28 Sep How To Make Sure Your Facebook Covers Are Effective
When people land on your Facebook page, the first thing they see is the image that takes up nearly a quarter of the page, your Facebook cover.
Over the years Facebook has gone from connecting the average student to becoming a very handy marketing tool that can help your business connect to it’s customers.
If you don’t use this tool for your business where you can promote, advertise and represent your brand, I think it is time that you do.
From the stats gathered from Tech Crunch, Facebook has the most active users then any other social media even with some of them combined and they explain further that these numbers are actually on the rise with no decline in sight.
With Facebook on 17% a year rise the numbers could be the whole population in just a couple of years.
Even with the rise it shows that 66% of users are active daily which is a giant leap from what it was in 2013 when it hit the billion user mark, so despite popular opinion the numbers truly do not lie, meaning that your current clients or future ones will definitely give your page a visit to see what is going on and since the first thing that they will see will be your Facebook cover it’s essential to have one that helps you place a your best foot forward.
Creating an Effective Facebook Cover Photo
When picking your image you have to make sure you have the one that is appropriate to the customers that you are trying to attract, put it this way you can not attract new mothers by putting a picture of women in bikini’s that will just end up attracting the wrong demographic. In this instance you should more likely use a picture of a mother caressing her child so that it cant convey a the right message in a powerful emotional way as well as attract the appropriate people so that they can relate.
Do not know you’re demographic?
Don’t worry because Facebook has a nifty tool in which you can use to narrow down yours.
All you have to do is when you are on your page go to the insights tab, which is at the top of your page; there it will open up a summary of your page. You will see that a vertical tab will be produced to the left of your screen and that is where you click on people and then see your fans.
From there you will be able to narrow down your demographic from the people who have been on your page from there age, gender, country, city and language.
This is a very important tool because now you have the means in which to choose the correct cover photo for your business page as well as have an idea of who your target market actually is.
For example:
If you discover that 80% of the audience is female and 60% of them speak Afrikaans as their primary language.
90% of them are between the ages of 25 – 35 years old. So taking this in account it would not be a bad idea to have a cover image of a woman in that age bracket and some text written in Afrikaans.
But chances are that your numbers will not be as black and white as these ones are because data may also not be 100% accurate.
For instance, the information is based on what people have placed in their profiles.
For example if someone lives in South Africa, but their profile states they are in England your number will be slightly off.
So with your data you should just narrow it down to which demographic will visit your page the most. So know your audience because your cover photo should represent them.
Keeping it Simple
Remember that old saying that “the simpler, the better”, well that is a great way to live by when creating your cover because going crazy trying to fit all your information will distract your clients from the main point that you are trying to make. So in this case creating a simple cover that has a clear vocal point to draw your visitor’s attention.
See how simple the BWD cover photo has been made, this helps getting the point across with the text and as you can see they are not competing with each other.
According to the Facebook insights 74% of BWD’s page fans are male and the prominent language is English, which is why the cover works well because who does not like a good cup of joe.
And as you can see the company logo has been used to compliment the cover picture by placing it in the profile picture. This helps to make the cover image less busy and help put the message forward with a clearer vocal point.
Just because there is text in the cover image does not mean that you cannot have one that is just an image both options can work well but having something similar to the cover photo in the profile will just make the idea redundant and not effective at all.
Facebook Guidelines
When creating your cover image you need to make sure that it adheres to the guidelines set out by Facebook.
Here are some quick takeaways and points you should know about your Facebook cover photo:
- Your cover photo is public.
- Cover photos cannot infringe on someone else’s copyright.
- You cannot be deceptive or misleading with your cover photo.
- You are not allowed to encourage other people to upload your cover photo to their own personal timelines.
If your cover photo violates any of these terms, Facebook can suspend or terminate your account.
Remember picking the image is only half the battle; you still need to make sure that the image is the correct sixe:
Desktop: 851 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall.
Mobile: 640 pixels wide by 360 pixels tall.
Conclusion
Using Images on Facebook is an important part of your brand because studies have shown that it generates a higher engagement then just a normal post does.
The Bar chart above is from HubSpot study, which concludes that there are 53% more like and 104% more comments when pictures are used instead of standard posts. With subscribers putting so much emphasis on picture it makes sense that the first thing people see on your page should be a image and it is also very important that it is the right image. These making your cover image the most significant part of your page.
In the end you just have to make sure that your image been made for the correct demographic and that it is following Facebook’s guidelines so that you can have a page that helps you put your best foot forward.