Facebook Timeline: An Overview

Facebook has switched things up on marketers yet again. What does the launch of the timeline layout for Facebook pages mean for you? Here is a quick overview.

Cover Image. Facebook pages now have a gigantic banner as the main feature. This image should be something dynamic, compelling and a good representation of your brand. Facebook has mandated that cover images can not have a call to action like “donate” or “sign up now.” Here is a full list of guidelines for new Facebook cover images.

Duke University Facebook Page Cover Image

Highlights Feed. When visitors come to your Page now, they will see a mix of stories from you, your community and their friends. This is different from the more linear posts that used to appear on your Page. Visitors can opt to see different types of stories once they are on your page.

Drop-down menu for users to select a type of feed to view on your Page

You now have the option to “highlight” a post, making it span the entire width of your page. Use this function when you post great visuals or have a story that you want extra attention drawn to.

In the settings, you can prevent random users from being able to post to your page and prevent their timeline from showing mention of your brand. However, those posts will still be visible to a user’s friends. If you do receive negative posts or spam you would like to remove, hover your mouse over them and chose to hide or delete the content.

Apps. Custom applications were a big part of content strategy for brands on the old Facebook page layout. Now there are no more default tabs to direct new visitors to automatically – marketers traditionally have used these landing tabs on Facebook pages to make conversions with non-fans. Apps still appear, but they’ve been moved from the left navigation to the right side of the About section. They appear with icons instead of text descriptions and only four can appear above the fold, with the first app being permanently dedicated to Photos. Now that apps have less impact, brands and companies need to draw new fans in with their cover image, highlights and great content.

Profile picture. The new profile picture is limited to 180 pixels square. That means that when it’s shrunk down to a thumbnail, it will be very small. Don’t use anything too busy or detailed – save gorgeous imagery for your cover image.

Pinned Content. A new functionality in Timeline is the ability to pin content and posts. When you pin a post, it remains in the top left-hand corner of your page for up to seven days. Pinning gives you control of the first content users see when they visit your Page. When you’re pinning content, keep in mind the highlight function as well.

Milestones. The Milestone feature is a fun one, especially for higher education. It allows us to tell the story of special dates and events in our history, present and future. Things you might want to add to your Milestones are your founding date, other big accomplishments and any upcoming events. These Milestones show up across the entire width of your page with a little flag in the corner. Facebook is likely to favor this type of content, which will result in more impressions. Don’t be afraid to use the Milestone feature whenever it feels appropriate!

Messaging. Page Timelines allow users to send direct, private messages to your Page. You can’t proactively message users – you can only respond to incoming messages. The messaging feature is limited to two outgoing messages for every one message you receive. This is Facebook’s way of preventing brands from spamming people. Use the message function to have valuable offline conversations with your community.

Get started!

So now that you have a grasp on the changes, how do Duke University Facebook Page administrators jump in to make changes and go live with the Timeline layout? First, take a deep breath. Now, set aside some time to work through this checklist before March 30:

1. Visit the Timeline for Pages Preview Manager. Select to add Timeline to your pages and you’ll enter a nice limbo curation period where you and the other page admins can preview changes, but your work won’t be public until you hit the “publish now” button.

2. Load a cover image. The dimensions are a giant 851 x 315 pixel banner. If you don’t have your own art, email cara.rousseau@duke.edu for a selection of Duke University branded cover images. These cover images will be available to download from the Duke Style Guide soon.

3. Make sure your profile picture/logo is centered and scaled to fit as a thumbnail.

4. Take a look at your “About” section to make sure you have a short, punchy description filled in.

5. Create milestones for important events in your past, present and future.

6. Test out the highlight and pin functionality.

7. Edit your apps by using the drop-down menu to the right of the titles, click the “+” button to add any custom apps, and then hover your mouse over the apps to select the pencil icon to move them around. Make sure to put your most important apps above the fold.

8. Do a scan for any negative or potentially embarrassing posts and remove them.

Now you’re ready to publish your Facebook Timeline for Pages!

Make sure to comment with a link to your new and refreshed Page.

