{"id":1235,"date":"2012-03-27T12:02:54","date_gmt":"2012-03-27T18:02:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rodeoclassifieds.com\/blog\/?p=1235"},"modified":"2012-03-27T12:02:54","modified_gmt":"2012-03-27T18:02:54","slug":"facebook-for-horse-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rodeoclassifieds.com\/blog\/facebook-for-horse-businesses\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook for Horse Businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"

March 30 will be a big day for Facebook page owners. All fan\/business pages will be automatically switched over the the new Timeline. \"\"<\/a>Not everyone is real thrilled about this, but we don\u2019t have a choice as we know Facebook loves to roll out changes. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Several of you who have horse businesses or horse related businesses have fan pages for your business. I am writing this to make you aware of some of Facebook’s guidelines and the upcoming changes and rules associated with them. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Did you know Facebook has rules? They do, and they are broken all the time. That doesn\u2019t mean that they won\u2019t make an example of your page though. If you break their rules, they can shut down your page. All that work of getting \u201clikes\u201d and \u201cfans\u201d can be gone in one click by the powers that be at Facebook. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Did you know you aren\u2019t allowed to run contests through Facebook? Using their likes or shares button is against their rules. You can hold a contest through your website (send people to your site to vote) or through an application that you add to your page. It is against the rules to run your contest through new likes and shares.\u00a0 Like this picture to enter or share this picture or page to enter is grounds for Facebook to delete your page.\u00a0\u00a0 Using an application or sending users to your site to enter is the proper protocol.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Here is a good resource<\/a> on Facebook promotions and how to run them within the rules. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

With the introduction of the new Timeline for pages, we are given a huge cover photo space.\u00a0\u00a0 This photo may be a tempting place to run a billboard with your website address and contact information but Facebook disagrees.\u00a0\u00a0 They have rules for the cover picture too.\u00a0 It should not contain your web address nor any contact information.\u00a0 They want that info to go in the “about us” area.\u00a0\u00a0 There shouldn’t be any call to action or suggestion to “like” your page.<\/p>\n

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Facebook expert Mari Smith offers this article<\/a> with 21 tips for business using the new Timeline<\/p>\n

Your Timeline cover image should be 851 x 315 pixels in size.\u00a0 If it is smaller than this they will stretch it to fit.\u00a0 If it is larger and not to scale your scale will change.\u00a0 It is recommended to build or have it built that exact size.\u00a0 You will notice by using your preview (available until March 30) that part of your profile image covers the Cover image so consider that in your design.<\/p>\n

Your profile image could be your mug shot, logo or other identifying information.\u00a0 It is best to upload this image at 180 x 180 in size.\u00a0 It will be seen throughout Facebook in feeds and in other peoples Like lists so make is something easily recognizable.\u00a0 Facebook doesn’t recommend you change your profile picture often but do encourage changing your Cover image.\u00a0 Each time you change your cover image it will show up as a news item in your fans feed.\u00a0 Although you can’t put a call to action on the picture, you could do something like that in the picture comments.<\/p>\n

Any apps that you may have running on the left hand tab (notes, videos, blog feeds etc.) will no longer be there.\u00a0 These apps will show up as the tabs under your Cover image.\u00a0\u00a0 4 show up at a time and you can pick which ones you want to show.\u00a0 You can also upload a custom image for each.\u00a0 You can see by this screen capture of the Rodeoclassifieds Facebook page we still need to design some custom tab images to really get the mileage we could be.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We could do “click to see newest ads” and “Read our blog:…or something like that to customize our tabs.<\/p>\n

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We could use some custom tab images here<\/p><\/div>\n

The new Timeline splits the posts into two columns.\u00a0 This does make it a bit tricky to follow compared to what we are used to but it does have some cool options we didn’t have before.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Click highlight so your post spans the 2 columns<\/p><\/div>\n

You can now pin a post to the top (by clicking the edit button at the top right of post). It will stay up as the top post on your wall for 7 days and automatically remove itself.\u00a0 You can also click the highlight button (the star) and it will spread your picture or post across the two columns.\u00a0 If it is a picture you can actually reposition to.\u00a0 Use this feature when it fits, it will really add to your page.<\/p>\n

Another worthy note is that fans can now message you through Facebook.\u00a0 On your admin panel where it will show you new notification and likes there is a box for messages.\u00a0 This is a great opportunity to communicate with your fans directly through Facebook.\u00a0 If you don’t want users to contact you through Facebook you can disable it by editing your page.<\/p>\n

If you have a website and a Facebook page remember to connect the two.\u00a0\u00a0 Add a like button to your website and of course link to your website through Facebook.\u00a0 If you have placed an ad on a site like Rodeoclassifieds, remember to post the link on your page to get the most mileage you can.<\/p>\n

Facebook is another great advertising and promotion venue However, we have to remember to play by their rules and make the most out of their changes.\u00a0 If you would like to learn more, here are some great links:<\/p>\n

A more in depth look at more changes and customizations<\/a> you can make from by Kristi Hines on kissmetrics.com<\/p>\n

This is another great resource with many frequently asked questions about pages<\/a> answered by the Hyperarts Blog<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

March 30 will be a big day for Facebook page owners. All fan\/business pages will be automatically switched over the the new Timeline. Not everyone is real thrilled about this, but we don\u2019t have a choice as we know Facebook loves to roll out changes. Several of you who have horse businesses or horse related […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tips-resources"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rodeoclassifieds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rodeoclassifieds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rodeoclassifieds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rodeoclassifieds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rodeoclassifieds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1235"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.rodeoclassifieds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1245,"href":"http:\/\/www.rodeoclassifieds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1235\/revisions\/1245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rodeoclassifieds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rodeoclassifieds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rodeoclassifieds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}