Facebook’s New Timeline for Brands Means Deeper Engagement With Followers

The last several months have been particularly newsworthy for Facebook. After announcing Timeline, a new type of profile page designed to be an interactive scrapbook of memorable moments in a person’s life, at its f8 conference in September 2011, Facebook began to roll out the feature to individual users in December. On Feb. 1 of this year, the company filed for an IPO, seeking to raise $5 billion for what is expected to be the largest public offering to ever come out of Silicon Valley.

Facebook bookended February with another major announcement: On Feb. 29, the company rolled out Timeline for brands, as well as new ad units, all of which will give PR and marketing pros deeper, more meaningful engagement with the consumer.

IT’S STORYTELLING TIME

Timeline for brands in many ways mimics the same feature that is available to individual users. Brands can display a high-resolution cover photo at the top of the page—something that perfectly encapsulates the brand, not a call to action—and populate their Timeline with content that provides a snapshot of the brand’s history, from its inception to the current year or day.

“Let’s imagine you are a consumer packaged goods brand and you have been on the shelves for 50 years. Timeline presents a unique way to access your archives and share them dynamically,” says Robert Ricci, group senior VP, social media at Marina Maher Communications. It is a way to tell fans and consumers of the innovations and heritage of your brand in a meaningful, powerful way—through visual graphics, content and links, he says.

Other brand-specific features that emphasize the importance of visual graphics and content on the new Facebook include the ability to “pin” specific posts to the top of the page (for up to seven days) and place a spotlight on others by “starring” them. Ricci says the ability to push a specific piece of content out to the public at the top of the brand’s Timeline, along with the ability to “star” a post—and thereby expand it to take up the full width of the page—are other ways the new format enables brands to highlight compelling stories.

Photos, custom apps, videos, events, a map and even the number of “likes”—which are now presented as clickable thumbnails instead of text links—have been moved from the left side of the page to near the top, below the cover art. Aside from photos, which have to be displayed first, brands can select the order in which they want the other thumbnails or tiles to appear—up to a maximum of 12.

“Brands have more ownership of how they want to represent themselves. They can decide what they want on their Timeline,” says Nadina Guglielmetti, VP, digital strategy, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide (Guglielmetti recently spoke to PR News about another hot social platform, Pinterest, in the 2/27/2012 issue). This enables brands to be more human on Facebook, “but you should do it in a way that connects with your core pillars,” says Guglielmetti.

TWO-WAY SOCIAL STREET

This doesn’t mean that Timeline is just a glorified broadcast platform for brands. In fact, Timeline is most definitely a two-way communication feature.

When users visit a brand’s page, they will not only see posts published by the brand itself, but also those written by their friends, as well as any from other users that have received a significant number of “likes” and comments.

While this is a setting that can vary based on the amount of control a particular brand would care to relinquish over its Timeline, it nevertheless provides a real opportunity for a brand to build an engaged and active community, in which everyone can contribute in telling the story.

Facebook Timeline for brands first mover Livestrong now has a Facebook home page that looks—and acts—more like a Web site.

For brands that are concerned about the possibility of negative language sullying their Timeline, Facebook has a solution: private, direct messaging. This could create new opportunities for positive customer relations in an environment that already encourages social interaction. And there’s another private messaging dividend, according to Ricci: It might preclude users from going to the wall and voicing their displeasure there.

In addition, an Admin Panel allows page managers to respond when people write on their Timeline, as well as view their latest data and insights in real time and all in one place.

This drive toward building deeper connections on Facebook extends to advertising. New ad units unveiled alongside Timeline enable brands to transform a regular post—a video, photo, link, you name it—into an interactive ad, meaning users can comment on and “like” the ad just as they would a regular post.

OPENING UP THE GRAPH

A big aspect of Timeline for brands that may get lost in the launch hubbub is Facebook’s new Open Graph application programming interface (API), which is the engine that runs the new type of integrated apps on the social network. Through Open Graph, developers can build apps and services with their own actionable terms—not just “like,” but also “listen,” “read,” “watch,” “cook,” “crave” and many more.

For PR pros, this means that Open Graph is not a developers-only platform, says Paul Hernacki, chief technology officer at Definition 6, the integrated marketing agency behind the “Facebook Timeline Movie Maker” app. “Open Graph provides a wealth of functionality that can be leveraged to create compelling brand experiences,” says Hernacki. Definition 6 did this with Timeline Movie Maker, which identifies key life moments, using photos, videos, check-ins and other content to render a user’s life story in a unique and compelling way.

Movie Maker and other apps will help PR pros to take advantage of Timeline. In the meantime, Ricci has three suggestions on how to best leverage the new tools:

• Use the features to amplify your brand’s unique voice, to tell your brand’s story.

• Use the revamped Insights tool to identify actionable opportunities in real time and adjust your strategies to meet those occasions.

• The new features put tremendous value on bold visuals and multimedia (e.g., video, links). “Use them to capture your brand as often as you can,” says Ricci.

“Capture your brand” just about sums it up. Facebook does not want to be just another avenue through which brands can promote themselves. It’s shooting for something deeper, cohesive and, most importantly, personal. PRN

[Register for the PR News What You Need to Know About Facebook Timeline for Brands Webinar, set for March 20. ]

CONTACT:

Robert Ricci, [email protected]; Nadina Guglielmetti; [email protected]; Paul Hernacki, [email protected].

Follow Sahil Patel: @sizpatel