Will Timeline Revolutionize the Facebook Brand Page?

On Tuesday, Facebook annnounced that their Timeline profile would now be available to users worldwide. Although it's currently available only for personal profile pages, many have predicted that brand pages will soon follow.

Some have argued that the move will inevitably "revolutionize" brand pages. Christine Campbell, program manager for SEO and Social Media at Resolute Digital explains: "The brand pages as they are now on Facebook are boring, [are] mostly text, and make successful user interaction difficult. Timeline's focus on images and telling a true story will really help most brands get a better page out of the service."

Some businesses and brands might benefit directly from the potential change than others, namely those that offer tangible products that lend themselves to "scrapbooking" or gallery-style visual representation. Those without tangible products won't be left in the dust, though - brands can get more attention by creating apps that users would be able to feature quite prominently on their profile pages. Ultimately, Timeline puts an emphasis on photos and visuals, so those brands that can leverage this would see the most success. Larger, established fashion/lifestyle brands are a prime example, as they would be able to provide a visual narrative of their company history, from its launch all the way to milestone events over the years. These options are more difficult to represent in traditional brand pages.

The projected change hasn't received a uniform welcome, though, and drawbacks to timeline for brands have also been identified. On a basic level, users who have become accustomed to traditional brand pages may not take as warmly to the transition to Timeline. In addition, analyst Alison Kimszal from DefinedLogic sees the interference that Timeline might have with current Facebook apps as problematic.

If Timeline is eventually opened up to businesses, it will become necessary to evaluate whether or not the new layout will provide real value to your customers. Relevant content will still reign, so the opportunity lies in deciding how best to present that content in meaningful, engaging ways, working with (not against) the channel's evolution.

Posted by Nicole Capelo at January 26, 2012 2:43 PM

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