Facebook has announced new Timeline features for brands that will allow for more creative storytelling opportunities. While brands can now postdate content and showcase their brand history chronologically, this also raises the bar for creative investments and requires recalibrating community management processes. Additionally, the new Reach Generator tool aims to promote brand posts to more existing fans, expanding the role of community managers to include media planning. Overall, the changes emphasize multimedia storytelling and collaborative ownership of brand pages between marketing and social media experts.

1. Facebook Timeline for Brands
The Changes, and the Hidden Implications
February 2012

2. New Facebook Pages
Facebook just announced Which features matter What are the hidden
Timeline for brands. most? implications for teams?
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3. A quick run
down of the new
feature set…

4. Page = “Mission Control
Branded cover photo
(851x315) and profile
pic (125X125) allow
for maximum
creativity
Applications and tabs
appear as “favorites”
beneath cover photo
as thumbnails. You
select four to display.
Friends of user that
Pinned posts keep like the page
features at top of
page for 7 days
Timeline
automatically inserts
geo-targeted posts
for fans in that 4
country/city

5. Page = “Mission Control
Reach Generator
premium advertising
option will enable Fan posts
promotion of a aggregated in a
specific post into 50% separate stream
of fans newsfeeds or
sponsored story
areas. Will reach
fans via mobile as
well as desktop.
Browse page history
chronologically
Ability to post content
in full page width box
Fanta is a Social@Ogilvy client. 5

6. What impact will
these changes
really have on my
strategy and my
team?

7. 1.
Timeline invites Obvious Impact Hidden Implication
brands to play The ability to postdate content will add a Telling a brand history is the
(creatively) in a new layer of depth to brand stories and obvious application of timeline, but
visually appealing, by extension, user engagement. the creative arms race will be
chronological space. reinvigorated as top brands out-do
Content will continue to be viewed in each other with inventive timeline
Newsfeeds, but if well executed, it will uses.
hook friends in to a much larger, more
intensive Facebook experience back on
the brand’s home page.
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8. Brand History
Coke is telling their rich brand
history chronologically
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9. Character History
Captain Morgan USA goes
way back to recreate the story
of Admiral Sir Henry Morgan.
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10. Gamification
Fanta invites friends to find
lost characters locked in their
timeline.
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11. Brand Vision
The New York Times brings
archives to life through
historical time pieces
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12. 2.
Timeline raises the Obvious Impact Hidden Implication
creative bar, and The cover photo and nested profile Historically, many brands re-used
creative investment. picture say it all – it’s time to call in the content from other platforms as filler
creative cavalry. Creatives will start to for Facebook posts. Brands who
play a much larger role in Facebook are fully adopting a unique timeline
strategy, as well as asset development. strategy will need to recalibrate
levels of investment in creative
direction and resources in order to
develop Facebook timeline content.
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13. Page Layout Timeline Layout
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14. 3.
It’s all about Obvious Impact Hidden Implication
“storytelling” The new emphasis on multimedia The community management
storytelling will force brands away from calendar process will need to be
text-dominated updates towards more revisited to accommodate text
creative expression. Day in day out editorial and high volumes of
production will require teams to augment multimedia. This will impact
high quality multimedia with faster, timelines, review cycles and brand
cheaper, more nimble forms of content. teams involved in the process.
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15. Capture the Moment
Nike collects consumer
generated #makeitcount
photos submitted via social
media and brings them to life
on Facebook, and in
NIKETOWN New York.
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16. 4.
Reach Generator will Obvious Impact Hidden Implication
make brand posts With Reach Generator, brands with Reach Generator will literally
work harder with 50k+ fans and a post frequency of 7-14X promote an entire post as an in-
existing fans. a week can promote entire posts in fan newsfeed promoted ad. This
newsfeeds or sponsored story area with means the job of community
a guaranteed reach of 50 – 75%* of manager expands to include media
fans. More eyeballs from those who planning/deployment as well as
already “like” your brand should mean posting and moderation.
more engagement and more sharing.
*Existing brand posts reach an estimated 16% of current fans
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17. 5.
A new collaborative Obvious Impact Hidden Implication
ownership model is The new ad model combined with proper Who owns your page? Who
important to success community management allows your page manages it? Now that Timeline
to be set up to become a storytelling allows your brand’s page to become
narrative that can be “on 24/7/365” with a true integrated paid/earned
incredible reach beyond traditional media channel, it’s important to have paid
impressions. and earned experts in place working
in tandem to take advantage of this
new landscape.
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18. And, 5 Facebook Basics
Truer Than Ever
1. Your brand is still a digital storyteller, with an
evolving storyline where stories replace ads.
2. Facebook should still be a part of your digital content strategy, with a team
empowered to work horizontally to develop the best content.
3. Your content should still work integrated into your page, or as a
standalone in a Newsfeed.
4. Facebook is still an epicenter for brand crises, be ready to deal with
issues new – and old.
5. Integrated Facebook dashboards combining conversation, content and
advertising performance are still the way to measure and optimize.
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19. Learn More Additional Contacts
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/business/fmc Tom DeLuca
North America Regional
Social@Ogilvy: Director
Email. tom.deluca@ogilvy.com
http://social.ogilvy.com/thinking/ideas
Thomas Crampton
Written and prepared by: AP Regional Director
Email. thomas.crampton@ogilvy.com
Blog. http://www.thomascrampton.com
Kaitlyn Wilkins Twitter. @thomascrampton
EAME Regional Director
Email. kaitlyn.wilkins@ogilvy.com
Twitter. @kaitlynwilkins
John Bell
Global Managing Director
Email. john.bell@ogilvy.com
Blog. http://johnbell.typepad.com
Twitter. @jbell99
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20. Social@Ogilvy is the largest social media marketing communications network in the world.
Named 2011 Global Digital/Social Consultancy of the Year by The Holmes Report, the
practice leverages social media expertise across all Ogilvy & Mather disciplines, offering an
extensive list of services within the foundational business solutions – Listening and
Analytics; Social Business Solutions; Social Media Marketing and Communications; Social
Shopping; Social CRM; Social Care; and Conversation Impact.
For more information, visit social.ogilvy.com ad connect with us at
www.facebook.com/socialogilvy, www.twitter.com/socialogilvy,
www.slideshare.com/socialogilvy
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