Facebook Page Guidelines: The rules have changed for cover photos...again

When we posted last week about 5 mistakes that will get your Facebook Page deleted, we missed something. Thanks to our friend Shawna, at ReSoMe, we learned that sometime between December 20th and March 13th, Facebook updated their Page Guidelines and threw marketers a little bone.

The 20% rule went into effect in December

Way back on December 20th, Inside Facebook wrote about the recent addition of a 20% text rule, which included these quotes from the Facebook Page guidelines:

Pages Terms Section III.B reads:

Covers may not include:

i.    images with more than 20% text;

ii.    price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it on socialmusic.com”;

iii.    contact information such as a website address, email, mailing address, or information that should go in your Page’s “About” section;

iv.    references to Facebook features or actions, such as “Like” or “Share” or an arrow pointing from the cover photo to any of these features; or

v.    calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends.”

But wait…something more has changed since December

When we wrote about the rules that can get your page deleted, these are the guidelines we included. However, when Shawna sent a message to say that they’d been changed, I jumped over to see how:

Section III.B now states:

All covers are public. This means that anyone who visits your Page will be able to see your cover. Covers can’t be deceptive, misleading, or infringe on anyone else’s copyright. You may not encourage people to upload your cover to their personal timelines. Covers may not include images with more than 20% text.

The Help Center has been updated as well:

What are the guidelines for my Page’s cover photo?

Use a unique image that represents your Page. This might be a photo of a popular menu item, album artwork or a picture of people using your product. Be creative and experiment with images your audience responds well to.

All cover photos are public, which means anyone visiting your Page will be able to see the cover photo. Cover photos can’t be deceptive, misleading, infringe on anyone else’s copyright or be in violation of the Pages Terms. You may not encourage people to upload your cover photo to their personal timelines.

Cover photos must be at least 399 pixels wide and may not include images with more than 20% text.

To get the fastest load times for your Page, upload an sRGB JPG file that’s 851 pixels wide, 315 pixels tall and less than 100 kilobytes. For images with your logo or text content, you may get a higher quality result by using a PNG file.

What does it all mean?

It’s now safe to include everything that was previously banned, including: price or purchase information, contact information, references to Facebook features or actions, such as “Like” or “Share” or an arrow pointing from the cover photo to any of these features; or calls to action.

Just don’t use more than 20% of the image space to do it. See? It’s a bone, but it’s a little bone.

How will you change your cover photo under the latest revision of the guidelines?

Skip the gimmicks, share engaging content, and don't annoy your fans

It hasn’t been that long since Lara and I posted about our social media pet peeves, but one of them needs a bit more attention. In the post we wrote a couple of weeks ago, I said this about the practice of posting links in the comments:

Oh, EdgeRank dodgers, there are easier and far less annoying ways to reach your audience!!!

Consider this, you’re a user and you’re on a phone and clicking to the comments slows you down (A LOT), so you actively avoid clicking through to the comments to click the link. 

What, my dear EdgeRank dodgers, will that do to your EdgeRank? 

The bottom line is that if annoying your audience is the cost of reaching them, then the price is too high. We recommend avoiding that particular problem. A far simpler way to have a text update is simply to click X and close the thumbnail preview. There’s no need to post the link in the comments. 

Page admins are trying everything under the sun to keep EdgeRank from thwarting their efforts to capture eyeballs and clickthroughs. A friend tipped me off to one page admin that put a period in the status and posted their entire update, with link, in the comments.

Can we agree that things have gone a bit too far?

A while back, Mari Smith shared an image on her Facebook page that referenced the stats from the PostRocket blog (link above). In the image description, she said:

One way I use regularly myself is exactly like this post - upload an image with the link! Another way is to ‘x’ out the link preview (and it then posts as if a regular text status update).

I’ve conveniently left out her advice to post the link in the first comment because I think it’s advice that will hurt page engagement and EdgeRank in the long run and here’s why:

1. Mobile users. In Q4 of 2012 mobile use of Facebook finally surpassed desktop web browsers. That means that people who want to see your link in the comments have to tap to a new screen to expand comments, then they have to tap on the link.
2. Close the thumbnail. As Mari pointed out, all you have to do is paste the link in the status and close the thumbnail once it loads. Voila! Text update. Why annoy users when you don’t have to?
3. Comment barrage. As soon as you start racking up enough comments that they get nested and you have to click to load more, you’ve lost people. It doesn’t matter where they’re accessing Facebook, they shouldn’t have to work that hard to get to your content. (Ever heard of the three click rule?)

What works for your audience?

I recently posted a whole series of about 10 articles to our Facebook page with thumbnails intact and no link in the status. The reach was comparable to any other post we’ve shared. And this is my bonus reason #4: Just because the stats say it works, doesn’t mean mean it will for you. Every audience is different. Test out different post types and times and don’t get caught up in the stats. I can find you a different study that will give you totally different results.

It’s frustrating to know that EdgeRank can have such a dramatic impact on what your followers see, but gimmicky trends are not the answer. A frustrated fan is not an engaged fan and that will hurt your reach/EdgeRank more than it will help.

