15 Creative Tips to Rock Your Timeline Cover Photo for Facebook Pages
UPDATED 20/03/2012: Visit Part 2: 18 More Creative Tips to Fire Up Your Facebook Page Cover Photo.
Facebook Pages are going through drastic changes to embrace the Timeline layout. One of the most critical tasks is to design your cover photo (851×315 pixels). Unfortunately, Facebook had laid down strict rules to prevent all promotional links, call to actions, contact information to appear on the cover:
This made the transition even more difficult and daunting. We’ve seen the big brands with their visual compelling cover photos. Just how shall we, the (smaller brand) page owners can make full use of that visible spot for brand awareness? I’ve compiled about 60+ cover photos from non-big-brand pages below, hopefully we can be inspired by their amazing effort.
Disclaimer: Below pages are mentioned due to their creative use of cover images. It has nothing to do with affiliation or promotion for the products/services they offered.
#1 To Announce an Event or Product Launch
Kim uses the cover image to announce her exclusive webinar while the image description (after clicked) includes the link to the event registration. Smart idea.
ShortStack informs everyone that their facebook applications are now Timeline ready – a message that is hard to miss on the cover. Their custom app images are nicely designed too.
#2 To Show Appreciation to Supporters/Fans
What a wonderful gesture to showcase your loyal fans by adding them to your cover photo, Mari has done it again!
#3 Creative Design of Company Name and Logo
These brands are incorporating colorful and impressive background designs to match their company name and logo. Some of them have customized their custom app images to match their brand identity.
#4 To Capture Attention with Catchy Slogan & Images
You gotta love the name and slogan – very catchy,
Fresh Art uses a cover photo that resonates with all of us – who doesn’t have a silly moment?
Another smart use of tagline,
Yes, it’s obvious how much you love art.
All the questions will be answered within the page, I hope?
#5 “A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words”
Sometimes a clean photo represents a lot more than texts or phrases. In this case, relevancy is vital. Be smart in selecting the best image that says it all:
#6 To Add Positive Elements in Your Timeline Cover
Everyone loves to be inspired and greeted by a positive message. These Pages are using the positive elements to entice visitors wanting to learn more about their brand.
#7 ‘Behind the Scenes’ Pictures (or ‘People Behind the Brand’)
Give your Facebook Page a personal touch by showcasing your team members. It’s great to be welcomed by bright smiles and (real) people who make things happen. You can amplify your brand awareness by allowing ‘Message’ option and Admin subscription button.
#8 To Tell Your Story via Photo Collages
Sometimes you may need more than one picture to express your brand. Iexpress2explore is using texts and photos to showcase their activities.
The ‘before and after’ pictures are equally interesting,
And of course, who doesn’t love kids’ photos!
#9 To Use Own Portrait or …
These are some familiar faces we’ve seen across the social media networks. Some of them are using own portraits while some, well, you got to admire their creativity.
#10 To Include Service Information
Use short descriptions to explain the type of services your brand provided.
Take note of Brankica’s ‘Like me!’ image on the photo app – great idea!
#11 To Showcase Your Art Work
Cover photo is a great bonus facebook app for photographers. Even writers/authors can benefit from showcasing their work too.
#12 To Showcase Your Product
Let your visitors aware of the products or merchandise you offered.
#13 To Add Testimonials (from Clients or Industry Leaders)
Win your first impression from visitors by displaying testimonials from industry leaders or clients. However, don’t flood your cover photo with dozens of testimonials. Remember, less is more.
#14 To Show Positive User Experience
Use picture that shows positive user experience of your brand, but remember to not fake it. It will be ironic to have all the negative posts or comments underneath a ‘I’m-a-happy-customer’ type of cover. If you are able to find real-life customers who are willing to help out, that’s even more convincing.
#15 To Define Your Website/Blog Type
For bloggers or site owners, you may use photo that best describes your site genre. For example, Michael Aulia owns a tech blog with gadgets reviews:
Or you can explain your site with a short paragraph,
Or bullet points,
Or anything you feel matches your web design or personality.