Training the Duke Trainers’ Group in Social Media

The Center for Instructional Training (CIT) and the Office of Information Technology (OIT) at Duke are phenomenal resources. One of their many collaborative roles is to support the academic mission at Duke by helping instructors and faculty figure out what technologies to use in their classrooms – and how to use it.

In order to provide training effectively, we actually have a Duke Trainers’ Group – an informal working group of trainers throughout the university including staff from CIT, OIT, Student Affairs, Human Resources – Learning & Organization Development, Health Systems and more – who hold regular training sessions and workshops available free of charge to the Duke community.

In order to stay on top of their game, the Duke Trainers’ Group meets monthly for professional development and also share resources on their blog. I was invited to be the guest at their regular trainers meeting for the month of February. At the meeting, we discussed the social media tools and resources Duke is active in and talked through some ideas for ways to present social media resources as tools for faculty use.

One of the interesting topics we covered was how faculty and staff are blending their personal and professional presence on social media accounts and ways to use privacy settings to make this easier. It seems to vary based on the individual, but there is general concern among faculty and students on this topic. They want to know who is viewing their profiles and how the content they share reflects their own belief systems. There is no blanket recommendation to make in this area, but we discussed how privacy settings are critical for blending personal and professional use of social media tools.

Somewhat related to the conversation around privacy and social media, my friend and colleague recently wrote a post on his personal blog about awareness of situational conversations I highly recommend reading.

Thanks to the Duke Trainers’ Group for hosting me! My presentation from the meeting is available on slideshare.

Social Media Use Growing At Duke

This article originally ran in Working@Duke on February 17, 2012

When August Burns wants to learn about colleagues and get the latest news about benefits and resources at Duke, she checks the “Working@Duke” Facebook page.

Burns, who has used Facebook for about three years, plans to start following the “WorkingatDuke” Twitter feed too.

“Social media is the best way to keep track of what’s going on right now,” said Burns, business manager for the Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics in the Pratt School of Engineering. “With so many of us on these sites, tools like Facebook and Twitter are a great way to share information and be a resource for each other.”

As employees experiment with social media channels, departments and schools like Athletics and the Fuqua School of Business are finding impressive success in using social media to enhance professional reputation, expand research and scholarly contacts and interact in real-time. Duke has more than 100 official school Facebook and Twitter accounts, as well as sites on YouTube, iTunesU, Foursquare and Flickr.

According to a survey of Duke faculty and staff last year, Facebook is the most widely used social network (61 percent), followed by YouTube (32 percent), LinkedIn (23 percent) and Twitter (11 percent). Those numbers mirror national statistics on social media use, according to the Pew Research Center.

“Everyone on campus is trying to figure it out,” said Cara Rousseau, Duke’s social media manager. “They’re trying to connect with different audiences, but it can be really challenging to tell what will click on different channels, and the landscape is changing all the time.”

Rousseau has met with dozens of Duke departments to offer guidance on social media best practices. She recently led a workshop with about a dozen event planners from across Duke on social media basics like creating accounts and sharing content.

Still, some faculty and staff are reluctant to venture into social media channels, concerned that learning the new technology won’t be worth the time investment, said Mark Anthony Neal, a professor of African and African-American studies at Duke.

“They think it’s superficial and a waste of time,” said Neal, whose New Black Man blogdraws about 62,000 hits per month. “I tell my colleagues, `This is the same way you felt about email 15 years ago.’ It’s time-consuming, but most folks have successfully integrated it into their workflow. This is an effective way to communicate and interact with students and former students in creative, nontraditional ways.”

Neal has his own web show “Left of Black” and about 9,000 Twitter followers and 3,000 Facebook friends. He said there is a clear connection between social media and Duke’s academic mission.

“We can write the greatest books, but they will only remain among the audience of the scholarly community,” Neal said. “Social media is a critical tool to show the vitality of the work we do, to function as an academic and also engage with audiences outside the academy. I’d say about 70 percent of what I do on social media is teaching. It’s perfectly in sync with Duke’s mission of knowledge in the service of society.”

Enhancing Duke’s reputation

Athletics overhauled its social media presence last year, launching Twitter accounts for all of its programs. In addition, GoDuke.com put together a social media landing page to allow fans to see Twitter feeds from Duke’s official athletics website.