I think it’s more sensible to use solid tactics that work to increase engagement rather than potentially damaging ones.

What are your thoughts on this practice? Do you like it or hate it?

Facebook offers: how they work and why you should use them

Facebook has all kinds of different advertising options, from side bar ads, to sponsored stories, to promoted posts. A feature that is also available is Facebook offers. Until recently they were only available to pages with at least 400 likes but they’ve recently lowered the requirement for offers (and promoted posts) to only 100 likes.

What is a Facebook offer?

A Facebook offer is an online coupon that you can share from your Facebook business page. 

Why should you use them?

People like deals - we’ve seen just how popular a good deal is with the rise of Groupon and other similar companies.  The advantage of a Facebook offer is that you don’t lose a cut of the sale to another company, you’re offering the discount on your own terms.

That, with the ease of sharing amongst friends, means that Facebook offers is a great way to get your business in front of new people.

Do Facebook offers cost money?

You need to promote the offer, so there is a cost, but that cost is dependent on how many fans you have on your page.  It’s the same cost as promoting any post on your page so you can have a look now and see what price is currently listed for you.

How do Facebook offers work?

You create a special offer, promote it on your page and then someone “claims” it. That means they’re interested enough to get to the next step, but doesn’t guarantee they will actually use it. They then receive an email with additional information, whether it be a special coupon code to use on your web site, or something to print out and bring in to a physical location.

Can someone who doesn’t like my page claim my offer?

Yes. Anyone can claim an offer, whether they like your page or not. You can’t require someone to like your page to claim your offer.

How do I set up a Facebook offer?

1. Choose “Offer” from the status box on your page.

2. Choose what kind of Offer you’d like to have.

3.  Upload an image - it needs to be at least 300 x 300 pixels and should be a visual representation of what you’re offering if possible. Add a description of your offer in 90 characters or less. Then add any terms, like not valid on certain days or items, or not in conjunction with any other promotions, etc.

4. Set limits on how many can claim the offer (it can be as high or as low as you want) and decide on an expiry date.

Now you’re ready to preview, publish and promote! Offers can be a great way to spread your message but as with all Facebook strategies, it’s best to try out different things to see what fits your audience best. Though offers are being created and claimed a lot, it’s hard to get clear data on how often they are actually being used. When measuring the success of your campaign, take into account use of the coupon, as well as reach of the offer.

Leave me a comment and let me know if you have any other questions or if you’ve used Facebook offers and how they’ve worked for you!

The challenge of increasing Facebook fan page visibility

Back in the fall of 2012, Facebook announced that they were going to add page notifications and a pages feed to everyone’s personal profile. I was pretty excited about this development when it happened, but ultimately, there are very few pages I want to receive notifications from. I was more excited about the pages feed, but I realized recently that I haven’t even looked at it since the first few days after the announcement. Have you?

When I realized that, I jumped on Facebook to take a look. Yep, it was still there. Just waiting for my attention. And I’ll make a conscious effort to have a look at it now. Then I found a really wonderful little feed right below it. It’s called the Like Pages feed. There’s always been a place like this, but it wasn’t so readily available. I somehow missed when this one went live. I was impressed with the pages presented to me. They were definitely related to content I’m interested in and I immediately liked about 20 pages from the list.

That leads to another interesting change: Facebook has started displaying a list of page recommendations when you’re on a page and click like. The algorithm may not be perfect, but the idea is interesting.

My first thought when I saw this was that Facebook could monetize this and allow businesses to buy recommendation spots, much like AdWords. Like every other step toward monetizing their service, it would certainly be controversial.

Either way, it’s good to see that Facebook is continuing to give pages various options for improving their visibility in a space where the competition for eyeballs keeps growing exponentially.

What is your biggest challenge with reaching your audience on Facebook?

Facebook page notifications: Never miss a thing they say

As page updates are featured less and less in people’s newsfeeds, page administrators are trying to find ways to make sure that their fans see what they’re saying.  Facebook has introduced a new feature that may be the answer page administrators have been looking for.   We’ve talked about using Interest Lists, and given other tips on making sure engagement is high to increase your Edgerank but now you can also add page updates to your personal notifications.

What does this mean?

Every time you post an update to your page anyone who has selected this option will be notified in the top bar of Facebook just as they are for new comments, or posts that are made by people in your close friends list. Depending on each person’s settings they may also receive notifications by email and to their mobile devices.

What does this mean for page admins?

Page admins now have a way to make sure their super fans see everything they are saying. It also means they need to convince their fans that they are worth taking the time to add to this list and that what they have to say is interesting enough.

Will this be the solution page admins are looking for?

Because people don’t like getting a lot of notifications people probably won’t want to get notifications from most of the pages they follow. Though the option now exists, my prediction is that only a very small percentage of a page’s fan base will select this option.

How do you do it?

There are two easy ways to add a page to your notifications list.

1) From the page

Go to a page and hover over the like button and select “Get Notifications”.

2) From your newsfeed

Hover over the name of page that shows up in your newsfeed. A box with their cover image will appear and then you hover over the like and choose get notifications.

It’s that simple.

Leave a comment and tell us if you will be turning notifications on for some of the pages you follow.