Starting today March 30^th all fan pages will be switched over to the new timeline format Facebook has implemented.

 The format has brought along several new features that will help improve engagement as well as customer satisfaction. Below are tips and recommendations on how to utilize your timeline to get the most of your Facebook page.

Cover Photo- So let’s start with the top of the fan page. The most noticeable part of your page will be the cover photo.

The dimensions of the cover photo are 850px wide and 315px high. The photo should be relevant to your market and industry.

Make sure the cover photo compliments the profile picture, if the colors are too similar it might be hard to see.

Photos of landmarks, athletes, or logos are great to display as your cover photo.  Below are examples of cover photos that grab your attention and compliment the profile picture.

The space is not meant for banner ads or other promotions, strictly pictures. Before adding your cover photo Facebook will give you a notification.

Fans can now message pages- Being able to receive messages will greatly help companies organize customer questions and concerns as well as help the brand image be portrayed as a business that is ready to listen and stay in touch with its customer base. This is will be helpful because it creates a new customer service channel. Make sure to consistently check your messages so it doesn’t seem like you’re ignoring your fan base. It’s important to let your fans know there is a message feature now, every once in a while try letting your fans know that they are free to message you about any concerns or private questions.

To access your messages with the Timeline format click “Admin Panel” at the top right, after clicking there will be a drop down menu

Notifications, news likes and Facebook insights- Along with the admin panel you are now able to see your most recent notifications, new users who have liked your page, and a mini preview of Facebook insights.

Add milestone to your company pages- Adding important dates to your page can help fans learn about the history of your company and gives the fans an idea of events and important moments that happened.

Pining- Normally when updating your page the posts move in chronological order. If you want a particular story to stand out on your timeline you can pin it. Pinning the post will place the article at the top of the page to gain the most exposure. After pinning a story on your page an orange ribbon will appear at the top right of the post. Pinning should be used for promotions that will be relevant for several weeks.

Highlight- Highlighting a story is similar to pinning something, the major difference is that when you highlight something it extends over both columns to feature that post. Highlighting a post does not bring it to very top of your page; it only makes it more visible to your fans. Posts that should be highlighted are time sensitive news story, customer or employee or the month, customer testimonials, or even a video clip of your latest commercial. Below is an example of a highlighted story.

With these new features, sites are seeing an improvement in engagement.  By taking advantage of these, we put ourselves in a position to do the same. According to a new study from ClickZ the new Timeline format has lifted engagement with many brands by 46%. 

David Aziz is the Social Media Analyst for Advance Digital. You can follow him on Twitter@DaveAzizand see what he’s sharing using the +1 Button by adding him to your circles on Google+. 

By: David Aziz

Starting today March 30^th all fan pages will be switched over to the new timeline format Facebook has implemented.

 The format has brought along several new features that will help improve engagement as well as customer satisfaction. Below are tips and recommendations on how to utilize your timeline to get the most of your Facebook page.

Cover Photo- So let’s start with the top of the fan page. The most noticeable part of your page will be the cover photo.

The dimensions of the cover photo are 850px wide and 315px high. The photo should be relevant to your market and industry.

Make sure the cover photo compliments the profile picture, if the colors are too similar it might be hard to see.

Photos of landmarks, athletes, or logos are great to display as your cover photo.  Below are examples of cover photos that grab your attention and compliment the profile picture.

The space is not meant for banner ads or other promotions, strictly pictures. Before adding your cover photo Facebook will give you a notification.

Fans can now message pages- Being able to receive messages will greatly help companies organize customer questions and concerns as well as help the brand image be portrayed as a business that is ready to listen and stay in touch with its customer base. This is will be helpful because it creates a new customer service channel. Make sure to consistently check your messages so it doesn’t seem like you’re ignoring your fan base. It’s important to let your fans know there is a message feature now, every once in a while try letting your fans know that they are free to message you about any concerns or private questions.

To access your messages with the Timeline format click “Admin Panel” at the top right, after clicking there will be a drop down menu

Notifications, news likes and Facebook insights- Along with the admin panel you are now able to see your most recent notifications, new users who have liked your page, and a mini preview of Facebook insights.

Add milestone to your company pages- Adding important dates to your page can help fans learn about the history of your company and gives the fans an idea of events and important moments that happened.

Pining- Normally when updating your page the posts move in chronological order. If you want a particular story to stand out on your timeline you can pin it. Pinning the post will place the article at the top of the page to gain the most exposure. After pinning a story on your page an orange ribbon will appear at the top right of the post. Pinning should be used for promotions that will be relevant for several weeks.

