Playing around with the new Facebook Timeline

So one of my new year’s resolutions is to be a little more active on facebook and twitter, so what better way to start than switch my facebook account to incorporate the new timeline!

As an early adapter in nearly every facet of my life besides social media – it’s a little bit out of character for me to switch things before facebook does it for me but I’ve been intrigued by the big banner front and centre on the new timeline page and the ability that facebook is giving us to set the tone for the way our page looks and the message we get across to our friends.

Adding the new timeline is really simple, you just have to click the “add new timeline” link in the top of your facebook profile page. Once you’ve done that, you will be told that you’re testing out the timeline and it will automatically change to your account in 7 days – which is really nice if you want to play around with the layout.

The cool thing that I’ve noticed is that your main profile picture remains – now a perfectly square 125×125 pixels. This profile picture is complemented by a 850×315 pixel banner.

My new facebook profile featuring a huge amount of banner real estate.

From a marketing standpoint, I think this new banner is a great idea for anybody wanting to showcase their creativity and also plug what they do, what their passionate about or just a really big picture of themselves! I also think that there are some really cool possibilities for the integration of the profile image and the timeline banner so you might see something soon that blends the two images in some cool way…

If you want to upload an image to your banner it’s easy, once you’ve switched to the new timeline just hover over the banner and click “select new image” in the bottom right corner. You don’t have to worry about the size of your image (provided it’s larger than 815px wide) because you can drag the image around however you like to fit the banner. If you want to take your banner to the next level I would suggest preparing your image ahead of time at the proper size proportions and maybe add a little bit of design flare too!

The one thing I don’t love is that facebook downgrades the quality of your banner image. This may not be a big deal to most of you, but I would love to see a crystal clear image on that page if it’s going to be that big.

So as I write this, I’ve hit the “go live” button on my new timeline to avoid the 7 day wait and start using timeline now! Check it out http://facebook.com/csteingart and let me know what you think…