Facebook Timeline Cover Images – Is Promotional Content Allowed?
Mari Smith – Facebook Timeline Cover Image
When you switch to the new Facebook Timeline, one of the first new features you’ll see is the ability to add a large “Cover” image. You’ll also be able to see the Cover images of all other Facebook users who have switched to the new Timeline. (After December 21st, everyone on Facebook will have their profile replaced with Timeline).
What is a Cover?
The Cover is the large image that appears at the top of your new Timeline. This is your place to get creative and let your friends and extended community know a bit more about you. Facebook states:
We’ve found that people have a better experience viewing your timeline when they see a cover that is as unique and individualized as you are….
An easy way to ensure your cover image is unique, is to choose an image from your life, like a photo from a wedding, day at the beach, or birthday party. If you want to use a photo to show solidarity or express support for a cause or organization, you can still post a status or a photo and feature it on your timeline.
Facebook seems to be dissuading users from showcasing anything other than a personal image. However, keep reading…
What are the ideal Cover dimensions?
Your Cover should be at least 720 pixels wide. If it’s any narrower, you’ll be asked to select a different image. I’m seeing various reports that the ideal dimensions should be 850px wide by 315px high. The profile picture is resized to 125px by 125px. Cover images tend to get pixelated, so it’s best to load a high-res image.
Who can see my Cover image?
Cover images are public by default – just like your profile pictures. This means ANYONE visiting your profile, whether you are friends or not, will be able to see your cover image. You don’t have to add a Cover image, but you may as well!
Is business-related content allowed on Cover images?
Now, the main purpose of this blog post came about after a discussion began with some of my friends on Facebook. It seems there’s some confusion as to what you can/cannot have on your new Timeline Cover image. I have scoured Facebook’s Help Center and Terms and have found nothing to directly indicate that it is not permitted to have any business-related content on your Cover.
BUT, the first time you go to upload your Cover image, Facebook may display the following message:
Image credit: Karen Clark
Clearly, Facebook want to prevent users from outright commerce on their profile/Timeline, and use of the Cover image for advertising. But outright commerce surely means something like users shouldn’t sell advertising space? Or, that we should have no commercial content? Hm.
The one rule Facebook has in its Terms regards how we cannot use our profiles commercially is this (Section 4.4):
“You will not use your personal profile for your own commercial gain (such as selling your status update to an advertiser).”
This rule has been around for several years. It makes perfect sense – users cannot derive financial gain directly from their profiles. That’s what Facebook ads are designed for. And, of course, Facebook (fan) Pages are the primary product Facebook offers for building a business presence.
I activated my Timeline back in September via the Developer route. Then, when my latest book came out in October, I put up a Cover image to share details about my book. This has been my Cover image for almost two months now and Facebook has not contacted me to take it down. 😉 See below (click to see full size). The lower left corner is where my profile image goes.
Mari Smith – Facebook Timeline Cover Image – Book
By the way, as part of my research for this post, I switched up my Cover image (to the sunrise pictured above) to see if any warnings showed up about what could/could not be featured on Covers… they didn’t, which is why I had to borrow the screenshot above from Larna Pittiglio (found on our mutual friend Pam Brossman‘s wall).
Now, let me digress for a moment to talk about the Subscribe option…
Facebook Subscribe Button
When Facebook introduced the Subscribe button, a noticeable shift occurred.
Subscribe is designed for those Facebook users who are journalists, celebrities, political figures, and other people too.
Allowing subscribers is a simple way to broaden your conversation on Facebook, while reserving personal updates for people you know well.
The way Subscribe works is any and all Facebook users can sign up to get the PUBLIC posts in their News Feed of any user who has enabled Subscribe. NOTE: Subscribe is optional. To enable Subscribe, if you haven’t already and would like to, go here.
Facebook is really pushing the Subscribe option (maybe to compete with Google+? Shh!). For Facebook users that have enabled Subscribe, the button now shows in the Comments plugin on websites, so you can easily find and subscribe to new people. Plus, Facebook recently introduced the Subscribe button plugin for websites, which you can see in action below. Feel free to subscribe to my public updates by clicking the button below!
Though it would seem the Subscribe option is designed for public figure types, a large number of Facebook employees, for example, have enabled his/her Subscribe button. And, clearly, many folks are following suit whether they consider themselves a “public figure” type or not. (See your Subscription suggestions here).
In addition, Mark Zuckerberg himself was one of the first public figures to MERGE his fan page into his personal profile, thus having only one presence on Facebook. (Of course, Zuckerberg owns Facebook and has many business pages too!)
At the time of the Subscribe launch, Facebook approached several “power users” to see if they too would like their fan pages merged into their profiles. (For the record, I was not one of the folks approached – and I’m, quite frankly, more than happy to maintain two very different channels on Facebook. I’ll expand on this in a later post. Or, you’ll find my article on why I love the Subscribe feature in the next issue of the fb & Business magazine).
There is demand for the fan-page-to-profile merge; it’s not available as an option to anyone who wants it yet, though.
So, back to the topic of this post…
Public Profile with business-related content?
Given Facebook offers users a single “public profile” presence with Subscribe option enabled, it’s perfectly feasible that such public figures may wish to have business-related content on their Cover, yes?
What are your thoughts? Is it important to you to be able to feature something related to your business on your Cover image? Do you think personal profiles (now Timelines) should be strictly personal? Or, are you one of the folks eagerly awaiting the option to merge your fan page (likes) into your profile (subscribers). Share your answers in the comments below! And, of course, if you know the definitive answer as to what users can/cannot feature on Timeline Cover images, do share below too!
