When it comes to your Facebook business Page, both the cover and profile photos you choose are extremely important - having them here is like waving a "we're open for business" sign. Your cover photo needs to be powerful, appealing, and relatable. Adding some simple text to a great image can make all the difference.
First impressions are important. When people visit your Facebook Page, they'll decide within seconds whether to stick around, take the actions you want, or click onto something else.
As a business owner or personal brand, you need to ensure your Page looks professional and polished.
When setting up your brand Page cover photo, here are some key elements to take into consideration.
Understanding the Format
Magic Giant, is a folk revival band that always displays top-notch pictures. Their cover photo below is interesting, well lit, and represents their brand's three members in a fun way.
If you're using text in the cover photo, make sure you consider the layout this text will live on top of.
For example, check out the weird effect that U2's cover photo produces within the default formatting of the Facebook layout. Although the image is clever in that it promotes their album, notice how the image-based text is covered up by Facebook's own text. This doesn't look good at all.
Let's look at a better treatment. Here you'll see how our Fight Song friend Rachel Platten used best practices when she designed her cover photo. It's spot on. She's considered the formatting, her image is clear and well lit, the Facebook text sits well above the profile info and she's also promoting her product.
Facebook Cover Photo branding tips
Your Facebook cover photo is not only your storefront, it's another opportunity to market yourself, your products, or services. So make the most of it.
Here are some examples:
Rachel is a smart marketer. How do we know this? She's promoting her album on her cover photo, and also in the description.
Notice how she's inserted links to purchase it.
In the cover photo below, notice that it not only promoting their online education course, but it's also on-brand, alluding to their logo by using the same shape and color in both images.
It's always a good idea to fill out the description for your cover photo too, as this gives you some extra marketing potential.
In Social Diva's example, they've included some marketing copy which promotes their school, supported by a link to click through to buy.
You should always be looking to use your cover photo as a marketing tool. Your cover photo is not only a visual representation of your brand or business: it's another opportunity to do real marketing on Facebook by driving behavior.
And here's another fact about the cover photo that merits your attention: whenever you replace it with a new cover photo, news of this change ripples out through the News Feeds of yourself and others, gaining it additional visibility at no cost to you. So even if you're cover photo is "perfect," it's good to change it every so often to help boost awareness of your latest offerings.
CTAs (Calls to Action)
Back to Social Diva's cover page - notice that they've also optimized the "sign up" button, which can be changed at any time.
Let's take a closer look at how they've done this. When clicking the sign-up CTA button as an administrator, you'll see the following:
Here, you can edit links and or change the kind of promotion displayed on the Cover Photo page.
Notice all of the options available to you to use. They include:
- Sign Up
- Book Now
- Contact Us
- Use App
- Play Game
- Shop Now
- Watch Video
These CTAs can be supplemented with Facebook apps, which can be inserted right into the Page tab area. There are hundreds of useful (and not so useful) Facebook apps you can add to your page.
Some of our favorites marketing app types include:
-
Email capture apps (including popular email provider Mailchimp).
-
RSS apps (so updates from your website appear right on the page)
-
Social Media integration apps (so updates from other services appear on your Facebook page.
-
Contest apps.
-
E-commerce apps that effectively embed a commerce platform within Facebook.
-
Poll apps that let you tap into the sentiments of your audience.
Third party apps are great, and it's definitely worth experimenting with them, but such apps tend to come and go on Facebook, so it's good to think about whether you can get by with Facebook's pre-built CTAs.
The advantage of going with Facebook-built software is that you can be sure that it'll be kept up to date and trouble-free.
Tips
- Think about changing your cover photo every month or whenever you have a special promotion or offer
- Remember Facebook formatting defaults
- Use CTAs and apps to drive specific behavior on your Page
But what about your profile pic?
Now we're talking about the smaller box (where the arrow points to in the screenshot below).
Best Practices
- Have a consistent icon on all social media networks
- Size of icon is 180 x 180 to 160 x 160 (1:1 aspect ratio)
- We recommend using a graphical icon (as opposed to simply using text)
Should you use your logo or a picture? Well, that depends on whether you're a business or a personal brand.
For businesses, we recommend a logo that will be visually appealing given the limited dimensions available.
For personal brands, use a professional picture and make sure it's appealing even when displayed in the small-format thumbnail size displayed in feeds.
And make sure you utilize the description area for your icon in the same way you did for your cover photo - doing so provides another chance to market your business.
Labeling Your Page
If you're starting a new business page, there are a lot of options available for labeling.
Here are a few examples of such labeling:
- Musician/Band
- Public Figure
- Food / Cooking
- Charity Organization
- Product / Service
When it comes to labeling your page, ensure that what you offer as a product or service is clear. For example, for the brand Casper (showed here), there's no question about what the Page and brand is about.
DIY Tools
And lastly, here are some great tools to help you create beautiful, Facebook-worthy images:
- Canva
- PicMonkey
- Photoshop
Final Takeaways
- Maintain clear, consistent branding on both your Cover Photo and Icon
- Ensure that all images provide additional marketing opportunities, including your cover photo
- Utilize the CTA (Call to Action) button for your business
- Keep your messaging professional and impactful