Highlight- Highlighting a story is similar to pinning something, the major difference is that when you highlight something it extends over both columns to feature that post. Highlighting a post does not bring it to very top of your page; it only makes it more visible to your fans. Posts that should be highlighted are time sensitive news story, customer or employee or the month, customer testimonials, or even a video clip of your latest commercial. Below is an example of a highlighted story.

With these new features, sites are seeing an improvement in engagement.  By taking advantage of these, we put ourselves in a position to do the same. According to a new study from ClickZ the new Timeline format has lifted engagement with many brands by 46%. 

David Aziz is the Social Media Analyst for Advance Digital. You can follow him on Twitter@DaveAzizand see what he’s sharing using the +1 Button by adding him to your circles on Google+. 

By: David Aziz

Starting today March 30^th all fan pages will be switched over to the new timeline format Facebook has implemented.

 The format has brought along several new features that will help improve engagement as well as customer satisfaction. Below are tips and recommendations on how to utilize your timeline to get the most of your Facebook page.

Cover Photo- So let’s start with the top of the fan page. The most noticeable part of your page will be the cover photo.

The dimensions of the cover photo are 850px wide and 315px high. The photo should be relevant to your market and industry.

Make sure the cover photo compliments the profile picture, if the colors are too similar it might be hard to see.

Photos of landmarks, athletes, or logos are great to display as your cover photo.  Below are examples of cover photos that grab your attention and compliment the profile picture.

The space is not meant for banner ads or other promotions, strictly pictures. Before adding your cover photo Facebook will give you a notification.

Fans can now message pages- Being able to receive messages will greatly help companies organize customer questions and concerns as well as help the brand image be portrayed as a business that is ready to listen and stay in touch with its customer base. This is will be helpful because it creates a new customer service channel. Make sure to consistently check your messages so it doesn’t seem like you’re ignoring your fan base. It’s important to let your fans know there is a message feature now, every once in a while try letting your fans know that they are free to message you about any concerns or private questions.

To access your messages with the Timeline format click “Admin Panel” at the top right, after clicking there will be a drop down menu

Notifications, news likes and Facebook insights- Along with the admin panel you are now able to see your most recent notifications, new users who have liked your page, and a mini preview of Facebook insights.

Add milestone to your company pages- Adding important dates to your page can help fans learn about the history of your company and gives the fans an idea of events and important moments that happened.

Pining- Normally when updating your page the posts move in chronological order. If you want a particular story to stand out on your timeline you can pin it. Pinning the post will place the article at the top of the page to gain the most exposure. After pinning a story on your page an orange ribbon will appear at the top right of the post. Pinning should be used for promotions that will be relevant for several weeks.

Highlight- Highlighting a story is similar to pinning something, the major difference is that when you highlight something it extends over both columns to feature that post. Highlighting a post does not bring it to very top of your page; it only makes it more visible to your fans. Posts that should be highlighted are time sensitive news story, customer or employee or the month, customer testimonials, or even a video clip of your latest commercial. Below is an example of a highlighted story.

With these new features, sites are seeing an improvement in engagement.  By taking advantage of these, we put ourselves in a position to do the same. According to a new study from ClickZ the new Timeline format has lifted engagement with many brands by 46%. 

David Aziz is the Social Media Analyst for Advance Digital. You can follow him on Twitter@DaveAzizand see what he’s sharing using the +1 Button by adding him to your circles on Google+. 

By: David Aziz

Starting today March 30^th all fan pages will be switched over to the new timeline format Facebook has implemented.

 The format has brought along several new features that will help improve engagement as well as customer satisfaction. Below are tips and recommendations on how to utilize your timeline to get the most of your Facebook page.

Cover Photo- So let’s start with the top of the fan page. The most noticeable part of your page will be the cover photo.

The dimensions of the cover photo are 850px wide and 315px high. The photo should be relevant to your market and industry.

Make sure the cover photo compliments the profile picture, if the colors are too similar it might be hard to see.

Photos of landmarks, athletes, or logos are great to display as your cover photo.  Below are examples of cover photos that grab your attention and compliment the profile picture.

The space is not meant for banner ads or other promotions, strictly pictures. Before adding your cover photo Facebook will give you a notification.

Fans can now message pages- Being able to receive messages will greatly help companies organize customer questions and concerns as well as help the brand image be portrayed as a business that is ready to listen and stay in touch with its customer base. This is will be helpful because it creates a new customer service channel. Make sure to consistently check your messages so it doesn’t seem like you’re ignoring your fan base. It’s important to let your fans know there is a message feature now, every once in a while try letting your fans know that they are free to message you about any concerns or private questions.

