5 Facts About Facebook Timeline You Need To Know Right Now

Earlier this month, there were conflicting reports about the effect of Timeline on brands’ Facebook Pages. A study conducted by Simply Measured revealed brands were witnessing a sharp decline in rates of engagement which was in contrast to two separate studies conducted by Wildfire and Virtue that believed engagement rates had in fact shot up for most of the brands that had more than a million fans on their respective Pages.

The three social media companies used three different methodologies to arrive at the results, which is why you might have seen two different versions of articles on tech-blogs depending on whether the source of information happened to be Simply Measured or Wildfire and Virtue.

And if you are marketing guy, the episode might have left you with more confusion than clarity on how users have been using Timeline.

But today, a report released by Simple Usability specifically talks about usage pattern on Timeline, and also debunks certain myths Facebook would like us to believe. The company recorded eye movements and actions while users browsed online which revealed  exactly what elements each user was drawn to, distracted by and engaged with.

The subjects were then asked for reasons for their actions by replaying their activity. In total 6 Pages were analyzed:  American Express, Pizza Hut, Manchester United, Gap, Coldplay and Coca-Cola.

1. Cover Image Is Not That Important

Read any article on the internet that talks about Timeline and you will notice each article mentioning the importance of Cover image. Even Facebook likes us to believe it to be the single most important element on any Timeline Page. Hence, you’ll see a lot of beautifully designed artistic Cover Pages that standout and shout at your face, but as the findings suggest, people are giving it a total miss, and there is a very good reason for that.

“They generally saw it as a corporate message space and quickly scrolled down, which removed it from their screen.” – Report

That is quite the opposite of our long held belief. With little span of attention, users want to quickly scroll down and consume the content that has been shared. Most users didn’t even notice when the profile and cover images were creatively combined, even when working together to form one image like the one below.

2. In Fact Your Bio Is The Most Important Thing

Timeline allows brands to show a bit of their history to help users understand what they are. As the report finds out, users are interested in the opportunity to discover a brand’s history, navigating along the timeline in the sidebar to discover more.

Also, the “About” section appears to be the most frequented destination for users. And If you haven’t noticed it yet, there’s a link right beneath the profile pic that takes you to a separate Page that displays Basic information and Contact information. The study finds users are interested in exploring the “About” section of brand pages, to find out more about the particular brand.

3. Users Don’t Scroll Beyond A Month On Timeline

Now this is something Facebook needs to fix, because the study suggests users are simply not scrolling back down the timeline further than a month. One of the major reasons — as the study points out — is that it takes some time for posts to load up and users aren’t willing to wait for content to populate on the screen. Some even assumed that to be the point at which the timeline ended.

The whole purpose of Timeline is defeated if users are not delving deep into the history, something Facebook needs to address quickly. There is a missed opportunity for brands because of this annoying delay.

4. Pinned Posts………What Pinned Posts?

One of the most talked about feature in Timeline is the ability to Pin posts which allows admins to display certain posts prominently at the top of their Page. This post always appears in the top left of a Page’s timeline and has a yellow flag in its top-right corner.

Well, it appears the whole discussion is making no difference to the users.

The study finds that for those pages that did in fact have little effect; no users realized the pinned post was intended to be highlighted. The small ribbon on top of a post is too small to be noticed, and a clear demarcation or a stronger highlight is needed to inform users that this particular post is a bit special.

5. Apps Are So 2009…..

Users are skipping apps on Timeline, reason being, many aren’t spotting the arrow which makes all of the available apps visible. Apps are an important part of Facebook ecosystem and an integral part of fan-building campaign. Clearly, brands need to put an extra effort to highlight their custom apps by letting fans know about their presence.

To sum it up, the findings are pretty consistent and the usage pattern is likely to change once users are familiar with the whole Timeline thing. As time passes by, I expect users to discover more content on Timeline and the interaction rates to shoot north in coming days.

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