HOW TO USE FACEBOOK TIMELINE

AS A MUSICIAN

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University

Facebook Admin Panel4

Add Insights to Your Toolbox5

Your Insights are Public6

Important Metrics to Track7

What is “Talking About This”8

Facebook Stories9

EdgeRank10

How to Improve Your EdgeRank 11,12

Engage with Amazing Content 21Respond to Fans 22Rich Media Posts 23,24 Showcase Exclusive Content 25Ask Fans To Tag You 26Add Your Shows to Facebook 27Be Active & Proactive 28

GLOSSARY 30-33CONTACT 34

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR EDGERANK THROUGH ENGAGEMENT

GET THE PULSE OF YOUR PAGE

FEATURES OF TIMELINE

Cover Photo14 BandPage Banner 15Arrange Your Apps 16Pinned Posts17Featured Posts 18Design Notes19

TABLE OF CONTENTS

GET THE PULSE OF YOUR PAGE

FACEBOOK ADMIN PANELWhenever you are the Admin of a Page on Facebook, you’ll have access to that Page’s Admin Panel. From the Admin Panel, you can see all of your Page’s notifications, new likes, a micro-version of Facebook Insights, and messages to the Page by your fans.

Think of the Admin Panel as your control center, where you can very easily edit key settings, see what fans are responding to, and how well your Page is currently performing.

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You may not realize just how valuable Facebook Insights are. If you plan on posting regularly, you should check your Insights every week, even if just for 5 minutes.

By doing this, you can see which posts are getting reach, going viral and engagement and what is resonating with your LikeBase.

LikeBase is a term that we like to use that refers to the portion of your fans who have specifically Liked your Page, that your posts can now organically reach.

ADD INSIGHTS TO YOUR TOOLBOX

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YOUR INSIGHTS ARE PUBLICAs of April 2012, Facebook now displays some basic Insights of all Pages publicly. This is important to know for a few reasons:

- Other bands and Facebook users can now check to see if your Page is growing or stagnant, as well as metrics like what market you are popular in. That means if you’re courting a potential sponsor or manager, or you’re doing a big press push, you’ll want to keep your numbers steadily growing and remain active on the Page.

- You can also view other Page’s Insights who have similar fan-bases to see what their fans react well to, what city works for them, and which week they got the most engagement (And then do some research to see why that week got so many fans publishing Stories about them!)

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IMPORTANT METRICS TO TRACK

# of Likes for your Page (LikeBase)LikeBase is important as it’s the maximum amount of users who can see your posts directly.

Demographics that Like your PageThe better information you have, the more you can tailor your posts to that fan base.

Engagement (Comments, Likes, Shares) Per PostKnowing which posts work and which don’t helps inform you what your fan base responds to and can help shape future posts

Organic Reach & Viral Reach of your ContentAre most of your post views coming from your LikeBase? Or are most views resulting from a few, well connected Superfans sharing your content to their friends? These numbers help shed light on the total impact of your posts.

Facebook Insights provides you many numbers and stats to check out. Depending on your goals, you should try to track specific analytics based on your goals.

However, there are generic metrics that all Pages should track and have a good understanding of:

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# OF PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT THIS?

# of People Talking About This is the number of unique Facebook users who have commented, shared, or liked one of your posts, tagged your Page in a post/photo, or interacted with your Page in some way that has created a “Story” in the past 7 days.

This is a key metric to track, as it is a closest indicator of engagement and potential viral reach within Facebook.

You can find this number under your cover photo or under your “Likes” Application on your Page.

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WHAT IS A FACEBOOK STORY? A Facebook Story is basically any action that would involve a fan

posting content that is connected in some way to your Page.

For example: If a fan likes or comments on one of your posts, likes your Page or RSVPs to an event, or even tags you in a photo - they have created a Story about you.

A Story can be seen by a Facebook User’s friends and on ticker feeds.

Every time a fan creates a Story that involves your Page, you’ll see benefits in the reach (viral and organic) of your posts.

The more users who are producing Stories about you to their feed gives you three benefits:

Improves the amount of impressions Improved chances of your post gaining Viral Reach Improves your EdgeRank.

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EDGERANKWho actually see the posts you send out?

Facebook doesn’t show your entire LikeBase every update you put out. For example, if you have 1,000 fans, on average only 16% (160) of those fans will see your Story show up in their news feed.

Facebook has a advanced system (EdgeRank) that decides in what order and how many fans see which posts on their news feeds– this is based on their past history with the page, how “viral” the story is, and how new the post is.

EdgeRank is an algorithm that ranks a post in the Facebook News Feed based on several variables, like how often and frequently fans are interacting with your Page’s Stories.

The higher your Edgerank, the more of your fans will see your posts on their news feed more often, higher up on the feed, and for longer.

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HOW TO IMPROVE EDGERANK

Look at your Facebook Insights and see which of your posts got the most Engagement. Some LikeBases respond better to short, snappy text posts, while others expect a more visual experience. Use insights to better understand your audience!

Ask fans to tag photos of you and to RSVP to the shows if they plan on going – both actions create Stories that improve your EdgeRank relationship with your fans.