Helpful related posts:
- How to Master Facebook Timeline in 5 Quick Minutes (wired.com)
- Facebook Timeline: The Complete Guide (mashable.com)
- New to Facebook’s Timeline? This is what you need to know (thenextweb.com)
- Timeline: Now Available Worldwide (facebook.com)
- Facebook Timeline: 9 things you need to know (usatoday.com)
- How to Use Facebook’s New Timeline Feature (and Hide Your Embarrassing Old Posts) (lifehacker.com)
Join my fan page for helpful Facebook tips, links, resources, Q&A and support from my community:
As depabooks on Facebook I’ve been frustrated with the inability to have a subscribe button on my fan page…and now with this new look as deborah painchaud; and the great banner space it would be so helpful to be able to direct people to my fan page…I am not sure that the merge would work for me if it deleted all my apps and content on my fan page as the link suggested…Keep us posted Mari…thanks…exactly what I was looking for clarity…to come…we hope
Happy to help!! Interesting though, the Like button on fan pages functions exactly the same as the Subscribe button on profiles! When users click Like or Subscribe, they begin seeing (public) posts in their News Feed. The difference, though, is that Facebook’s algorithms tend to favor profiles (friends/subscribers) vs. fan pages. 🙁 boohoo!
Personally, I prefer to keep my personal and business stuff separate. But then I don’t have a fan page for myself, just for my blog. It’s interesting to learn about not using personal profiles for commercial gain. I think there are a few PR campaigns that are doing just that. But then, I do share my blog posts on my personal profile. Quite tricky, isn’t it?
Hi Mari, very interesting… I set up my profile a couple nights ago, saw the warning and uploaded a personal photo. I then hapened to click on your profile, saw the productized header and I have to admit I was a little surprised and mildly disappointed. I felt like I was ‘following the rules’ and you were not. Which in a tiny way impacted my high opinion of you. But not that much, because here I am, still following and still clicking through to read the blog posts!
But you are different to most of us; you, yourself are the product – your knowledge, your expertise, your speaking engagements, your books… Your personal friends are probably quite jazzed about your success. The question for the rest of us is different – assuming we have a business that we are promoting on Facebook… Do we risk irritating our personal friends by how much we push it? Is it a business that would appeal to most of them anyway? So I think for all of us in this situation, assuming we are ‘allowed’ to run a promotional header, do we want to? How does it fall in that 80/20 or 90/10 advice for keeping 90% of your personal update, well, personal! My best clients come to me through business referrals. Yes, I get some referrals from friends, but in most cases the friendship means more to me than the value of the referral. So the real question for most of us is whether promoting our business is a good or a bad thing for our personal lives as well as for our business – we all get irritated by the people who come onto Facebook as a person then do nothing with their profile except promote their business! We each need to find the balance that works for our personality and for our business.
@AbigailGorton:disqus – fantastic comments! Thank you so much for stopping by to share. I’m glad to hear my promotional Cover didn’t turn you off completely. Lol. I do understand what you say, it’s a fine balance. I’ve never put anything promotional on my actual profile photo/avatar – though I’ve seen many people do this. Now, it’s different with the fact we have a Cover and a profile photo. It will be interesting to see where all this goes.
Likely different strokes for different folks… BUT, gotta say I typically like to focus more on being a member, vs. a marketer when it comes to the personal social channels. It’s just that this new Subscribe option has me quite fascinated – just in the less than 24 hours since I wrote this post, I’ve picked up 1,000 new subscribers… truly amazing. It makes me wonder what peeps would most like to hear from me on my personal profile – I’ll likely need to survey/pose questions at some point!
Thank you for sharing Mari, very informative as always.
My first impressions was that image has to be your own personal image, not Business related or tagged or from any public source.
I just turned my timeline on so this post came out at the right time. I was unsure about adding business info to the cover but you bring up some great points which made me re-think my initial position. Thanks again, I’m going to the drawing board to think about this one.
Hi Tim! Thanks for stopping by! 🙂
Thanks Mari, a great and informative article! :)(ps! …ideal dimensions is 854px wide by 315px high)
Aha – 4 more pixels eh?! 🙂 I’ve seen a variety of sizes out there.
Your own personal image with a subtle copyright attributed to yout website should be OK in either case.
True, true!!
Hi Mari,
I’ve gone for a mixture between personal and professional on my timeline. I’ve got my company logo and slogan, but a photo that personally resonates with me, and also fits with my business. http://facebook.com/terridavies
Oh @twitter-109152666:disqus – that is an awesome Cover!!! I love it. Beautiful message too. Two thumbs up. hehee!
Very interesting article Mari have shared on FB and TW as well as my papermood fanpage ! 🙂
Fantastico – you rock, thank you!!
You’re welcome I’m also getting your book with my Amazon voucher’s I will get during Christmas 🙂 I downloaded the chapter on my kindle and it’s full of great advices, I want to read more. Merry Christmas !
Hi Mari
Thanks for the very informative post. I had read that there was to be no promotional images allowed, but then I saw your image so was confused. It’ll be great to see how this all sorts out.
Kathleen
I had read that too when I was going to update my profile to Timeline! Now if I could only find where I read it…
Aha @facebook-100000534288461:disqus – thank you for sharing the Mashable link. Moutain Dew and also Volkswagen have Timeline cover images for fans/employees. Hmm.
Thanks, @39fac3246a656e23b70bb5e3ec845999:disqus – as usual, some of these important issues are clear as mud on Facebook. LOL!
I would have thought “please don’t use content that is commercial (or) promotional” was pretty crystal clear myself 🙂
Hey @e78d4c7745069544991f298d92e5b0da:disqus – ya, true. But, Facebook’s interpretation is that we ought not to be selling ad space to banner advertising and making direct financial gain from our profiles. That’s different from saying, Hey here’s where you can find my latest book, or this is the website for my place of work… or here’s how to contact me.