Facebook recently changed their cover photo rules. Facebook now allows brands to list contact information, calls to action, and product details in their cover photos. Read more about it here.

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Starting on January 15, 2013, Facebook will regulate the amount of text included in your Page’s cover image and news feed ads to no more than 20 percent of the graphic’s area. The new year and the new policy is a good time for Duke University Facebook Page owners to check if our cover images are compliant with Facebook’s policies.

Facebook’s new policy on cover images reads:

Pages Terms Section III.B

Covers may not include:

Note that a logo with text in the cover image contributes to the 20 percent limit of text in a cover image. Facebook will provide a grid tool for Page managers to use to determine if they are within Facebook’s text restrictions for cover images and news feed ads. Also note that you can still post images with more than 20 percent text if they aren’t promoted posts in the News Feed. And, you can use these post images for ads as long as they are displayed in the marketplace area.

It seems like Facebook is trying to increase the quality of images in profiles and the News Feed. Images remain an important strategy for posting to Facebook and creating custom profiles, but our Duke pages need to use compelling graphics and photography instead of marketing jargon to communicate our messages.

The current cover image for the main Duke University Facebook Page is compliant with the new policies and can be downloaded by right-clicking the image below and selecting “save image as” from the dropdown menu. Please contact us on this blog or at socialmedia@duke.edu if you any comments or questions about these new policies.

Here are some resources to read more about the recent changes:

New Facebook Rules Limit Use of Text in Images, Entrepreneur

Facebook updates cover photo and News Feed ad policy, limits text to 20% of image, Inside Facebook