So there you have it! Hopefully these Timeline brand Pages gave you enough inspirations to design your own. Since default landing tab is no longer available, you need to use all possible assets to entice visitors to Like your brand before all the engagements could take place on your Page.
Want more examples? You may visit here.
Don’t forget to read Part 2: 18 More Creative Tips to Fire Up Your Facebook Page Cover Photo.
Now Is Your Turn…
Have you published your Timeline Page yet? Do you think Cover photo has a great potential for brand visibility? Share your thoughts in the comment.
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I actually struggled for a few days trying to come up with a concept. But, after I looked at my vision board, I decided to use that as inspiration. My blog is about (in short) empowering women while appreciating high heels. So, I think that my “vision” cover captures the essence. Not sure if I should share the link. . I know many blogs hate that but it is: http://www.facebook.com/QueeninHeels
You’re welcome to share your Timeline cover here, Sharon. 🙂 Very nicely done indeed. Just a minor concern regarding the blog link. It seems that Facebook doesn’t allow any web address on the photo according to their rules: http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=276329115767498 May need to look into that?
Thanks so much for commenting, hope to see you here again.
Oh I love Kristi’s it’s prefect for what she does! You know it was Kristi that made me upgrade the blogengage page and I’m seriously loving it! Thanks for adding the blogengage counter toy our blog Ching Ya.
Thanks so much Brian for dropping by. I just noticed that Blogengage also has a new Timeline cover now, well done! 🙂 Love to hear more about your experience with the new Timeline, hope it helped the blogengage main site too.
Love this post and seeing all of these creative Timeline pages! Thanks for inspiring me to be more creative on mine!
You’re most welcome, Celene. It’s great to see even small brands get to impress just as much as the big ones. 🙂 When you’re done with your page cover photo, be sure to let me know so I can drop by for a visit. Thanks again for commenting!
Thanks for including my FB page design for Impactiv8. I am honored to be amongst such great company. Excellent tips and great to have visual examples to back them up.
Hi Loren, really appreciate you dropping by. You’re welcome and thanks for inspiring us with Impactiv8’s amazing cover image.
There are some great ones there! I went with Wordle for mine, thought it would be a bit different and original. What do you think? http://www.facebook.com/willrussellmarketing
Thanks Will for sharing your cover, quite nice too. May be add in a slogan or tagline to describe a bit about your company service, despite the texts so it’s clearer? 🙂 Just a thought.
Great compilation! I would love to nominate http://www.facebook.com/fanta for the awesome fun they’re having on their timeline rescuing characters who have been stuck in the past! Great fun!
Hi Angie, very nice suggestion! Love the ‘fun’ element in their cover. 🙂
You are too kind! I meant to put my cover photo as a temporary place holder as I don’t know what I should set my cover page as. Yet you feature it here 🙂
Love the other cover photos, I need to shoot something better!
lol, don’t worry, Michael, it’s really a good fit! I love how the picture describes your blog in a simple yet impactful way. Be sure to notify me in case I missed your new Cover, love to see it. 🙂
Hi Ching,
Many many thanks for including my cover image in this post. Besides the pleasure of seeing it there, I enjoyed the read immensely, and discovered some new pages to Like.
You put so much time and effort into your posts, it really pays off.
Have a great day,
Oretta
Oretta, glad to hear you liked it. You’re welcome, it is well deserved in its spot. Thanks for the inspiration. I appreciate your kind remarks and encouragement too. Have a great day as well!
Great post as always, Ching Ya! You are fast becoming the princess of Facebook! 🙂
lol, you’re too kind, Niall. 🙂 Still got a long way to go. I’m just blessed for the inspirations others had given me. All of you guys are super-nice to share this article in the first place. Thanks so much!
Thank you so much for collecting all these inspiring examples – it’s hard to find the good examples as a lot of people seem to break the rule of website information. At least, I’ve seen a dozen of places where the website address is displayed in the cover photo. Best regards Lise
Lise, thank you and I’m really glad these examples helped. I understand, it’s quite difficult to really adhere to the rules but everyone is trying. 🙂 Hopefully these pages can inspire us to walk on the right direction without losing brand visibility.
