Mar
1
If you use a Facebook page as part of your hotel or restaurant marketing, you may already be aware of the changes that will take place (whether you like it or not) on 30th March. The layout of your business fan page is going to change dramatically. Are you ready for it? Facebook calls it Timeline.
Whilst the changes are compulsory and you won't have a choice, I think they represent a huge opportunity for hoteliers and restaurateurs all over Britain - they give you the chance to present your business as never before to a growing online community.
And actually, it's not all that hard to do if you know the right people (as a reader of this blog post, you now know one of the right people…).
Whilst the changes are compulsory and you won't have a choice, I think they represent a huge opportunity for hoteliers and restaurateurs all over Britain - they give you the chance to present your business as never before to a growing online community.
And actually, it's not all that hard to do if you know the right people (as a reader of this blog post, you now know one of the right people…).
Here's a brief note about some of the new fan page features:
Cover Photo - This is new and will be huge compared to the old profile image - at 851 x 315 pixels it will take up a good portion of a laptop screen. It'll be the first thing visitors see, so it's your opportunity to show them something nice. Facebook won't let you do much with it other than show a nice image. For example, you can't put a lot of text in it and you definitely can't make any offers on this image (you know, like writing "50% discount" all over it). If you've got nice pictures, show people nice pictures. You can change them as often as you like.
Profile Picture - This is going back to being a square image (up until now you could have a profile image that was 180pixels wide and 540 deep on the top left of your fan page - that's going, but then most hotels didn't bother with this feature anyway, so you're not going to miss much). So it's back to using your logo for this.
Views and Apps - Your photo images and any custom apps you use will appear near the top of your page. So it's really important you get those image albums loaded and if you're not using apps to build pages you should be. We have a demo fan page set up at Hotelsphere and another at Custom Page Tabs - you can really kick some butt with your Facebook page if you introduce your own pages. (apologies for the language, I'm working with some Americans now and it's starting to rub off on me. I promise not to say "awesome" any more than necessary…)
Pinned Posts - This is nice. You can "pin" posts at the top of your page. Of course it means your posts need to be a bit more interesting and useful than the ones I usually see on hotel Facebook pages. This is all about driving engagement with people remember? So if you're talking about things that will be of interest to your fans, now you can easily draw attention to it.
Pages - Big changes to pages - most of it good. Some of you might not know what I'm talking about, so here's a quick explanation about Facebook page tabs and what you can do with them (and I can build them for you of course).
Facebook gives you some pages by default - the Wall, images, information and so on. You can add your own pages and use your own content to do what you like. It gives you a blank canvas on which to work. The main change is that this blank canvas is going to become A LOT bigger. At present it's only 520 pixels wide, it's going to be about 800 pixels wide. This means that you can display lovely offers, text, videos, booking systems, even your own website, right inside Facebook. it also means (if you know someone who can do it - and you do now!) that you can add extra navigation and sharing features in every page. This is a very, very, useful change. You see, you'll be able to send people from your website, blog posts or adverts to specific pages. Which means your marketing process can be made very relevant to specific products or buyer motivations.
Messaging - You will be able to Message fans direct from your fan page.
Any downsides? Some small ones. For example, you will no longer be able to specify a particular page as a default landing page. But most of the hotel Facebook fan pages I've seen didn't use this anyway, so you probably won't miss what you never had.
On the plus side, you can still use a feature called a "fan gate" on each custom page you create. So you can capture interest in the form of a "like" from new visitors.
These Timeline changes are coming to your hotel or restaurant business Facebook fan page before the end of the month.
It's time to get ready.
Cover Photo - This is new and will be huge compared to the old profile image - at 851 x 315 pixels it will take up a good portion of a laptop screen. It'll be the first thing visitors see, so it's your opportunity to show them something nice. Facebook won't let you do much with it other than show a nice image. For example, you can't put a lot of text in it and you definitely can't make any offers on this image (you know, like writing "50% discount" all over it). If you've got nice pictures, show people nice pictures. You can change them as often as you like.
Profile Picture - This is going back to being a square image (up until now you could have a profile image that was 180pixels wide and 540 deep on the top left of your fan page - that's going, but then most hotels didn't bother with this feature anyway, so you're not going to miss much). So it's back to using your logo for this.
Views and Apps - Your photo images and any custom apps you use will appear near the top of your page. So it's really important you get those image albums loaded and if you're not using apps to build pages you should be. We have a demo fan page set up at Hotelsphere and another at Custom Page Tabs - you can really kick some butt with your Facebook page if you introduce your own pages. (apologies for the language, I'm working with some Americans now and it's starting to rub off on me. I promise not to say "awesome" any more than necessary…)
Pinned Posts - This is nice. You can "pin" posts at the top of your page. Of course it means your posts need to be a bit more interesting and useful than the ones I usually see on hotel Facebook pages. This is all about driving engagement with people remember? So if you're talking about things that will be of interest to your fans, now you can easily draw attention to it.
Pages - Big changes to pages - most of it good. Some of you might not know what I'm talking about, so here's a quick explanation about Facebook page tabs and what you can do with them (and I can build them for you of course).
Facebook gives you some pages by default - the Wall, images, information and so on. You can add your own pages and use your own content to do what you like. It gives you a blank canvas on which to work. The main change is that this blank canvas is going to become A LOT bigger. At present it's only 520 pixels wide, it's going to be about 800 pixels wide. This means that you can display lovely offers, text, videos, booking systems, even your own website, right inside Facebook. it also means (if you know someone who can do it - and you do now!) that you can add extra navigation and sharing features in every page. This is a very, very, useful change. You see, you'll be able to send people from your website, blog posts or adverts to specific pages. Which means your marketing process can be made very relevant to specific products or buyer motivations.
Messaging - You will be able to Message fans direct from your fan page.
Any downsides? Some small ones. For example, you will no longer be able to specify a particular page as a default landing page. But most of the hotel Facebook fan pages I've seen didn't use this anyway, so you probably won't miss what you never had.
On the plus side, you can still use a feature called a "fan gate" on each custom page you create. So you can capture interest in the form of a "like" from new visitors.
These Timeline changes are coming to your hotel or restaurant business Facebook fan page before the end of the month.
It's time to get ready.
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