What approaches are brands using in their Facebook Timeline re-branding

Posted by Paul Cruse on 21 March 2012. Categorised under Digital Marketing, social media, technology 0 Comments

With 10 days to go until all brand pages on Facebook are converted to the Timeline format, we’ve been looking at what some of the world’s top brands are doing. The results vary with some companies choosing cool, attractive images whilst some have taken the more simplistic or personal route.

Both Coca-Cola and Walmart have gone for historic references with Coca-Cola’s page containing an image of the hand written letter dating back to 1893 which praises the “satisfaction” of Coca-Cola whilst Walmart included an image of their very first store which opened in 1962.

Whilst Coca-Cola and Walmart have gone down the historical route, Ford, ESPN and the New York Time have gone down a more personal one. The Ford cover photo shows their main offices in America with ESPN displaying a behind the scenes image of their iconic SportsCenter programme. It’s the New York Times who have gone with the most personal touch though with a cover photo containing alot of the emploees of the paper:

Of course, it can be easier to keep these things as simplistic as possible. If you’re brand is well know then the product should be able to sell itself. This is certainly the case for Subway and Starbucks who ignore the history or personal touch and just let their products do the talking (we’re going to call it the Ronseal approach – “Does exactly what it says on the tin” – although Ronseal haven’t actually converted to timeline yet)