25 Creative Ways to Use Facebook Cover Photos

#1: Get Into the Holiday Spirit or Change With the Seasons

Design cover photos that change with the seasons and the holidays. It’s easy—justexperiment with seasonal colors or add traditional seasonal images like leaves or snowflakes.

The auto company Pep Boys, for example, created a simple and festive cover photo for the winter holiday season. It would be easy to create a similar cover photo using a stock photo and free tools from PicMonkey or Canva.

Update your cover photo for the holidays or the seasons.

In the image below, Edible Arrangements says “Happy Valentine’s Day” with their photo.

Edible Arrangements adjusts their cover photo to celebrate holidays like Valentine’s Day.

#2: Promote Trends

If you’re a retailer, use the cover photo to talk about new trends in your industry andfeature new products.

The shoe company PiperLime does this really well. Here’s one of their cover photos that announces a new trend: dressed-up stripes.

The cover photo can be used to show recent trends in your industry and new products.

#3: Direct Fans to an App

When you launch a new app, one of the best ways to promote it is to update your cover photo. You can draw attention to your new app by using arrows or other illustrations that point directly to your app thumbnail.

For instance, whenever your business launches a new ebook (like Facebook expert Jon Loomer did, below), PDF, infographic or other free resource, updating your cover photo notifies your fans of your new resource and points them to where they can get it. In the case of Loomer’s ebook, the arrow literally points straight to an app.

Use the cover photo to direct fans to a recently built custom Facebook app.

#4: Showcase New Products 

If your company is a product-based business, use the cover photo to feature new or seasonal products. In the design of your cover photo, include text with relevant information about the products, like a date the product(s) will be available for sale or a few words to describe the product.

In the example below, Ampersand Design Studio, a design store, cleverly teases customers with a new fabric collection in one of their cover photos.

The cover photo is a great place to highlight new products.

#5: Get Their Mouths Watering

If you’re a restaurant, a catering company or in the food industry, there is nothing more enticing than a photo of one of your mouth-watering dishes. As the seasons change, lots of eateries change their menus. Use this as an opportunity to update your cover photo to feature what’s new on your menu.

The popular Italian restaurant Olive Garden does this often.

Restaurants can use the cover photo to show an entree to excite fans about their meal.

#6: Promote Your Hashtag

Facebook began supporting hashtags a while ago and some brands have had great success using them. One advantage of the new feature is that it allows brands to track fans’ conversations about the business. You can discreetly feature your hashtag in the bottom right of your cover photo design, or make it the feature.

The headphone company Frends updated their cover photo in August to feature a hashtag that was associated with a summer contest they hosted.

Hashtags are a powerful marketing tool that brands can promote in their cover photo.

#7: Promote a Facebook Exclusive or a Fan-Only Incentive

Forty-two percent of users like a brand on Facebook in order to get a coupon or discount (according to a 2013 Syncapse report). So give them what they want! Make your promotions exclusive to Facebook fans to incentivize users to like your page.

Promote your fan-only exclusives using your cover photo, like the Utah restaurant Riverhorse on Main. Their cover is very straightforward.

Fan-only content wins on Facebook, so use the cover photo to promote fan-only offers.

#8: Celebrate a Milestone

Businesses love to celebrate like-count milestones and anniversaries on Facebook. For these times, use the cover photo as a place to say thanks to your fans or have some fun with your cover photo design.

The clothing brand C. Wonder, for example, celebrated their birthday in October with a cute confetti cover photo.

Let your fans in on the celebration of special milestones.

#9: Produce New Leads

What kinds of leads are you most interested in acquiring? Whatever your goals, you can use your cover photo to encourage people to opt-in or find more information about your brand elsewhere.

If you want to encourage your Facebook fans to check out your website because you’re hosting a sale, use your cover photo to feature your business’s website URL. Or, if you want more newsletter sign-ups, use your cover photo to direct users to your newsletter sign-up app.

Or, if your company just wants to boost page likes, create a cover photo like the design agency Braid Creative & Consulting, which has an arrow pointing to the Like button.

Produce leads and boost page likes using the cover photo.

#10: Inspire Action

The cover photo can be an effective tool for motivating fans to take action! Brick-and-mortar businesses should use the cover photo to advertise store events, specials or new products, which will encourage fans to make a trip to your store.

Online businesses can also use the cover photo to encourage fans to check out new products and take advantage of special offers.

