Brands that want to utilize Facebook’s spiffy new Timeline feature won’t have to wait too much longer. According to apprised executives quoted in AdAge, Facebook plans to begin rolling out Timeline for Brands at the end of February.
Apparently, Facebook plans to announce Timeline for Brands at their first-ever fMC event held specifically for marketers. fMC will take place on February 29th in New York City.
We’ve known that Facebook has been working on Timeline for Brands for a while now, but it was always unclear when they would move forward with them and how they would look once Facebook launched them. According to the sources, they will have a similar look and feel of the user Timelines, but won’t be an exact copy.
Facebook is reportedly still deciding on some specifics for the Brand Timelines, like what’s going to happen to all of the different tabs and app pages that populate current Brand pages on the site. Brands use these side buttons to house promotional games, contests, and other information. One thought is that they will turn into boxes on the Brand’s Timelines, similar to the way Spotify is housed on user Timelines.
Also, the amount of history displayed on Brand Timelines is a huge deal. One of the Timeline’s biggest draws (and pains for detractors) is the ability to see stories from a user’s birth. Will Brands have the same type fo functionality in their Timelines? Companies like Coca-Cola and The New York Times have been around for well over a century – their Brand Timelines could be pretty impressive once they’ve cycled through all of the possible bad PR and made the Timeline perfect.
Users have found some pretty creative ways to maximize the effectiveness of their Timelines, and many brands are chomping at the bit for their chance.
Facebook made the Timeline available for all users back in December 2011. Users to choose to switch over if they wanted. But on January 24th, Facebook announced that they were beginning to push the Timeline to all users. Once you get it, you have a 7-day grace period to clean it up and make it presentable before it goes live. The Facebook community seems to be split on the issue, with some loving the new design and some railing about privacy.