Timeline For Facebook Pages {Friday Five}

I had the pleasure of attending a workshop on Timeline for Pages at Cement Marketing this week. Alaina Shearer, owner of the social media marketing company, led the casual, informative session. Like it or not, all pages are being switched to timeline today. Change is not easy, for sure, but the new format does have some distinct advantages. It allows a brand to tell a complete story, gives fans a chance to send private messages, and fosters engagement among fans.

Tips for Timeline

1) Use Cover, Profile, and Pinned Posts Wisely - Combined, the cover, profile, and pinned areas (pins last for seven days) offer a huge pixel area for marketing your business. The cover may not contain a call to action or redirect away from Facebook, but the pinned post can. Use these three areas in conjuction with one another to create a multi-faceted brand message.

2) Share and Highlight Images - The new timeline format encourages the use of photo sharing by making beautiful galleries from your albums. Highlight a picture or album to expand that section across the whole timeline page.

3) Maximize the Milestones - Milestones are your chance to tell your brand's story from the beginning. Beyond the traditional 'opening date', 'first xyz' posts, consider adding milestones that speak in the voice of your brand. This might include joking, cutesy, or heart-string-tugging moments. (Hint: Check the 'hide from news feed' box when making multiple milestones so you don't overwhelm fans.)

4) Prioritize Your Views/Apps - Just below your new cover picture on the right side of the page are boxes that might include photos, notes, videos, events, and likes. Click the little blue downward triangle to switch the apps around. With the down arrow clicked, you can hover over each box to reveal settings and swap places. Only four are visible to fans so you must choose your most important applications and feature them here.

5) Revel In The Engagement - A quick study by Simply Measured reported on Mashable suggests that fans are 46% more engaged with the new timeline format than before. This engagement comes from people staying longer on the timeline pages. Give fans plenty of milestones and highlighted posts to keep their interest and share your story. The handy Insights tool in the admin bar can give you plenty of stats about how timeline works for you.

Facebook is automatically switching all pages to timeline format on March 30 at 11 AM PST so you have a few more hours to play with the settings in preview mode before timeline goes live.

I am slowing improving the Hounds in the Kitchen facebook timeline as well as updating the pages I manage for social media clients. I enjoy the format as a reader and storyteller.

What do you think of timeline format? Are you using it for a business page? Tell all in the comments.

Blog Changes - Your Help Needed

You may have noticed a few changes on the blog recently. Here's what's going on: Updates

I updated the category titles and am working behind the scenes to make sure posts are correctly categorized.

I took down the Foodbuzz ad block when my contract expired at the end of September. I want to earn something to pay for all the work I put into this blog but I'm not sure whether ads are the right way to go about it.

The About page was recently tweaked and I'm working on a new Media Kit.

Logo and Redesign

Allie Lehman and I are almost through revising the logo she designed and it's awesome. I can't wait to share!

I am looking at new themes to make Hounds in the Kitchen more professional and pretty. I'm a little scared of editing a new theme to suit my needs all by myself but I don't have a budget to pay. If anyone out there loves CSS or wordpress or themes and wants to offer a trade for cooking class instruction, basic writing and editing or something else I'm good at, let's talk.

Input Welcome

Can you help guide Hounds in the Kitchen? I designed a simple survey that will take about five minutes of your time. Questions range from your cooking habits to what you like about the blog to events you might attend. Fill out the survey at the bottom of this post or follow the survey link.

Thank you, as always, for reading and following my crazy life.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Keeping a Homestead Journal

I have resisted written journals forever because writing about just anything seemed to open for me. When I came upon the idea I could track activities around the homestead in a journal, I was excited. I challenged myself to write a little something every day in March. Meeting the challenge was a cinch because there's nothing I love more than being productive and writing about it.

Each evening, I organize the day's record with a title line that includes the date, temperature, weather, and location. Underneath, I note accomplishments and challenges, such as 'moved the chicken coop', 'Lil coughing all night', 'cooked for family', or 'started tomato seedlings'. This is the same format I use for my field log that I've kept since high school to record birds and significant natural sightings on hikes and vacations.

Here's what I love about the log:

• Already I can look back and see progress in the weather and my activities.
• The feel of a good pen on an excellent notebook is a lovely way to end the day.
• I am finally writing down planting dates so I can compare them in future years.
• I can't wait to take the journal on vacation next week and put some new locations in the title line!

Do you keep a journal or log? How do you keep track of gardening and cooking activities?

Added to Simple Lives Thursday 38th Edition.

November Reflections

I did it! I posed every day in November as part of NaBloPoMo, National Blog Posting Month. It was a challenge indeed, especially through our bourbon country vacation and Thanksgivings when I otherwise would have skipped posting for a few days.

I had no writer's block and felt no lack of topics to prevent me from writing every day all year.

I posted 33% more often than normal, writing 30 days of posts versus 20 days as the average of last three months. Google analytics tells me that HoundsInTheKitchen.com enjoyed 20% more page views in November than the average of the last three months. This increase could be due to seasonality in addition to posting frequency, as food blog traffic often increases during the holidays.

Reading through the posts of the month, though, there were quite a few that lacked the quality I strive for. I simply ran out of time some days to include photographs or proper editing. With practice, I think I could build up these skills to write better, faster.

I am curious what regular readers thought of the more frequent posting. Did you like seeing something from me every day or did it clog up your rss reader or facebook?