staff.

To see more examples of cover photos, click here, here and here.

Have you already uploaded your cover photo? Share the link to your Facebook Timeline page below in the comment section.

Miss a day? Find out what tasks were on Day One and Day Two, Day Three, and Day Four

According to Facebook, these page changes must be done by March 30th. If you don’t have the time to devote to updating your business page, email me, and I will set it up for you for $150.