Today, March 30, is the long-awaited day that Facebook promises to phase out the old style of business pages and switch them over to Timeline. Whether you’re a lover or a hater of the new layout (or you just plain hate it whenever Facebook changes — you know who you are), you have to admit, some businesses and brands have already done interesting and impressive things with Timeline.
Organizations that have been in business for years and years, like the New York Times, have a cool opportunity to turn their Facebook page into a way for Likers to visually scroll through their entire history, as well as notable historical events in the world.
Look at that Timeline – you can browse their history (and the world’s) all the way back to 1851!
Spotify has taken a similar approach to their Timeline, highlighting important moments in music history, from the birth of Johann Pachelbel to the death of Frank Sinatra to the release of the first MP3. Most stories are accompanied with a Spotify link for you to listen to the artist being talked about in the highlight, making Spotify’s business page something you can truly get lost in for hours. Despite being a young company, Spotify’s Timeline takes you all the way back to year 1000 — yup, 1000 — while keeping you up-to-date on current music news and new releases today.
Technically, Facebook doesn’t allow you to post events on your business page’s Timeline that are earlier than when your business started. Spotify used this disclaimer to get around the limitation – setting it’s start date all the way back to the year 1000, while explaining in the milestone’s description that they were actually founded in 2006.
For small business owners, Timeline offers just as much potential. Often, small businesses have an interesting local history of their own, which Timeline allows them to share with their community. Small business owners can consider mixing a few personal milestones in with business-related ones on their page, to increase the connection between themselves and their customers.
Our history doesn’t span back hundreds of years, but we have included a personal touch on Treysyde’s Timeline: Founder and CEO Trevor Weitzel’s modeling debut in our cover photo!
Lastly, the visual emphasis of Timeline is a huge benefit to certain small businesses — like local Phoenix store Bunky Boutique. With larger photos and the ability to highlight specific posts for a full-width image, their Facebook page is a great place for customers to get a taste for what’s in the store right now, and get them drooling over merchandise before they even get there!
Bunky Boutique’s Facebook Timeline is heavy on images, emphasizing what’s in store for her customers and giving her Facebook Likers unique, worthwhile and engaging content.
Have you seen any great examples of new Facebook Timeline’s for business pages? We’d love to see examples of large companies and small, local businesses using it to their advantage — share with us in the comments!
