Make your Facebook Timeline cover stand out!

Since Facebook’s Timeline has rolled out and is now the “standard” look and feel of your personal or business page, you now need to make it look good. There are a few things you need to know when designing an amazing, eye catching cover photo. Many people on their personal/business Facebook pages choose to use an existing photo they have taken, which is cool and all; BUT there are A LOT of different ways of customizing your cover photo. So break out your note pad and get ready for some cool ideas to customize your very own cover photo…

Personal Cover Photo

Customizing your personal Facebook cover photo can be a lot of fun, you have endless things you can do to fully customizing your own profile cover photo. You can use an existing photo that you love and you can add whatever your heart may desire. If you have Adobe Photoshop you can do this very easily, all you need to have is a photo of your liking and a few creative ideas and … BAM a fully custom cover photo for your page. If you aren’t that creative you can always search for “great Facebook cover photos” and get some ideas.

I really like to do something that brings the profile picture in with the cover photo, you can do this by using some simple guidelines to get the perfect size cover and profile picture image. Here are the dimensions for the cover photo and profile picture.

Facebook Timeline Cover Photo Dimensions:

• 851 pixels wide
• 315 pixels height

Facebook Profile Picture Dimensions:

• 200 pixels wide
• 200 pixels height

* Note – If you are using typography, you have to make sure it stays under 200 pixels. The safe area for a profile picture should be 176 pixels wide and 176 pixels height.

FaceBook Update: On April 26, 2012, we will be updating the size of the profile picture.This update will go in effect for your profile picture on April 26. The new profile picture will be 160 x 160 pixels and will sit at 23 pixels from the left and 210 pixels from the top of the Page.

Business Page Cover Photo

Creating a business page cover photo comes with a little knowledge, Facebook now gives you a larger area to promote your brand but it also limits what you can do with this large area. You would think that you can splash your business cover photo with a ton of stuff like “Call Us” or your phone number and URL… Facebook has limited your cover photo to almost purely creativeness. Facebook has set some guidelines for business pages to what you can and can NOT do. Here are a few things you cannot use on your business page cover photos.

Things you cannot use on your Facebook Timeline Covers:

• Phone Number
• URL
• “Calls To Actions” such as “Like this page” or “Share”
• Price or purchase information

So, with the limitations here is what you CAN do. You can brand your cover photo with your logo and stylize your tagline. You can be as creative as you want minus the things that are listed above. A way around some of those limitations can be the use of a generated QR code. This is an easy way to have a lot of information and not point it out or say “Scan Me”. The QR code when scanned can have things such as your Business name, phone number, URL and physical address. If you can come up with a creative way of integrating and stylizing this QR code in your timeline cover photo, then the things Facebook won’t let you do is a non-issue.

You should select only quality images to promote your brand, use high quality photos! If you have a hot selling item, you should use a photo of that product or select your most popular products to showcase on the cover. Adding content such as customer testimonials, an inspiring quote/saying or using your company’s tagline can also be utilized alongside the selected product, or it can stand alone without product shots. If you have a logo USE IT, this is how people will recognize you and your brand. Look at some of the big corporations; they use their logo on EVERYTHING… Don’t be shy using your company’s logo but also try not to over brand your page, save some room for your newest product or brand campaign. Humor is also a way to have fun creating a cover photo, everybody loves a good chuckle and you can have funny sayings or images to make your customers or potential customers remember you… In a good humorous way.

So, now that you have a little idea of what you can and cannot do on your cover photos it is your turn to go out there and create something genius! Don’t forget to remember that having fun is the key to making a creative cover photo!

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Posted in Graphic Tips, Social Marketing. Tagged with Graphic Tips, Social Marketing.

By Glendale Designs

04/17/2012

Northsidetattoos.com

Author: James Sharp – Glendale Designs

The Client:

Matt & Amber Stankis own and operate Northside Tattoos, located at 722 Philadelphia Pike, Wilmington, Delaware. Their unique work flows through everything they do in their shop; from Tattoos to Piercings and Pinstriping. They are dedicated to maintaining high quality workmanship and attention to detail. Everything about their new web presence needed to express their creativeness, as well as how immaculate they keep their workplace.

The Project:

Northside Tattoos approached us to design their site. This project was challenging and fun, being they wanted to incorporate their own artistic design style, coupled with a blog and shopping functionality allowing them to sell Matt’s pinstriping work.

Their photo galleries needed to be available for multiple staff members under the tattoo, piercing and pinstriping sections of the site. We also incorporated multiple galleries under each of the artists sections, so as their portfolios grow, they have the ability of separating them out by categories.

The backend of the “Events” section needed to be user friendly and offer the ability to add events and maintain consistency in displaying the information on the front end of the site. At the same time their social marketing needed to be integrated throughout the site and blog.

Technology:

We ended up creating a custom WordPress theme for Northside Tattoos.

Shopp was used for their online purchases
jQuery Libraries
WP Opt-in |email list
Google Maps
ShareThis
Contact Form 7 and CAPTCHA
Google XML Sitemaps
Q and A

Here is what Matt & Amber Stankis from Northsidetattoos.com had to say about their new site:

“My company, Northside Tattoos, contracted Sabine and James Sharp of Glendale Designs to design our website. I came across them by admiring the design of a local company’s website and noticing Glendale’s contact info at the bottom of the home page. I showed the website to my husband we immediately knew this was the company we had to contract to design our website. From the first phone call all the way through the launch of our website, we could not be happier with their service.

Since we had never been through this process before they explained everything in a way that was easily understood, gave us timelines of what work we had to do to in order keep us organized and focused, suggested options we hadn’t thought of that made our site more effective and did all of this with patience.

On so many occasions the entire team at Glendale Designs went above and beyond what our expectations were. We will definitely work with them again in the future as our needs evolve and have already referred them to friends. We feel so fondly toward Sabine and James that if we’re ever in Arizona we will look them up and take them out to dinner. We truly consider them new friends, that’s how they have treated us from the start. We feel we have one of the best websites in our industry now thanks to Glendale Designs.

All the best,
Matt and Amber Stankis
northsidetattoos.com

Update:

Appreciation Day!

Today a package arrived and to our surprise we received a custom Gold Leafed Pinstriped Glendale Designs sign along with Northside Tattoo shirt in appreciation of our work. We always enjoy working with customers, and I guess they also enjoy working with us