I’m loving playing around with the new Facebook Timeline, I feel a bit like a kid with a new tool, there’s lots to learn and discover. One thing is for sure. Images are a huge part of the new design. Your cover picture, your logo, your tabs, even featured of pinned stories look better with images. Here’s all you need to know about those images, ideal sizes and a few tools that will help you create killer images to promote your page.
1. Cover Image
Dimensions 851 x 315 pixels
If you have a photo you can upload it full size and choose the section you would like to use as your cover photo.
This is a huge space for you to play with, it gives you the chance to really own your page. The image you use should capture the essence of your brand.
Rules!
As with almost everything on Facebook there are rules around what you can and can’t do with your cover image, and as usual you can see them being broken all over the place. However if you want to ensure you don’t loose your page you must abide by them.
Here’s what they say:
Some Examples
2. Avatar / Logo
Dimensions 180 x 180 pixels minimum (displays as 125 x 125 pixels)
We may have gained space with the cover image but we’ve lost space with the avatar. The old pages allowed us to create banners where we could feature not only our logo but some info about us and even a call to action. The new avatar size allows just enough room for your logo.
3. Tabs
Dimensions 111 x 74 pixels
You can now display three apps underneath your header and you can customise the images that appear on them. This gives you the opportunity to keep your branding consistent. If you have a shop, a competition running or even a blog tab you can draw attention to them using customised images.
If you missed my video last week on how to feature tabs and how to add customise images to your tabs here it is again.
Examples
No Photoshop? Some Tools That Can Help
So Timeline gives us so many opportunities to show off beautiful images but if you don’t have photoshop how can you create them? There are lots of free photo editing tools that you can play around with to create those images, here’s three of the best.
FotoFlexer
FotoFlexer is by far the most user friendly one I’ve used. Simply upload photos, add filters, text, even re-size. You can do all this online and save the completed image to your computer hard drive.
Aviary
Aviary is more complex and gives you far more tools and functionality. Like FotoFlexer there’s no need for a download, you simply upload your images and edit them online. The interface is more complicated, but you can do far more. Aviary has a full suite of tools including screen grabbing outside it’s image editor app.
Gimp
Gimp is an open source image editing programme that unlike the other two needs to be downloaded to your computer. This is the Rolls Royce of free image editing and it’s what I use. It has massive capabilities for both editing and designing images. The downside is that it can take a while to get your head around it, if you are used to Photoshop you will find the interface clunky in comparison.
Have you enabled Timeline yet? Have you done something creative with your page? Have you seen any creative cover images? I’m always looking for examples so please do share your pages below.
