How To: Tell Your Story With Facebook's New Page Features

As you may know by now, Facebook Pages will undergo a massive transformation on March 30th. These changes will effect not only how Pages are used, but also how you tell your story.

Up until now, a Facebook content strategy was mainly about capturing people’s attention in the News Feed with various different types of content.

The News Feed is still (and always will be) a major part of any content strategy. But the changes to Pages means that you have to re-think your strategy in a few different ways:

Once Upon a Timeline

Your content strategies will shift from focusing exclusively on what’s happening now to telling a story with a beginning and middle (now is the perpetual end).

One great example of an org telling a story over time is the LiveStrong Page. They tell Lance’s personal story fighting cancer starting back in 1997 (when Mark Zuckerberg was just 13).

A Picture Says a Thousand Words

Pictures tell the emotional story about your cause that words often can’t. You’ll be able to tell your story more effectively with Page features like pinning and highlighting Page stories, and posting milestones on your page.

One way to keep fans interested is to frequently rotate your cover image (cover images all go into their own folder making it easy to swap out new images).

Bigger than Your Brand

The story you tell will have to be bigger than your brand. It must be about the greater cause or about their audience. Mightycause has made their story about their customers. The Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano makes it about the cause.

Avoid the Hard Sell

Facebook Pages will now also have a messaging feature which allows visitors to send you a private message in the same way Facebook friends can send each other messages.

But there is one key difference: you are limited to two messages for every one they receive. So you should you utilize the precious opportunity when someone does message you?

Avoid trying to sell them on why they should donate or volunteer, and instead use these opportunities to nurture a relationship on their terms. (remember, they are messaging you – not the other way around).

What do you think of Timelines?