To access your messages with the Timeline format click “Admin Panel” at the top right, after clicking there will be a drop down menu

Notifications, news likes and Facebook insights- Along with the admin panel you are now able to see your most recent notifications, new users who have liked your page, and a mini preview of Facebook insights.

Add milestone to your company pages- Adding important dates to your page can help fans learn about the history of your company and gives the fans an idea of events and important moments that happened.

Pining- Normally when updating your page the posts move in chronological order. If you want a particular story to stand out on your timeline you can pin it. Pinning the post will place the article at the top of the page to gain the most exposure. After pinning a story on your page an orange ribbon will appear at the top right of the post. Pinning should be used for promotions that will be relevant for several weeks.

Highlight- Highlighting a story is similar to pinning something, the major difference is that when you highlight something it extends over both columns to feature that post. Highlighting a post does not bring it to very top of your page; it only makes it more visible to your fans. Posts that should be highlighted are time sensitive news story, customer or employee or the month, customer testimonials, or even a video clip of your latest commercial. Below is an example of a highlighted story.

With these new features, sites are seeing an improvement in engagement.  By taking advantage of these, we put ourselves in a position to do the same. According to a new study from ClickZ the new Timeline format has lifted engagement with many brands by 46%. 

David Aziz is the Social Media Analyst for Advance Digital. You can follow him on Twitter@DaveAzizand see what he’s sharing using the +1 Button by adding him to your circles on Google+. 

By: David Aziz

Pinterest is a social bookmarking site that lets you share and organize photos. This site is another great platform to share photo gain good referral traffic. Below is how to set up a Pinterest profile

Request an invite- To sign up to Pinterest you must request an invite from the site to join. Enter an email address to sign up.

 Sign up and sync with social networks- After requesting an invite Pinterest will send you an email inviting you to join the network. The only way to create a Pinterest account is to sync with another one of your existing profiles such as Facebook or Twitter. 

Authorize Pinterest to use your account

Choose specific topics to follow- There are several different topics to follow. If you’re profile is set up to gain a awareness to your pictures try to follow specific topics that are similar to what you are pinning

Create your first Pinboards- Once you have chosen topics to follow categorize your pinboards to reflect the topics you’ve followed.

Install Pin it button to your browser- Adding the pin it button to your browser makes it much easier to add photos to your Pinterest account. Below is how to add it your browser.

Start Pinning!

David Aziz is the Social Media Analyst for Advance Digital. You can follow him on Twitter@DaveAzizand see what he’s sharing using the +1 Button by adding him to your circles on Google+. 

By: David Aziz

Twitter has launched a new interface with some cool features that makes the toolbar the focal point of the new layout. The toolbar has three main buttons Home, Connect, and Discover which make your experience on Twitter simpler and gives the platform an ease of use feel to it.

Home

When logging into the new Twitter you are taken to the home screen. The overall appearance of the new home screen has a cleaner layout than the older Twitter. At the top left there is a brief description of the user and an option to compose a new tweet. Underneath the mini bio section Twitter offers suggestions on who to follow based on who you are currently following. At the bottom of the home screen Twitter provides a trends section where you can search for topics and keywords that are receiving a significant amount of attention. You can now change your location to see what topics are trending in different areas. On the right side is the main section of the home screen, your tweets! This is where you can view tweets from people you have chosen to follow. 

Connect

The next button on the new tool bar is the connect button. The new connect section is where you can join in on the conversation and see who is interacting with you. The interactions and mentions tab shows you who has recently followed and retweeted your posts.

Discover

According to Twitter

“Discover lets you tap into a stream of useful and entertaining information, customized just for you.  When you use Discover, you’ll see results reflecting your interests—based on your current location, what you follow and what’s happening in the world. As you use Twitter more, Discover gets even better at serving up more content just for you.”

This is probably the most important feature for the new Twitter interface; discover gives you a new way to find content and useful information that is tailored to what you tweet about. There is also an activities section where you can see what is going on your “Twittersphere” of friends. In the discover section Twitter makes suggestions on who to follow based on who you are following and what content you tweet.

Inline Video

Unusually when someone tweets content that’s from YouTube the shortened URL takes the user to YouTube to view the video.

With the new Twitter interface users are no able to view a video on Twitter without having to leave their profile page. This new feature makes it easier on Twitter instead of going to YouTube

Overall the new Twitter layout is easy to navigate and simpler to use with the new toolbar implemented. Adam Ostrow from Mashable states “The new interface resembles that of a far more sophisticated web app”. I believe that this is just the beginning for Twitter and there will be several more features they will roll out next year.

David Aziz is the Social Media Analyst for Advance Digital. You can follow him on Twitter@DaveAzizand see what he’s sharing using the +1 Button by adding him to your circles on Google+.