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Brand Yourself with Facebook's new "Timeline" for success.
New format, new way to brand yourself: How to utilise Facebook’s new “Timeline” for success.
What is your story?
Upcoming business journalist, Hayden Hughes recently connect with Jump the Q to gain an insight on how the new Timeline changes on Facebook would assist Brand Yourself on Facebook.
On March 30, all business pages on Facebook will be reformatted as “Timelines”. Much has been made of the benefits of the changes but professionals should not be worried if they intend to continue to promote themselves with Facebook. Many of the new features not only benefit your existing messages, but are integral in the creation of new relationships with the public.
To start, what are “Timelines”? Timelines are the new format for Facebook profiles that detail a sequence of events based on previously uploaded posts and media. The aim of the reformatting is to showcase memorable moments of your life as a log from beginning to end. For most people, this will be from when you first created your Facebook page to the present, however some have retro-conditioned their page in order to include memorable moments of their life before social media, such as their marriage and the birth of their first child. New feature apps can be used in order to show more personal features of your life, such as location sensitive posts (where you were) recipes used (what you ate) and movies you’ve seen (what you watched). Ultimately, the new format aims to make Facebook into a yearbook, diary and scrapbook all in one.
The motivation behind the timeline reformatting seems to be a way to inch toward CEO Mark Zukerburg’s vision of publicly available information; however the timeline is also a highly accurate description of your life. Each post and uploaded photo or video will make up your story and describe how you got to the point that where you are today. While this may be a good or bad thing (depending on where you saw yourself going and where you ended up) it is also a magnificent way for friends and family to catch up with your life’s journey and you with theirs.
The format also leads to new marketing opportunities for business. Stories drive relationships. If the public feel that they know “the whole story” a stronger connection can be formed. The timeline format allows a business the ability to show the complete back-story of a brand, from humble beginnings to the present day. In the traditional format, according to comScore, only 16% of page posts reached fans. With the highly visual newsfeed, the public is more engaged and interested in the messages presented and is more likely to follow upcoming events.
In keeping with upcoming events, page administrators are now able to post company milestones on the site, allowing for a greater public knowledge of the company’s history. While the previous format made it so a majority of your posts were forgotten as new posts appeared, Timelines allow for a reflection on the company and a way to tell a story that’s more engaging.
Rachel Quilty, Personal Brand Strategist at Jump the Q, highlights that , "It's important to maintain an active online presence that let's your audience know that you are current and on trend with Social Media changes. With over 800 million users, Facebook presents an amazing opportunity to extend your brand name awareness and create an international brand. Thats why we established an inexpensive training program - Brand Yourself on Facebook to help our clients establish their online celebrity."
Engagement also comes in the form of the cover feature, a large picture at the top of the site that greets the public when the page appears. For an individual it’s a way of showing off their interests or personality, but for a business, this is free billboard-sized advertising on a global website, the kind that used to cost a small fortune. For businesses, a high resolution picture will intrigue and promote the viewer to browse your page and learn of your exciting ventures. As Facebook’s product director of Ads Gokul Rajaram says “the goal is to symbolize what an organization is all about. For a restaurant it could be a popular menu item, a band could display album cover art, and a business could show a picture of their customers using their product. “
Customer engagement is also simple to track, thanks to the new Admin Panel. With features that allow the admin to view insight data metrics, including the reach of your posts, engaged users and number of “people talking about this”, it is easier than ever to focus on what the public thinks of your brand and tailor your messages accordingly. Users can also be promoted to send private messages to the admin to answer. This is a blessing to small businesses, which may not have the means required to hire a customer services team, but want to be able to solve customers’ problems.
However, as Pam Moore warns in Business 2 Community, timeline cannot solve many of the issues businesses have with social media marketing. Moore warns that focussing highly on Facebook is not a good promotional strategy. As she says “Don’t put all of your success in Facebook likes. More than 95% of people who like your Facebook page will never be back. Who cares if you have thousands of Facebook likes if they don’t know who you are, can’t remember liking your pages and will never step virtual foot onto one of your online platforms or Facebook pages again.” Moore suggests focusing on platforms and components that you can control, in order to make sure that your messages come across to your target audience and is received in the manner you wanted it to be.
Branding Lesson
What is your story? With Facebook Timelines, users have greater freedom to share their life story and memorable moments. From a branding perspective, think of this as the first draft of your autobiography. How would you like to be portrayed in public? What would you like people to know about you? What shining moments of your life would you like to promote? What diminishing segments would you like to downplay? Timeline allows you the freedom to do these things and monitor how your messages are received by the public. Make sure you monitor your fans and stay on message to gain greater success.
Jump the Q's Social Media Management team has developed a 14 hour Training Program - Brand Yourself on Facebook. Learn how you can use the power of social media to leverage your professional profile without wasting hours of your valuable time. Live bonus training on Saturday 31st March for all students of Brand Yourself on Facebook. Don't worry if you miss it as the bonus training session will be added to the Brand Yourself on Facebook private membership site.
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Jump the Q! And Brand Yourself! Your personal brand should reflect your abilities and potential. Rachel Quilty, Personal Brand Strategist, known as ‘the Authority’ on personal branding and author of must- have book ‘Brand Yourself’. Go to http://www.JumptheQ.com.au for FREE strategic branding tips. Rachel encourages Jump the Q clients to think strategically when developing a personal brand to get that job offer, gain that promotion or win that client.
Jump the Q assists you to strategically and systematically leverage your professional profile and build your personal brand to become the authority in your industry. Get your free personal branding tactics and tips at http://www.brandyourselfblueprint.com
We assist you to develop your Personal Brand Strategy by:
- Discovering your purpose.
- Designing your best personal brand.
- Devising a personal marketing plan.
- Developing your Signature Brand.
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 "Brand Yourself with Facebook's new \"Timeline\" for success.")