The higher your “# of fans talking about this” metric goes, the better your EdgeRank is during that week (at least for those 7 days)

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HOW TO IMPROVE EDGERANK

Set goals – figure out which metric you’d like to improve and set your Page’s ideal situation. (for example:” I want to raise my Page’s # of fans talking about this by 10% each month”)

Keep track of your progress using Facebook Insights and be flexible if the tactics you’re using aren’t working – adjust tactics and try again!

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FEATURES OF TIMELINE

COVER PHOTO

Cover photos are 851 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall. If you upload an image that's smaller than these dimensions, it will get stretched to this larger size.

Tip: When creating your image, try starting a new file that is 851h x 315w pixels. That way you know exactly how it will look live.

Cover photos come with some restrictions – if you do any of the below items Facebook maintains the right to suspend your page...so play by the rules!

It can’t have price/purchase info (ex: “4.99 CD sale this week!”) It can’t have contact info – good places to place this are in your “about

section” and your BandPage Biography section. It can’t have references to Facebook actions (ex: “Like this Page to unlock…”) It can’t contain “Calls to Action” (ex: “Click on our new video below!”)

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BANDPAGE BANNER

Your BandPage banner is 810 Pixels wide by up to 360 Pixels in height.

If you’re using BandPage Plus – you can actually have two banners. One banner would be for users have liked your Page and one for users who have not yet done so. By doing this, you’ll be able to have a call to action in your banner asking fans to like you, but once they have, the messaging can then change to whatever else you’d like to advertise.

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The three boxes to the right of your photo can be used to showcase apps like BandPage. Any apps that are not in this “Top 3” will have far less clicks and usage, so make sure you highlight the apps that are important for your fans to interact with.

Keep in mind that any apps that are no longer in use or broken (with the Timeline change) should be removed from the three apps that you’re showcasing.

ARRANGE YOUR APPS

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PINNED POSTSPinned Posts are Page posts that admins have chosen to display prominently at the top of their Page.

A Pinned Post always appears in the top left of a Page's timeline and has a flag in its top-right corner.

A post a Page admin pins to the top of their Page will remain there for 7 days. After that, it’ll return to the date it was posted on the Page’s timeline.

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FEATURED POSTSFeatured Posts are posts that you want to highlight within your timeline – as users come to the page, these posts now take up both Timeline Columns and allow you to show off full panoramic photography.

Adding Featured Posts (by hitting the star button) and Milestones throughout your Page creates a backstory for your page, and great content for fans to explore.

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DESIGN NOTES

Cover Photo 851 x 315 pixels

Images* 404 x 404 pixels

Highlighted Post Images & Milestone Images843 x 403 pixels

When working with creative assets, care should be taken to make sure that you get the most bang for your buck. Upon creation of a new design, if you use the below sizes you will get a perfectly proportioned picture that will fit perfectly and get the most screen real estate.

Profile Picture* 180 x 180 pixels

App Image111 x 74 pixels

BandPage Banner810 x (upto)360 pixels

*For these shapes, anything above this size is fine as it will scale down and users can click on that image to see the full size image. As long as it is at –least- this size you’ll get the full real estate on the news feed as possible.

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STRATEGIES ON HOW TO IMPROVE METRICS

AND EDGERANK

ENGAGE WITH AMAZING CONTENT Fans want to connect with artists they love on a

personal level. Keep your posts personal and don’t overexpose yourself with self promotion. Talk about items outside of just your own music.

Post regularly, at least a few times a week, keeping your fans engaged on an ongoing basis.

Share videos, pictures, and audio while you’re on the road or even just hanging out during your day.

Always try to be authentic in the way you engage your fans.

Great posts will lead to more Engagement (Comments, Likes & Shares), which will improve your Edgerank and get your posts to be more visible on Facebook.

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RESPOND TO FANS After you’ve posted something new on your Page, spend time responding to your fans

in the comments.

Responding re-engages fans that already commented and increases the likelihood of other people commenting and liking. They see that you’re listening and responding and will want to be a part of that.

When Facebook’s Edgerank system sees that your content getting traction shortly after it’s posted, it will show that content to more of your Fans, so make sure you encourage fans to interact and respond back to posts quickly on new posts

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SEND OUT RICH MEDIA We’ve found that sending out rich media (like

pictures, videos & music) gets higher engagement, interaction and shares than plain text post.

On some Pages, we’ve found the overall difference in engagement was 2-3x higher for rich media posts!

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RICH MEDIA TIPSPhotos: When sending out photos, try to send out images that are

as close to being a “square” image as possible. This is because Facebook only gives you 404x404 pixels of real estate, and if your picture is very wide or very long, you’ll lose out on the available space you could use.

Make sure the main idea of the picture is easily conveyed to a fan when they’re looking through her news feed.

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Videos and Music:

Send out your tracks with one line or less of messaging and let the music or video speak for itself, which will also create listener curiosity that will lead them to play the track. Otherwise they may read the description and decide to skip over the song without listening, or mentally check out if its “too long”. Historically, when paired with rich media, paragraphs get less traction, so add just a sentence or two around your media posts.

