How important is Facebook Cover Photo?

This 851 pixels width and 315 pixels tall image portion which will be the first thing to be noticed as anyone visit your business page is definitely not to be neglected. With recent uplift of strict rules by Facebook on cover photos of pages, this should be utilised to maximum in order to grab the viewers attention.

It is proved in multiple studies that viewers look at cover photo for more time than wall posts. So, lets look at the few questions which cross the page owners mind
1. What should we have as a cover photo?
2. How frequently should we change?
3. What points should be considered while making one?

First thing to keep in mind is it should be relevant to the page. It should speak about the page, latest updates or upcoming announcements. With recent uplift of the rules, you can include Call -to-Actions (CTA's) giving more details of how to contact ..etc How frequently is, it should be synchronised with the events, season, holidays, campaigns happening around or on your page.

Few points to consider for cover photo:
 - High quality image
 - Perfect right size as mentioned by Facebook
 - Text shouldn't go behind the profile pic. If possible keep it right aligned.
 - Purpose should be reflected - Do include call to actions
 - Do add perfect description with click-able links and hashtags

Below are few examples of how brands are using this space
 
1. Coke

Coke - Which has always been in the toppers list, Though there is no text nor faces, it nicely captured the emotion Friendship - which the brand always talks about.

2. Oral-B

Oral-B used its cover photo to talk about its product. It made both pictorial representation as well as text. Showcasing the quality of its product.

 3. Dairy Milk -

Cadbury Dairy Milk, synced its online marketing with its latest TV commercial. And it mentioned the hashtag which it uses to engage its online audience.

4. Titan

Titan, used the space at its best. It synced the colors of the profile picture with the cover photo. Which is appealing.  Also, included call-to actions. Its running offers along with showcasing the elegant watch.

5. Helios

Helios - Again by Titan, perfectly used the white space to convey its ongoing offers and the purchase options it provides. All the information a buyer want to know is readily there at the first glance.

6. Tata Housing Development.

Tata Housing - Made its cover photo reflect the coming season. Where the whole country unites to celebrate the freedom. It is touching the patriotic Indians.

7. Make My Trip

MakeMyTrip, here again used its space capturing the patriotic season with contest. It is brand for holidays made the contest asking its fans to win a trip.

These can be the examples to show that cover photos plays a important role in spreading the purpose and branding. So, utilise this space in the best way possible.

Never to forget that facebook explicitly said two points:
1. Cover photo can't be deceptive, misleading or infringe on anyone else's copyright and
2. you may not encourage people to upload your cover to their personal timelines. T
This are the only rules Facebook kept regarding the cover photos as of now.

Facebook Best Practices - Creating Facebook Lists part 2 (Interests List)

Welcome back to the second post on good practices to have in Facebook as a user. In the last post I spoke about Friend lists - creating a list, adding friends to the lists and also benefits of it. Similarly today we will look into Interest lists.

As lists are grouping of things on Facebook, Interest Lists are grouping things of your interests or basically grouping pages and people of your common interest and have a dedicated feed. An additional feature was we can share this list with our friends, subscribe to public lists of others. Yes similar to twitter. Isn't it cool?

So, looking in detail about creating of Interests Lists. If you don't see Interests section on your left side column in Facebook homepage. Open this link and create one to have the section.

So, for instance we will create a Interest list called Classical Music to see the possibilities and benefits of having a list.

As I hit the create list button in the link, it shows few options from pages and friends to choose before naming a list. Its upto the user to choose any or start one without choosing any. And it can be a mix of both friends and pages as we discussed before. In the second screen, I gave the name as Classical Music. Here again we can see three options 'public' 'friends' 'only me' . Choose any of it according to your list purpose and hit Done.

I choosed it to be public. We will see the benefits of it. And now we can see the Interest lists in the left column. 

And the managing the list that is adding new pages or friends is very much similar to the friends lists we saw in our previous post. So, keeping that apart, We will now see

• What is 'who can see this list'? (public, friends, only me)
• How do I share the lists?
• How this follow and lists related?
• And few more benefits of organising your interests into lists.

Who can see the lists you created?
While you are creating any list, it prompts us to choose who can see the list you create. You can choose the list to be public, or to your friends or even you can keep it to yourself. The lists created by others in public mode and by your friends are supposed to be shown to you while creating a list. But I am not able to see that these days. It was there when this Interests feature was introduced in 2012. You can check the Mashable article for reference.

How do I share the lists? or Let my friends and public know about the wonderful list I created?
When you go on to the list page, you will see a share button on the right. So, you can share this list to all your friends by posting it on your timeline or by posting it your friends timeline or by posting it on any of your pages you are managing or in a group. Basically it acts like a general share button. And so, others can click and open the list and choose to follow if they are interested.

And others can choose to follow the list you shared.

Relation between facebook Follow and lists: 

Before coming to the very point of relation between follow and lists. First we should clearly understand that, there is no need to like a page nor be friended with a person to add them to your list. That means, you can check the updates of a person or a page without being friended or liking that page in your list. This is definitely a downside for marketers as they can not have a count on likes. But there is also a brighter side as lists can be shared to others and followed by other users, users might get an exposure of a new page in that industry they were listed on. 

Ok, coming to the point of follow and lists relation - As a user can be added to a list without be friending with them, a user who only allowed everybody to Follow him/her can be added to the list. 

So, if you want to be added to anyone's lists and allow them to see your public posts, you need to allow everybody to follow you. 

And few more benefits of organising your interests into lists.

• You will never miss an update of a page or friend in the list. 
• You can choose what sought of updates you want to have in the list. Hit Manage List button for that.
• One common list can be made and shared among the group of friends of same interest.
• It will be a very effective social listening tool to have as you can maintain a list of all pages or people you want to keep track of in your industry or area to keep yourself updated. 

So, friends this is all about the lists. If you could spend few moments to organise your interests lists, it helps in keeping you upto date about everything. As Facebook Edge algorithm doesn't apply for lists. 

Have a great day!