Social media is a natural way to connect with fans and recruits and to humanize the Duke brand, said Dave Bradley, Duke basketball’s recruiting/communications coordinator.

Bradley has netted more than 800,000 views on YouTube with the viral “Buckets 2.0” video, showcasing trick shots by basketball player Kyle Singler. He also worked on the “Show Us How You 903” contest, sponsored by Duke Athletics, which collected hundreds of online submissions from Blue Devil fans celebrating men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski’s record 903rd win.

“For many of our student-athletes and fans, Twitter has become a primary means of communication,” Bradley said. “There is a great synergy there for Duke because our athletes are engaging and dynamic. And we have unbelievable fans all over the world. Social media can then help bring together the Blue Devil community and provide new opportunities to advance the Duke brand.”

The Fuqua School of Business also is looking to students and alumni as “brand ambassadors” through social media. A recent effort involved an online game: a virtual “Campout,” a take-off on the real campout undertaken each year by Duke graduate students hoping to score coveted men’s basketball tickets. The game challenged students and alumni to earn “participation points” (used for prizes) by “liking” a page on Facebook, sharing faculty research with their networks and other tasks to promote the school’s brand.

The three-week campaign last summer marshaled nearly 800 Fuqua alumni and students to take 11,000 actions to volunteer for, learn about or support the school.
“People won’t spend five hours reading your bulletin or brochures, but if you make it a game and give them points, they’ll do it,” said Elizabeth Hogan, Fuqua’s assistant dean for marketing.

Fuqua is now exploring ways to share the platform with other schools and departments at Duke, she said.

“Social media is an experiment. Nobody knows what’s going to happen,” Hogan said. “Some institutions want to control the message and be all buttoned up with what they say. You need to be OK with a different tone and focus not on what you’re telling them but on encouraging them to talk to you and to each other. It requires thinking in a different way.”

For Alumni Affairs, one of the most important social media tools is LinkedIn, where Duke’s group has grown to more than 16,000 members. While Facebook is useful for promoting events or sharing “fun” tidbits, LinkedIn posts often generate intense discussion on sports, jobs, research and other issues, said Jon Goldstein, executive director of marketing and communications.

His approach: let the conversations grow by themselves and sometimes seed the group with topics based on Duke research and news.

“The best way to build community is through content,” Goldstein said. “And where better to be than Duke, where we have really interesting content all the time, from science and art to government, history and the environment. We’re having more conversations now than we were in the past because we have new ways to talk to one another.”

Connecting the workforce

Community building is occurring on social media channels managed by Duke’s employee communications team, too.

Since launching its Facebook account, Working@Duke has grown to more than 2,100 members. Its Twitter stream is also growing steadily. And late last year, Working@Duke created a LinkedIn group to stimulate professional discussion among Duke staff and faculty on topics such as career development and email practices.

“Communicating to a workforce of 34,000 through traditional media can feel impersonal, but social media gives people a face and a voice and allows for a more direct and personal interaction,” said Paul Grantham, assistant vice president for communication services. “This type of exchange fosters an environment of mutual respect, trust and collaboration – the foundation for a strong community.”

Rousseau, Duke’s social media manager, frequently fields inquiries from Duke units interested in learning more about social media.

August Burns and Mary Lindsley recently attended the workshop Rousseau led for event planners. Their group, the Duke Special Event Planners Council, plans to use Twitter and a new blog to interact with vendors and share tips like how to run a “green” event.

“We’re still learning how we can do it so it works best for us, but it’s a must-do as more people join these social networks in order to improve the work they do,” said Lindsley, chair of the council’s social media and web committee and event manager at the Sanford School of Public Policy.

Social media also helps Lindsley feel more connected to faculty research at Sanford and more a part of the larger Duke community.

“It helps me learn more about how much we’re engaged in the world and the issues of the day,” she said, “and that helps me be a happier, more fulfilled employee.”

Duke Faculty ‘Live Tweet’ Obama’s State of the Union Speech

Earlier this week, Duke University held our first Twitter chat during President Obama’s State of the Union speech. We came up with the idea in a brainstorming session about getting faculty to try new tools and use social networking to amplify their voices. The concept was to assemble a handful of faculty and post-doc students who are already on Twitter – or just interested in trying Twitter – to have a sidebar conversation during a larger conversation on the social network.