In the example below, the travel company Travelocity has a cover photo that uses inspiring travel photos along with a few different CTAs. Notice the “Get a daily clue on our Let’s Roam app” text at the bottom right of the image and their campaign’s website URL “gnomenabbed.com” incorporated into the cover photo design.

Use the cover photo to motivate your fans to take an action like booking a trip.

#11: Create a Sense of Urgency 

Try uploading a cover photo image and CTA that are installed for a limited amount of time and then measure the sales that result from it.

For instance, if your business is having a sale that only lasts 24 hours, update your cover photo during those 24 hours to notify your fans of the sale. Make sure the CTA conveys a sense of urgency that motivates fans to respond fast.

The software company HubSpot, for example, uploaded their “Flash Sale” cover photo to advertise a promotion for their inbound marketing conference.

Creating a sense of urgency makes fan want to act quickly and the cover photo can do this.

#12: Have Some Fun! 

Not every cover photo has to “sell.” On occasion, the photo or image can be just for fun and designed just to encourage engagement.

In the cover photo example below, the email marketing company MailChimp uploaded a photo of their mascot Freddie with his back facing the reader—their fans loved this!

Use the cover photo to post a fun picture for your fans.

#13: Establish Authority 

Use your cover photo to showcase an image that represents your brand or features your credentials.

Take a look at Nathalie Lussier‘s cover photo below. With a simple cover photo image, she establishes authority as a digital strategist. And for users who visit her page for the first time, there’s no question about who she is or what she does.

Use an image that represents your brand and features your credentials in your cover photo.

#14: Show What You Do

The cover photo is the ideal place to show your fans what your business does. The more literal you are, the better. This prevents any confusion for users who discover your page for the first time.

Katelyn Brooke, a designer and blogger, makes it clear what she does. In the design of her cover photo, she showcases her work in a personal and effective way.

Show off the capabilities of your business in your cover photo.

#15: Compare Your Business to Your Competition

If you’re in a competitive industry (and heck, who isn’t?), experiment with a cover photo that shows your company head-to-head with your competition.

The flower company Bouqs does this really well. Make note of how they use the words “Other Guys” rather than listing off the name of a specific competitor. This prevents them from looking combative, while still making their point: They’re less expensive than their competitors.

Use the cover photo to do a comparison of your business with a competitor.

#16: Promote Your Other Social Platforms 

If you want more followers on your other social channels like Pinterest, Instagram and Twitter, use your Facebook cover photo to cross-promote your other accounts. Be sure to include a strong CTA within the cover photo’s image description and links to your other social profiles.

In this example, ShortStack used their cover photo to attract their Facebook fans to their Twitter account.

Direct your fans to your other social media platforms through the cover photo.

#17: Feature a Fan or Customer

Every single day for months, the cookie company Oreo uploaded a new cover photo featuring one of their fans who was celebrating a birthday.

Oreo received hundreds of likes and comments on each of their fan-featuring cover photos.

Apply the same idea to your business’s next cover photo design. But instead of featuring a fan or customer every day, feature a new fan once a week or once a month to avoid getting burned out.

Bonus: The birthday girl or guy is likely to share news about the honor with his or her friends, increasing exposure of your brand.

Highlight a special fan or contest winner on the cover photo.

#18: Keep it Simple

Sometimes simple is best.

The design company CooperHouse created a cover photo that has a beautifully simple design and one concise sentence that describes what their company does. Nothing more is needed.

A simple cover photo idea can attract fans and likes to your Facebook page.

#19: Promote Your Contest

During the back-to-school season, the tortilla company La Tortilla Factory updated their cover photo to promote their back-to-school–themed photo contest.

If your business is hosting a Facebook promotion, one of the best ways to notify fans of your contest is by updating your cover photo. Like La Tortilla Factory, it’s nice tofeature what your contest prizes are within the design of your cover photo.

Use the cover photo to promote a contest you’re running on Facebook.

#20: Include a Strong Call to Action

Some of the best CTAs are posed as questions.

Pinterest expert Melanie Duncan‘s cover photo is a great example of how to use a CTA question in a cover photo. The most important text is bolded and the entire CTA is framed in an eye-catching red box.

This kind of cover photo design is super-easy to pull off. Simply upload a photo you like into an online photo editor like PicMonkey, then use the tool’s text and shapes features to add your CTA into the image.