Here’s my cover photo. – http://Facebook.com/RumShopRyan
Any thoughts? Advice?
I love some of the examples in this post and plan on booking marking it for future reference and idea. I try to change my main photo ever 2 weeks to keep it fresh. I’ve found out that it gets more people to the page rather than just commenting on posts in the their feed. They want to see the new visual! Sometimes I even put photos they send in into the main photo. This get people excited to send in product photos hoping to see there’s highlighted one day.
Cheers!
Ryan, that’s a fantastic idea to keep the cover photo fresh by changing it every two weeks to attract returning visitors while rewarding your fans at the same time! Love your cover too. Just a minor reminder, facebook may not approve the web address on Timeline Page covers. May need to re-check it: http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=276329115767498
Other than that, it’s nicely done.
Ok, now I just feel bad because all I’ve been doing is grumbling about the upcoming change! LOL
Some great examples, and I’m glad you pointed out the fact that we can’t use our Web URL in the image (Would have been the first thing I likely added).
I’m going to “get on it!” 🙂
lol, I know, I would have included the link myself if not because of the rules. 🙂 Thanks so much Warren for visiting. Be sure to let me know when your cover is up, love to have a look at it.
We just published ours! I think one thing many companies are missing is the ability to use the thumbnails for the custom apps for calls to action (which you cannot do in the cover image). See any example on our page: http://www.facebook.com/quintainmarketing.
Kathleen, very nice icon images! Smart idea despite of an attractive cover photo you got there too. 🙂 Thanks so much for dropping by and inspire me to do a follow up post, hopefully soon!
Great collection! I especially like Mari’s as it’s really leveraging the Facebook concept.
We’ve recently converted two sites to Timeline:
http://www.facebook.com/flytenewmedia
http://www.facebook.com/agentsofchangecon
Thanks for sharing!
Rich, those pages are amazing! Great use of animated figures and a clean photo for both covers respectively. Thanks so much for sharing them, so much I’ve missed. 🙂
Thanks for including my timeline cover, Ching Ya! Credit goes to Louise Myers of Louise Myers Graphic Design, for the design. I sent her a list of keyword and a couple of photos I’ve taken around Los Angeles. I love what she came up with. Check out Louise’s work here: https://www.facebook.com/freelancegraphicdesignerLA
Props to Louise for a wonderful job, Denise. Sometimes a cover needless to be complicated, as long it sends out the right vibe the brand represents. I wish Louise got more visibility because I just visited her site, a lot of impressive work! Thanks again for commenting, really appreciate it. 🙂
Thanks for including my Timeline cover in your list of examples, Ching Ya. Great post and I hope a lot of people read it because I’m really getting tired of all the misinformation I’m seeing posted. I’ve replied to several blog posts in the last 2 days where people said the new rules make using the Timeline covers for marketing impossible. Huh? How are they getting that out of the rules?
Hi Hugh, great to see you here. 🙂 I guess the changes freaked us all out. The first impression I got was also ‘this can’t be good’, but gradually, I see the massive potential of using images to attract attention, great for visual branding (I just hope they stick to single-column and given more tab spaces though but that’s just me:). We need more creativity these days. Love your tips on your Page about image-optimizations too, keep them coming!
I love some of these examples! Wish I had seen them for my blog post this morning–I would have included some of them. Many of them, however, I feel are sacrificing aesthetics for information. I would rather see a nicely designed cover and get the info below…but that’s just me.
My designer came up with a great idea, but then we couldn’t quite fill it… you kind of need to see it to understand… http://www.facebook.com/TwirpCommunications 🙂 I’m asking for fans to tell me what they characters should be saying. I’ve got a few great responses so far!
This is quite interesting, Anita, thanks so much for sharing. 🙂 I would very much like to see the end results when done. May do a sequel for this post and this could be a creative concept too! I’m still in the middle of designing mine, quite hard not to add texts though, will try different types of covers, maybe. May not get it right the first time, lol. Thanks so much for commenting!
