Leveraging Creative Properties on Social Platforms : Social Media Handbook Part 2

This post is a part of our Social Media Handbook series. Please read the Part 1 here: Social Media Basics

Effective creatives and content are the most important drivers on social platforms. Both can help you create a distinct presence for your brand amongst the clutter.

Cover photo

The cover photo on Facebook in my opinion is the most effective display banner amongst all the various creative properties on these platforms. The most important thing about the cover photo is that it has to ‘highly sharable’ (although a page cannot encourage people to upload the cover photo to their personal timelines). One should be careful about not promoting an engagement or offers/promotions through the cover photo as it is against the Facebook guidelines. The expected dimension of a cover photo is 851px by 315px. Here are some references which can inspire your brand pages cover photo.

Thumbnail

The thumbnail which traditionally held an important creative spot in the form of the display picture now has a much smaller role to play, though still highly relevant. You can set up a 180 by 180 px picture as the thumbnail. The important part is that it goes out with your posts, hence most brands put up their logo as the thumbnail.

Tabs

While starting up on Facebook, it is important to pre-plan what Tabs will show up on Facebook. On the new Timeline, the users are able to see four Tabs on a brand page. One of these four Tabs is photos and cannot be moved. The other important Tab is the fan count Tab, which is moveable, yet is an important one to showcase on the Top four visible Tabs. The other two Tabs can be used for Facebook applications, engagements (using non applications), customer care, brochure display, etc. A number of preset Tabs like The Top Tab applications also serve the page’s engagements purpose. Tab image also occupies an important creative space on the Timeline.

Pre like and Post like Tabs

One major disappointment for brands post the launch of the Facebook timeline has been the page cannot keep a Tab as the landing Tab, which could have had a pre like Tab and hence get more likes for the page . All Facebook ads should be directed to a Pre like page, on a Tab to optimize the likes from the ads. Pre like and post like ads should be mandatory for all applications. Red Bull’s pre like page put up some time ago is my personal favourite.

Posts

Facebook Edgerank algorithm, resized picture size on the News feed, better looking album updates and the Instagram takeover are indications that images will make a lot of impact on Facebook. A brand page should provision for at least one ‘template-ized’ image based post or an album update a day.

Creative properties on other platforms -

Twitter display pic and Twitter background are two creative properties on Twitter. YouTube background is the only major creative opportunity on YouTube, unless the brand goes for premium YouTube channel, which comes in three different packages. The most interesting creative property amongst ‘other’ social platforms is the Google plus photo strip. Unlike the Facebook cover photo, you can use flash on Google plus photo strip for brand pages.

It would be encouraging to hear your feedback/ thoughts in the comments section below :)

Image Courtesy: 10ch