A strong CTA lets fans know exactly what you expect.

#21: Advertise a Sale

The yoga company Yoga Six participated in Black Friday last year by updating their cover photo. On it, they displayed their Black Friday deals. Instead of changing their cover photo on the day of Black Friday, Yoga Six uploaded their Black Friday–themed cover photo a few days before the big shopping day.

Use the cover photo to promote an upcoming sale.

#22: Appeal Exclusively to One of Your Audiences

If your business has an audience you want to speak directly to, use a cover photo to share a message with them.

The clothing company Loft, for example, recently updated their cover photo for a week to celebrate National Teacher Day. To reward teachers, they created a cover photo that directed their teacher fans to an app that revealed a special shopping offerjust for them!

Focus on one of your target audiences through the cover photo.

#23: Show Your Value Proposition

Your business’s value proposition is key to attracting new customers. Use your cover photo to show off your brand’s value statement.

The application and web development company Social Media 180 uses their cover photo to do exactly this. And the best part: The arrow featured in their design points to an app that hosts a portfolio of some of their best work.

Use the cover photo to show off your brand’s value statement.

#24: Feature a New Offering

If your business has an exciting new offering, use your cover photo to let all of your Facebook fans know about it.

When the sushi restaurant Sushi King first introduced their new membership cards, they updated their cover photo with a design that featured the card, along with some instructions on how to get it.

Use the cover photo to highlight a new offer for your Facebook fans.

#25: Celebrate a Quirky National Holiday

Find out what quirky holidays are relevant to your brand and create cover photos tocelebrate the silly days.

The shaving company Harry’s is an awesome example of how to do this. National Shave Day is December 1, the day after the widely celebrated Movember month. Harry’s created a “National Shave Day” cover photo to lead users to a fun “National Shave Day” page on their website.

Use the cover photo to celebrity a quirky holiday.

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How to Sell on Facebook Using Images

Why Images?

According to Lab42, the number-one reason people like a Facebook page is to receive a discount or other promotion.

If you want to drive online sales for your business, images and graphics that feature discounts and promotions are an engaging way to give your Facebook fans what they want.

The biggest incentive for liking a page on Facebook is to receive discounts. Image source: Lab42

#1: Offer Promo Codes for Holiday Sales

Whether you offer a big Black Friday discount, a 10% Off discount or a Buy 2 Get 1 Free offer, consider creating an engaging graphic to promote your discount or sale.

Be sure to include a promotional code so you can track revenue from your campaign. When you post the image to your Facebook timeline, use a clear call to action in the copy of the post so your fans know exactly how to complete their purchase.

Here’s an example of a promotional graphic Diamond Candles put out for their Labor Day sale:

Diamond Candles posted a holiday-specific offer on Facebook to boost sales.

Holidays like Thanksgiving, New Year’s Day and even Labor Day are a great time to promote sales and discounts to your Facebook community. And an appealing graphic draws attention to the promo code for your special holiday offer.

#2: Reward Fans Who Tell a Friend

Create a graphic that tells your fans you’ll unlock a special promo code IF your image receives a certain number of shares.

If you don’t have a very big fan base and/or you don’t receive a lot of engagement on your Facebook page, require fewer than 100 shares to unlock the code.Because only people who already engage with your page are likely to see your updates, you might want to kickstart engagement with a promoted post.

The good news is this type of promotion helps you increase organic engagementso you won’t have to pay to promote your next offer!

Rent the Runway used a Share to Unlock promotion that gave sharing fans early access to their Fourth of July sale.

Rent the Runway posted a Share To Unlock A Sale promotion on Facebook.

While they drive revenue for the company, one additional bonus of Share to Unlock promotions is that they increase engagement with fans and build brand awareness with friends of fans.

#3: Show Off Product Features

The saying, “If you’ve got it, flaunt it!” applies to Facebook marketing perfectly. Your Facebook page is a great place to show off the best features of your products!

Create a graphic to capture your fans’ attention and point out the features of your product that aren’t immediately visible.

Post the image and include a call to action with a direct link to the product in your online store to make purchases as easy as possible.

Fitness fashion brand Ellie used a graphic to point out some of the best features of their fitness tank, while encouraging fans to buy the top in the post message.

Ellie shows off product features in a Facebook graphic to increase customer interest.

In a brick-and-mortar location, your sales team can explain the best features of any product to potential customers, but online your images and graphics should do the talking—and selling!