Omgosh, this is the absolutely motherlode collection, Ching Ya. I just adore you and your blog posts, you always do such deep research and come up with killer resources. I had mucho fun browsing these. My favorite is Social Stars – genius visual drawing the eye to the Like button!!
Thanks a million for including mine! I’ve changed mine up on the same theme every day or two just for the heck of it. At FMC, Facebook seemed to emphasize that we could change our cover image often, so why not! It goes out into the news feed when we do! More visibility. 🙂
What a huge honor to see you here, Mari! I agree, Social Stars is smart (that should be alright, isn’t it?), I didn’t notice it earlier! I love how you did with yours to appreciate your community on Page. I may do something similar but still working on it. I’ll be sure to credit you for the initial tip!
Thanks again for taking the time to comment, much appreciated.
Many thanks Ching Ya 🙂
Hey! I see my ugly mug on this blog post! Thanks for including Fan Page Engine! Some great finds and ideas on this blog.
Appreciate you visiting, Scott. 🙂 Both you and David look great in the cover. Thanks for liking my blog too.
A big Thank you to you Ching Ya for listing my page here which it came to me in a surprise after having to read Mari posted this link. Found my banner here. It is my very first time attempting Photoshop on the Banner design. Well if i can manage Photoshop, I am sure the rest can do it too. My other page http://www.facebook.com/soapycrafty
Hello Ching Ya!
Great Collection! I would love some feedback on my timeline design, i use all the customize fields available:
http://facebook.com/lojke.fanpages
hopefully this design will find some place in your future lists 😉
Great job!
Best regards,
Piotr
Nice collection, but after checking them, I realized I do like mine a lot. https://www.facebook.com/DeimarWrites. Here I liked the one of C kraft, Media collection, and Maria’s baby… There are many templates on photoshop out there with the timeline dimensions to work with… However, Facebook changed the dimensions of the profile picture, on the fan pages. Furthermore, beware of the disadvantages to change to the timeline, for example, there is no “non-fan” gate.
Well thank you Ching Ya for featuring our Social Stars Timeline, we are honoured. 🙂
http://www.facebook.com/socialstarsuk
Great article! Yes, I have two of my pages up on Timeline now… I struggled for awhile but ideas came to me. That first cover you displayed talked about a webinar. You can promote an event like that?
http://www.facebook.com/BobShehan
http://www.facebook.com/HealthyBodyProject
Wanted to share my timeline cover as well…I fall into the #11 Category, showcasing my work 🙂 http://www.facebook.com/WhirlieGirlPhotography
Great article!
WOW …. here I am scrolling through these creative Cover Images and hey, we’ve been included! Thank you so much. Totally surprised and thrilled. We’ve been super busy assisting clients to make the shift with their Timeline Pages. We’re loving Timeline and the clean, sophisticated look and bold branding opportunity it offers businesses.
Thank you for mentioning us in your blog post for creative tag line and cover we appreciate it.
Also found loved seeing the creativity covering facebook too as well as the opportunity to find and check out some whom we are drawn too.
Again thank you for the mention 🙂
Ching,
Thanks for including my cover photo! http://facebook.com/chicagosocialmedia
I appreciate you putting this together and hopefully it will give people encouragement to use timeline!
Great post and awesome examples! Thank you for taking the time to create it. It allows my creative juices to flow in keeping it fresh.
I can be found http://www.facebook.com/pwjcoaching
Take care,
Thanks so much for including Wildfire, Chingya! What a great collection, you found so many good ones!
Thanks so much for including my timeline cover for dnd graphiks, it blew me away to be among some awesome facebook pages!
Very nice post, Ching Ya!
I love all the example images you have shared here.
I’ll be sure to include this post in a round-up of recommended Facebook timeline changes posts on my blog.
Thanks for sharing this.
Scott
So much creative inspiration in these examples. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
I tried to use a visual that tells people why to follow my page…
http://www.facebook.com/likewisefanpages
These are awesome examples! Thanks for including mine in the mix! 🙂
Over the past few days, I have been thinking about what kind of cover to create for my Facebook page. This post has given me a lot of food for thought! Thanks!!!
