Oh, That Facebook Cover Art!

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Current cover art for my personal profile, taken 2/23 

Gotta admit, I was rather frazzled when I switched to Facebook's Timeline for my personal profile. To keep things simple, I took a large photo of a sunset and slapped it  up on the top of the page. So what if it didn't fit; I wriggled it around a little and it was pretty decent.


But it's a different game entirely with pages. Why? Because one photo just won't cut it in order to properly represent what the page is all about. I'll use Groovy Reflections, one of my pages, as an example. 

Since there are six team members, I felt it should be a group effort with one photo from each of them representing what Groovy Reflections is all about. The brand logo would also be part of it, bringing the number of photos to seven. Furthermore, I wanted to add all our names to the artwork, since we are so behind the scenes. It's an opportunity to get our names out there to the fans; not enough fans make their way over to the website, where they'd find bios for each team member.

First cover for Groovy Reflections

And how I struggled with getting that artwork to fit, just like I struggled with the multi-photo cover for this Facebook page. A quick search would have revealed several sources stating that the dimensions should be 850 wide by 315 in height. That's pixels we're talking about!

Upon discovering the official dimensions, the task just became easier! 

And, here's a few more guidelines about cover art:

• No selling! Don't tell us about the latest deals here.

• It's meant to be visual so have fun with it. 

• Should be representative of your product or service.

• No pleas to people to let others know about your page.

• Don't include anything about asking them to share or like the page. 

• No URLs, emails or any info that leads them to another way to contact you.

If you're creating your own cover art and don't use Photoshop or another graphic software, try using PowerPoint. Later versions have plenty of tools for creating visual splendor. As a rough measure, the art should be about half of the size of a slide (see pic below). 

Approx size of cover art when using PowerPoint

If you're a veteran at putting together a slide show for all those important presentations, this is not all that difficult to do. 

You may want to change your Facebook cover art often, maybe every two weeks or every month so that the fans get into the habit of stopping by to see what's new. This is easy if you are a product-oriented company, since you can highlight various products, however, with a service, you may want to:

• Use seasonal photos

• Photos of things that hold interest for you but help define the brand and who you are

• Include your logo

• Have a photo of you or your team included

• Include a photo of your office or the building

• If you're a local business, photos of places around town

The possibilities are endless! Be creative, remember that the size is 830 X 315, and use a rainbow of color! Enjoy this tune by the Rolling Stones: Click here. 

Social Media and The Sounds of Silence

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This is part two for part one click here. 

Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again…

Saw an interesting post on Google+ two days ago. The poster had written a blog on out-of-the-box advertising.  Hey, I just wrote something on that myself. So I read her article. And left a comment with the link to my article so that she could see my thoughts on the subject and we could have a discussion on it.

Alas, that was not to be.

But my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed
In the wells of silence

She never commented on either my comment or the other one that was left there by someone else. However, the next day, she made two fresh posts. So we never did have that enlightening discussion. Her profile information reveals that she is a Social Media Director. Apparently, she is a very quiet one who is missing the whole point of what social media is all about!

But this article is not about checking out the brilliance of Social Media Directors and googling candidates prior to hiring to see if they really do understand their craft. This is about being quiet. And it just happened to me again. A European journalist made a compelling post and I replied. Perhaps he went to bed early since he’s nine hours ahead of me?  This is social media darkness, my old friend!

In both cases, I offered up my input in an effort to engage. Feeling rather let down now.
Here’s the lesson learned. If you’re going to post something that is sure to spark a discussion why not stick around and participate in it? Lack of response on your part doesn’t make you look very stellar, now does it?

I've said it before. Social Media is meant to be engaging. A poster, who may be a business owner or representing a company, has an opportunity to display their understanding and knowledge on the subject they’ve posted about simply by replying intelligently and demonstrating just that. This, in turn, could lead to potential sales down the road; remember, social media is NOT a sales tool but plants the awareness seed. Why pass up an opportunity?

Does this make sense? It does to me. Simply put, you’ll never see me post something then walk away for two days. If I can’t be available to you, I won’t post. That’s fair, right? And hey, wait a minute! Do these folks have smart phones? It’s so easy to keep your eyes on the pulse while you’re on the go or hanging on the beach. If you chose to do so.

Silence is NOT Golden.

Simon & Garfunkel sang about the Sounds of Silence. This video is a live acoustic clip from early in their career.