#4: Give a Free Gift With Purchase

Offering a free gift with purchase may be one of the oldest promotions in the book, but it’s stuck around because it’s a very effective revenue-generating tactic.

Create an appealing graphic to offer a free gift that’s relevant to your target audience. For example, this free Greenies jar offer from PetSmart is popular because it’s promoted to people who already purchase Greenies products.

PetSmart shows off a Free Gift with Purchase promotion on Facebook.

If you have a large fan base, use custom audiences to make sure the right people see your offer.

The right photo and clear graphics can make your free gift offer stand out.

#5: Countdown to a Deadline

A Countdown promo keeps your fans hyper-engaged for an extended period of time.

Create a graphic that reveals, for example, a 24-hour sale on a different popular product from your ecommerce store each day for 10 days.

The smart marketers over at MarketingProfs used this tactic to boost sales from their ecommerce store in a countdown to their B2B Marketing Forum event.

MarketingProfs uses an extended promotion to keep fans engaged over a specific period of time.

Excited fans will visit your Facebook page to find each day’s image and you’ll see a boost in revenue from Facebook for 10 days straight.

Cool graphics help keep fans interested in the countdown and contribute to its success.

#6: Promote a Limited-Time Offer

A fan saying, “Oh, I’ll do that tomorrow” is your worst enemy when it comes to Facebook promotions.

An image that promotes a limited-time offer helps create the sense of urgency needed to drive sales NOW.

Rent the Runway uses a Limited-Time Offer promo to drive sales.

The use of images when promoting Limited-Time Offers encourages your customers to take advantage of your promotions when they first see them.

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How to Use Facebook Apps to Promote Your Business

What You Need to Know about Facebook Apps

Apps let you do all sorts of things on your Facebook Page without writing your own code.

You can import your blog, run contests and promotions, collect email sign-ups, sell product through ecommerce and provide customer support.

Social Media Examiner utilizes a variety of apps on its Page.

At any one time, you can install up to 11 apps on your Page, but only four are visible in the thumbnail images directly beneath your cover photo.

While Photos always appears as the first app, you can choose which apps show in the remaining three spots. Any additional apps you install can be viewed by clicking on the down arrow to the right of the app images.

As the Page admin, you rearrange apps by clicking the down arrow to show all apps. Choose an app to move, and click on the Edit icon in the upper corner of the app thumbnail image to reveal the “Swap position with” option.

Use admin tools to edit the ordering of apps on your Page.

Some users may not know how to reveal apps by clicking the arrow, so be sure toinclude your most important apps in the top row of visibility.

This is important to remember if you’re running a contest or other promotion on your Page, where you’ll want to highlight the specific app for a period of time, but give up that valuable real estate once the campaign ends.

Because apps receive less visibility in the current Facebook design than they used to, you can also use your cover photo to draw attention to them.

Recently Facebook relaxed the rules regarding cover photos, so you’re free toinclude calls to action and text to accentuate your apps. Just remember not to go overboard as people tend to respond better to a clean Page without too many sales-oriented messages.

You can use your cover photo to draw attention to an app.

Should You Care About Using a Facebook Preferred Developer?

The short answer is that for most everyday apps, this isn’t a concern.

However, when running promotions, contests or more unique marketing campaigns, it can be comforting knowing you’re working with a Preferred Marketing Developer. They ensure you’re complying with all of Facebook’s guidelines and getting the most out of the platform.

What About Requiring Users to Like My Page to View Apps?

Before the introduction of timeline if you utilized a default landing tab in conjunction with a “like gate” or “fan gate,” users couldn’t see any content on your Page until they clicked the Like button.

Now that users are able to view your entire timeline without first liking your Page, this has mitigated concerns about this practice.

Today, virtually all app providers allow you to implement the fan gate feature and it can be an effective tool to drive more likes. Just be sure you have a plan for how to engage new fans after they’ve liked your Page.

Stand-alone Apps vs. Suites

When it comes to utilizing apps, one of the first questions you’ll want to answer is whether you’re better off using a single-purpose app provider or signing up with a vendor that offers multiple app suites you may wish to use.

Generally speaking, if you’re looking to get more out of your Facebook Page, then you need to provide more utility to your fans.

Since you’re probably going to want multiple tabs on your Page, I encourage you tolook at the many companies that provide a suite of apps to determine what meets your needs and fits your budget.