I love what we have up right now on my client’s FB page but it won’t be the only one. We will also be using photos that highlight life on campus – teachers, students, classes, and events. What do you think? http://facebook.com/RobertsonCollegeWinnipeg
Great idea, Danielle. I always love real life photos that explain the brand more thoroughly. You got a nice one there, love to see what’s coming up next. 🙂 Thanks so much for visiting.
Yep got mine up, and am very excited about the more visually appealing direction Facebook is going for.
One thing about some of your examples though is I’m not sure all of them are falling within FB’s pretty strong guidelines of no advertising and not being word based.
I will let my kids do this – casualty effect! 😛
Hi CY! Thank you for including my FB pages cover pic! What a nice surprise to see it among all the others great ones you selected. Ironically, an article was published about my timeline picture (see your FB page, today I posted a the info about it on your wall asking for suggestions)… The company that used my info is in clear violation of the FB rules!! More importantly, your articles are always helpful and I look forward to receiving them in my inbox. ~ Luci 🙂
Great post Ching Ya! thanks for sharing.
I don’t have the timeline in my facebook account yet. The examples you show are very inspiring and helpful for me to decide how to create my timeline page. I have a question. I have a personal facebook account and when I launched my blog, I added a page in the existing account. This timeline is going to take place to my personal account or to the business one?
Hi Elena, thanks for dropping by, I’m glad you found the resource useful. 🙂 To answer your question, above examples are for Timeline ‘Pages’. After you created a Page from your personal account, you should have a preview button for your Page in Timeline layout. The Cover photo will only be ‘live’ if you published it from your Page.
Now you can have Timeline for your personal profile too, but that’s another story. 🙂 Have you got it yet?
These were great, dig the examples. Think I’m going to start trying to incorporate the 180×180 profile image into the main banner itself. Play the two together.
I did my own early by utilizing elements from my own brand header on my website, but I’m unhappy with how busy it looks. I’m working on a new option that incorporates the app buttons and profile image in a neat way. I’d love to know your thoughts … as I said I think it is a bit too busy … http://www.facebook.com/Kats.Curious.Cafe .
I think it looks awesome! 🙂
Hope mine turns out as well when I switch over.
Not too busy either! (In my humble opinion!)
Aw, thanks Warren! As I’ve been working on a few for some clients I decided mine was too busy … but it could just be that I wanted to play with mine some more! LOL
I like it too, Katrina. 🙂 It’s very catchy and nicely designed. If you think it’s busy maybe can leave out the iPad ? But heck, I like that too. lol.. it’s hard isn’t it? It’s always good to experiment during the early stages.
Ok, I was inspired by all of you (and the deadline was approaching) LOL so tried to give it a shot. I am slightly graphically challenged so it may help if you borrow someone’s reading glasses before checking it out! 🙂
Would love to hear your opinions though.
https://www.facebook.com/plrinternetmarketing
Thanks everyone, and thank you for giving me the kick in the butt I needed to change mine!
Excellent post with inspiring selection of examples, Ching Ya!
I tried to implement the cover as much as possible to the fb interface. If you have any suggestions or comments, feel free to shout:)
https://www.facebook.com/quotecards
Really Awesome appropriate Facebook pages timeline covers,very inspirational.Am also thinking to make an awesome Timeline Page cover for my Page Facebook Fever 🙂
Thanks for all these great examples. I think that there is a huge potential for businesses to engage their fans more! We just need to be aware of the restrictions. I would love your feedback on my cover photo. http://www.facebook.com/redscopemedia
Thanks!
Love all of these creative examples. Great post!!! It’s giving me some ideas.
Here’s our newest cover photo:
http://www.facebook.com/ThroughADogsEar
Our cover photo has been an interesting mix of posting pics of customer satisfaction (in this case dogs!), combined with a visual of the products. I’d love to integrate the profile pic into the cover photo in a more creative way though. Any suggestions are always appreciated. Thanks!