SHOWCASE EXCLUSIVE CONTENT Give fans a reason why they should not just read your posts, but

actually visit your Facebook Page.

Share exclusive interviews, music, merchandise, photos, art or videos.

The more times you update your Facebook Page with content that can only be found there, the more your fans will be educated that FB is an important part of the full experience.

Don’t be afraid to have fun and be silly – your fans on Facebook want to see the real you and don’t want to always talk music 100% of the time.

The Foot. Behind The Scenes –Exclusively on their Facebook Page

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ASK YOUR FANS TO TAG YOUWhen a fan tags a photo of you OR tags your page you get 2 important benefits:

1. A Facebook Story is created that shows up in fans’ Facebook feeds and their friends’ feeds

2. Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm will automatically detect that they’re a bigger fan of yours than the average person, and will show more of your posts to them more often

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ADD YOUR SHOWS TO FACEBOOK Add (and keep current) your tour

dates - either via an app like BandPage and/or through Facebook Events.

Add Show Time, Location, and Ticket Purchase info – the more fans have to hunt, the less chance they’ll buy your wares.

Encourage your fans to RSVP or hit “I’m Going” to events – each time they do this it increases your Edgerank relationship with that fan and also helps spread word of the show.

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BE ACTIVE & PROACTIVE The worst thing you can do is let your Page go stagnant

– make sure that you’re posting at least one piece of content per week.

If you miss a week, don’t try to make up for it by posting a week’s worth of Posts at once. Just like in real life, if you forgot to say hi to a friend, you wouldn’t tell them hi 20 times to make up for the last 20 days you haven’t talked to them. You’ll weaken your Page’s Edgerank since those posts will get less engagement and users will block your posts. Simply go back to your regular programming.

If you plan to no longer use a Page or have moved on to a new project – let your fans know where you have moved to, give them a couple warnings, and then deactivate the page. Last thing you want is for someone to go searching, find your out of date and incorrect page, and associate that with your prescience.

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GLOSSARY & CONTACT

GLOSSARY Admin

An Admin is anyone who has access to all of the features, settings and can post as a Page. This is usually the band members and their managers or social media experts.

Admin Panel The Admin Panel is your Page’s main control hub. From the Admin Panel, an Admin

can change the settings of the page, see messages to the Page, check insights, and manage ads.

EdgeRank Pages with high EdgeRank Scores will be more likely to show up in the newsfeed

than Pages with low EdgeRank Scores. EdgeRank is a black box (private) algorithm that Facebook uses, based on Engagement that determines the placement of posts by Pages and Users.

Engagement When talking about Posts, the amount of interaction (shares, likes and comments)

that a post ends up receiving. The higher the better at raising your EdgeRank.

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GLOSSARY Featured Posts

Posts that have been selected by an Admin to be displayed over two Timeline panels (panoramic) instead of the square space that a typical post occupies

LikeBase The number of users who have “Liked” your Page. The higher this number, the

more fans who can see your content organically without it being shared.

Milestones Much like Featured Posts (they have the same dimensions), Milestones are used

to annotate specific items on a timeline. These are used more so for actual notable changes (Band added a new member, new album) than status updates.

Pinned Posts Pinned Posts are Posts that an Admin has decided to feature at the top of their

Page for 7 days. This way, new posts don’t bury whatever campaign that they are promoting.

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GLOSSARY Reach – The number of unique users who see your Post.

Organic: Users who saw your Story in a News Feed, ticker or on your Page (whether they’ve liked your Page or not)

Viral: Users who saw your content through a Story published by a friend – this could be by their liking your post, sharing your post or taking other actions related to the post that created a story that was visible to other users.

Real Estate When talking about Facebook Real Estate, this refers to have much space your content

has when it is featured. A featured post or Milestone has more Facebook Real Estate for instance. An image post that is smaller than 404x404 pixels would have much less real estate, as the image would not be stretched and would not use all of space allotted to it.

Story Any piece of content generated by a user or a page – when a user creates a Story about

your Page, that means that they have interacted in some way with your Page that has published that interaction and improved the EdgeRank between yourself and that Page.

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Superfans Not all Likes are created equal – Superfans are the fans who that are extremely

engaged and use social media heavily. If one fan shares your post to their friends and family, a Superfan could share it to 3,000 colleagues. Superfans are critical because they are usually the ones who comment/share first, and that momentum is important for encouraging your average fan to participate, as well as getting your Story into more news feeds.

# of People Talking About This The number of unique Facebook users who have created a Story about your page

within the last 7 days. This is a key metric to track, as it can give you a real pulse on how your page is performing and how much it is being talked about. The higher this number is, the better your EdgeRank (theoretically) would be.

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THANK YOU FOR READING!

Please let us know if this was helpful for you and if you would like to see more articles or demos like this!

Any Questions, Ideas, Thoughts? We’d love to hear them!

/BandPage

@BandPage

Info@BandPage.com

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Matt ConnDr. of Pages

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