A sample from the menu of apps offered in a suite.

With each app provider, there’s a learning curve for creating an app using their tools.

Some vendors provide templates with some degree of flexibility to customize the look and feel using HTML or CSS. Others have more of a drag-and-drop interface where you can add and edit “widgets” (e.g., a video player, a map) within the app.

Most vendors offer a free trial so you can play around with the interface to build and design your app before you commit. This lets you see which one works best for you.

How to Create General Content and HTML Tabs

Create your tabs yourself with HTML.

If you can write HTML, you can probably figure out how to create your own custom Facebook app. However, using an existing app takes the hassle out of creating a custom tab.

With HTML, you can do almost anything that you can do on your own website but have it live within a tab on your Facebook Page.

A popular free option you can use to create custom HTML tabs is Static HTML. In addition to the editable HTML iframe tab, they offer some additional options once you have installed their app on your Page.

Use tools to create tabs.

If you don’t want to dive into HTML, you can use tools to help you create your tabs. Here are some you might want to look at.

Pagemodo is another widely used tool for creating custom content tabs, offering a variety of templates and themes to choose from, as well as the ability to do some custom HTML/CSS editing. Their free plan enables you to launch one tab on one Page only, but they offer paid plans for multiple tabs.

North Social was one of the first vendors to offer a suite of apps for Facebook Pages, and includes a WYSIWYG iframe Editor that allows you to upload an image, URL or full HTML. North Social provides a nice selection of 18 apps to utilize for as little as $1.99 per day.

AgoraPulse is another vendor that offers an HTML app, as well as other content apps (and while you’re there, you should check out their free analytics tool).

Here are some other ways to use your Facebook tabs.

#1: Integrate Other Social Media Channels

Some people think of their various social channels separately, but your Facebook Page is the perfect hub to cross-promote content from your Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest feeds.

In addition to posting photos directly to your timeline, you can use a free app likeStatigram to pull your Instagram photos into a Page tab.

Example of an Instagram feed app.

Tabfusion has a good selection of simple apps to pull in content from sources including Instagram, Flickr, Pinterest, Tumblr, YouTube and Vimeo. Each app can be purchased à la carte or you can sign up to access all of them.

If Pinterest is your thing, Woobox offers a free app to pull in your Pinterest feed, as well as a Pin to Win contest app as part of their paid subscription plan.

#2: Publish Your Blog to Facebook

If you have a blog and you aren’t already reposting blog entries to your Facebook timeline, you should be!

Share new posts in the news feed and house an archive of your blog posts on your Page. Two popular tools for blogs to integrate with Facebook are NetworkedBlogs and RSS Graffiti.

A popular app for bringing blog content to your Facebook Page.

#3: Run Contests and Promotions

Many articles have been written on the topic of Facebook contests because they remain one of the most popular and effective uses of apps on Facebook.

While a number of the vendors mentioned previously provide some sort of contest or sweepstakes application, three that I believe have the most robust capabilities in this area are:

• Offerpop – Provides a variety of contest app types to choose from.
• ShortStack – Delivers a rich set of tools for a very reasonable price.
• Strutta– One of the most robust platforms for photo and video contests.
  

  Speedway makes use of a like gate on their contest app.

#4: Add Email Subscribers

A fan is visiting your Facebook Page and she may or may not like your Page. If she does, she may be in the 12% who see your posts when you post to your timeline.

Wouldn’t you like to be able to communicate directly via email with the people who like your Page? MailChimp and Constant Contact each offer sign-up apps you can add to your Page.

You can also use a third-party app like TabSite, which offers an email sign-up app as part of their free package.

#5: Enable Ecommerce

If you sell products on your website, have you considered offering them through your Facebook Page, too?

Heyo (formerly Lujure) is an app platform with some nice templates that let you build out commerce-oriented tabs and add product links to drive purchases.

If you want a more deeply integrated shopping experience, check out Ecwid. And if you’re looking to build out your web storefront with Shopify, they offer the ability to easily integrate on Facebook as well.

#6: Offer Customer Support

Social media is one of the first places people turn today to vent frustrations with a brand or product. If you have an existing Get Satisfaction community, you can integrate it on your Facebook Page. Parature is a robust customer service application with strong integration with Facebook.

If these are out of your league, you can also use your app vendor of choice to create a feedback form to host on a tab. Just be sure you’re able to collect the information you need and respond to people appropriately.

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