Within days of Facebook's official launch of Timeline for brands, social strategists and brand marketers turned their Facebook strategies upside down and came up with a flurry of ways to attract more fans. Consumer brands like Red Bull, Old Spice, and Ford led the charge with innovative campaigns that incorporate everything from intricate scavenger hunts to elaborate milestones that date back over a century.
But what about the rest of us? What techniques are other marketers employing to take advantage of Timeline, without having to reinvent their entire Facebook strategy? Here are some practical Timeline marketing examples that didn't require the marketing team to start from scratch or hire a team of consultants.
Think Big Picture, Not Large Image
On a personal Timeline, the cover image may simply be a big image — an emblem of the person's life. But on a business page, it's an opportunity for fan engagement. Sporting goods company Jackson Kayak is a good example. Fans submitted their best action shots, which are then uploaded into a photo album where fans vote by liking their favorite. The image with the most likes becomes the featured cover, but the company is the real winner because all of the tagging, sharing, and liking improve its EdgeRank.
Mall of America's Digital Brand Manager, Lisa Grimm, has an entirely different Timeline cover, which she affectionately refers to as, "another layer of fun." The company's cover image includes a QR code that leads to free giveaways and a contest entry form. It also allows the retail giant to track important data like form and e-mail submissions.
Other organizations view the cover as an opportunity for real-time marketing. Esteban Contreras, social media marketing manager for Samsung USA, plans to swap out the brand's cover whenever it launches a new product or exhibits at a major event. Verizon is even more frequent: Its social media team continually refreshes its page with a new cover photo, taken by a customer with a Verizon device.
Take it Offline
Your Facebook wall can be a messy place — a mix of applause, complaints, requests and general randomness. Before Timeline, if page administrators wanted to engage a fan in a private conversation, they would need to use their personal account to make the connection. That's no longer the case.
For an organization, like the American Heart Association (AHA) that often receives sensitive data posted to their wall, the new messaging feature is particularly compelling. "I can't tell you how many times we've needed to move a conversation from our wall to a private message," explains Krisleigh Hoermann, a community manager with the AHA's National Center. She now encourages members with specific medical questions or customer service issues to reach out directly, versus posting to the association's wall.
Create Value in Milestones
It's no accident that Timeline resembles an infographic of someone's life. After all, two of its creators, Nicholas Felton and Ryan Case, are among the world's most recognized data visualization designers. The lifeblood of any good infographic is data, and milestones provide some of the most marketable data on Timeline.
Take SportsCenter's Timeline. ESPN's flagship program uses the milestones feature to highlight each championship won during the show's history. It's both "on brand" and surprisingly valuable to anyone trying to settle a bet about who won the 1985 World Series (the Kansas City Royals, according to SportsCenter's Timeline).
Salesforce.com's milestones are laced with a different sort of nostalgia. For example, the company posted a screenshot of an early version of its product.
Tap Into the Zeitgeist
According to Mike Volpe, CMO of inbound marketing software company HubSpot, the Timeline means marketers must embrace more visual content. Currently, Timeline gives marketers the opportunity to make popular images more prominent and more sticky by "pinning" them.
Intel, for example, pinned an upcoming television commercial to the top of its Facebook page, giving fans an opportunity to sneak-preview the spot. According to Intel social strategist, Ekaterina Walter, the post received 15,000 likes and 400+ comments.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Oxford
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