Tips About Photos on Your Business Facebook Page

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If you are running a business, or just helping your workplace set one up, there are a couple of things to remember about the types of photos you put up, which I'd like to cover in this article to help you.

The three key types of photos come down to the Page Photo, Timeline Photo, and the photos you put up in your updates, so let's get onto it…

Page Photo

This is the square photo that will come up as a little icon next to your Page's Name every time your Facebook Page interacts with anyone on Facebook. In a way, it's a stamp of the company that will represent it to everyone. Although it's true that some Pages tend to change their Page Photo, Social Media use must still adhere to basic marketing principles, the most important of which is: be consistent.

The Page Photo, as a business, should usually be your company logo. Provided you have one that represents your brand well, it should be the very first thing you upload to a new Page, and keep it there. Every time you interact with anyone, it will come up, so make sure it's not a small logo swimming in a large amount of white background – make it prominent, and when you're uploading the photo to the Profile, be sure to edit the thumbnail (Facebook lets you resize in a little pop-up box after you upload it), so take advantage of this! From experience with Social Media clients, unless you change logos, keep the logo the same – it will create brand awareness, which is exactly what you want.

Timeline Photo

This photo is more flexible in terms of its use, however there are some things to consider before you go on and upload just any photo. The Timeline photo lets businesses tell a whole story when existing and potential fans come to the Page, so at the very least, it should tell the viewer what exactly your business does. They say a picture paints a thousand words, so use it!

In terms of Facebook's terms and conditions, there's a number of rules to consider:

1. Do not advertise… The Timeline photo cannot be a straight Ad – if you've commissioned a designer to come up with a fantastic piece of advertising for your company, and you want to upload this to Facebook, don't do it. Although the work has been done, and you may want to provide consistency in terms of your advertising by putting the same graphic onto Facebook, as you have on your fliers, you run the risk of your Page being shut down with no point of return. Timeline photos are not a billboard – although you can edit your existing Ad to take away the sales aspect of it, you cannot outright advertise with words on the photo.

Try… posting up a collage of photos from your events, or what your products or services are, and if you must use words, use text that doesn't sell you, but rather tells people what it is that your company does.

2. Do not use a big logo… The subject of logo use has been long debated in terms of what you can and can't do on a Timeline photo. The short story is that while you are allowed to use your logo (which by Facebook is still considered advertising), it cannot take up more than 20% of your Timeline Photo. Some Social Media consultants suggest breaking down your photo into 10 squares, and counting out that your logo on the photo doesn't take up more than 2 of these squares.

Try… definitely try to include your logo in your Timeline Photo – you have a right to do it, and it will make people see the connection between the images on the Photo and your company, just be mindful of the 20% rule at all times.

The last part is more of a side-note of what we've found with clients and their fans – change your Timeline photo every month or season. For one thing, it will encourage people to come back to your Page to see a new graphic, but it will also give your business multiple ways to promote what you do.

For example, if your business is a venue for events, why not break down the year into quarters to illustrate the differences in season in your business. If you know the end of the year is popular for Christmas Parties, in October or November, post up a Timeline Photo of a few shots of Christmas Parties you've hosted in the past, or something with that kind of seasonal feel to get people thinking about what your business could do for them in the upcoming months.

Other Photos

It's important to note the rules around using photos on Facebook. By signing up to Facebook, you're giving them the right to pretty much own your photos, as you're posting it on a public forum. This rule is not uncommon on Social Media, because after all, if you don't want people to see or use your photos, you wouldn't be posting them up for the world to see in the first place. However, if you have a business where your photos are your IP, one idea is to put a watermark through all of them so others can't use it, and neither can Facebook if they ever choose to.

Another commonsense rule when posting photos is to give credit where credit is due. If you are using a photo off Google Images Search, make sure in your update to post up the reference to where you found the photo – a quick name of the URL or the photographer will mean you're not breaching copyright. It's a small sacrifice to take unless you can afford to buy stock images every time you want to upload a photo.

Alternatively, many photos already have a watermark or banner underneath to let people know where the image originally came from, so choose these photos when downloading from Google if you don't want to mess up the update's text with references for the photo.

So there you have it – some basic rules around image use on Facebook. I really hope it's of value for your Facebook Page updates, and if you need any more information, do e-mail me – always happy to help!