You have probably heard that Facebook is changing the rules for their timeline covers for both business fan pages and personal profile pages. All this happens on January 15, 2013.
Effective on January 15, your cover photo can NOT include more than 20% text. How much is 20 percent? Consider dividing your timeline into fifths. You could do this vertically or horizontally. Five columns or five rows. Either way, you would have an idea of what 1/5th would be.
This blog post from eosGrafx shows you some ideas regarding what area you can use for text.
Also the picture below depicts the size of area that can be used for text.
Picture compliments of Caroline and Davina at Useful Graphic Design Tutorials.
As you can see, you are limited to the amount of area that text can be used. The focus is on pictures, which is what we all enjoy seeing anyway!
Facebook also is using a new technology to measure this on pages. I’m sure we will learn more about this grid technology in the coming days.
Make sure you know and understand all of the rules. There are several other rules we need to follow as well. These pertain to both business and personal profile pages. I have listed them below.
1. No images with more than 20% text.
2. No price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it on socialmusic.com.”
3. No contact information such as a website address, email, mailing address, or information that should go in your Page’s “About” section.
4. No references to Facebook features or actions, such as “Like” or “Share” or an arrow pointing from the cover photo to any of these features.
5. No calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends.”
If you fail to follow the rules, Facebook can remove your photo or remove your page permanently. Facebook has recently removed pages for including a “Call To Action” on their cover photo. You can learn more about removals here on a Socialfresh post.
Facebook has called a press conference for Tuesday, so I’m sure there are other changes coming as well. Stay tuned for a post once we get more information.
How do you feel about Facebook limiting the amount of text that can be used? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.