The result was the creation of the hashtag #DukeChat, linking to broader international discussion about the speech at #SOTU.

Terrorism expert David Schanzer, religion professor Ebrahim Moosa, Maurice Wallace of AAAS and other Duke faculty also participated in the Twitter conversation, which included about 250 posts. Others watching the conversation online Internet added their own comments. A complete transcript is available.

“As a ‘Twitter newbie,” I found the experience interesting and enlightening,” said political science professor Paula McClain, whose comments ranged from Obama’s “tough talk on China” to how House Speaker John Boehner was reacting to the speech. “It was interesting to see how my view sometimes corresponded with those of my colleagues and at other times differed. I am definitely up for this again.”

A Storify round-up of the Twitter conversation can be found here.

Pinterest Possibilities for HigherEd

There were a TON of social media tools released in 2011. For the most part, these new products and platforms came and went. But, Pinterest was an outlier in the social media world, now included in the top 10 list of social networks.

What is Pinterest? According to pinterest.com: “Pinterest is an online pinboard. Organize and share things you love.” It’s a site still in beta, requiring users to request access to an account at this time. Even though it’s in a very early stage, Pinterest has proven to be a huge contendor in the world of social networks, and isn’t going the way of Google Wave in the near future.

So, why is Pinterest hot? Well, mainly because Pinterest just works. It’s fun, fresh content and is a completely new way of sharing/posting content in a really visually appearing manner. And, Pinterest took off because they hit a critical target demographics in social networking: educated, professional women in their 20s-30s. This demographic is hugely active in social networking and are big time influencers for each other and their communities.

Seeing as I’m in the target demographic for Pinterest, I’m all over it. I actually have a self-imposed rule that I’m not allowed to login to Pinterest when I’m working as Duke’s social media manager to stay productive. Coming from someone who spends a good 75-80% of her desk time on social networks or reading about new media, this is quite the testimony for how addictive this site is.

So, if I’m addicted to Pinterest, and so are all of my friends, isn’t there a market for brands there? You bet. Because a lot of content that is shared on Pinterest are recipes, crafts, fashion and interior decorating advice, brands like Better Homes & Gardens are all over it. But there are implications for a place like Duke on Pinterest as well. If you think about it, you can imagine Duke alumni sharing photos of their favorite basketball game, prospective students pinning photos of their acceptance letter and Duke communicators using boards to share tips and advice in marketing and PR.

How do you think Duke should be using this new tool?

The Anatomy of a Tweet

Lots of people are figuring out how to use Twitter across campus. Some communicators, students and faculty could write the book on tweeting. But, if you’re like the majority, you’re still figuring out what Twitter is and what in the world to do with a hashtag (#).

Getting started on Twitter is a little like learning a new language in a new country. The first thing you should do is simply create a Twitter account and listen. You get bonus points for uploading an image (and getting rid of the easter egg default photo) and creating a profile of yourself.

Next up, find some interesting people and news outlets to listen TO. A great place to get started is at the All Duke Tweeters list @DukeNews maintains. Simply click on the profile name of anyone tweeting something of interest and click “follow” to have their tweets show up in your homepage stream.

Now that you’re listening, you’ll probably be curious about all of the acronyms and symbols you’re seeing. Here’s a little Twitter glossary to help you understand what these terms mean:

After you’ve listened enough to comfortable with the new world of Twitter, try crafting your own tweet, perhaps by sharing links and content that interest you. One of the best uses of Twitter is swapping content.

Now that you’re part of the conversation, consider using a special desktop and mobile tool to help you organize your tweets and to filter searches for content. Two popular options are Tweetdeck and Hootsuite. Both allow you to create streams of customized content and searches so you can view what’s important to you and sort out the noise.

I’m happy to answer questions and provide more details to help you. Stay tuned on this blog for posts on how you can create your own effective Twitter strategy.

***Updated on May 22, 2012

My colleague Anton Zuiker wrote a fabulous Twitter 101 blog post about getting started with Twitter in bite-sized pieces. Please read it here.