Your Facebook page could be the first exposure that a prospective customer sees of your business so, like any social media platform, making a good first impression counts.

It’s easy to just ‘dump’ a generic photo into your Facebook header and think that’ll do – but taking a bit of time to decide what your end goal is with the page and the role the imagery can play to inform any visitor that views it, is essential.

A few technical points to consider when creating your header image – at the time of writing this article Facebook headers consist of a Cover Image (851 x 315 pixels) and a Profile Image (180 x 180 pixels). If you upload a differently proportioned images, Facebook will ask that you crop it – potentially losing part of your message contained in your image.

Facebook also re-samples your images’ resolution – making it sometimes appear ‘fuzzy’ so it’s an idea to play around with the image resolution (dpi) in your preferred image manipulation program, until you get the best result.

Now it’s not all plain sailing with the image content either – Facebook has more rules you should adhere to:

1. Copyright

Make sure the images you use are yours to legally use – don’t plagiarise someone else’s work and pass it off as your own.

2. Call to actions (CTAs)

Theses are not allowed in any format on your cover image (i.e. please click, like, share, buy, download etc). In fact even adding a graphic device like an an arrow pointing towards the ‘like’ button is not allowed.

3. No hard sell tactics

You’re not allowed to mention a price, a promotion or a special offer either on your cover image. 

4. No contact information

Email, phone number, address etc are also banned – these must be listed in the About section of your Facebook business page.

Now that’s not to say that I haven’t seen businesses disregard these – because I have, to widely varying degrees. Personally I would recommend that you don’t and that you keep within the guidelines they’ve set.

Ok, you’re thinking that’s a lot of restrictions. Well yes it is but what it makes you do is think creatively about what you could portray here. 

Here’s a few ideas to get you thinking about your Facebook header cover image:

Promote your products or service

Create a montage of your products/service but make sure it’s unique to you and follows your brand colours and design. If you could just put the image you’ve created on someone else’s Facebook page, and it works for them, then it’s probably not right. (See Below)

Promote the lifestyle of your brand or product

If your products aim is to improve the users quality of life – whether it’s a feeling of belonging from being part of the brand’s community or whether it simplifies their life in some way, portray this in your cover image.

Promote your latest release

If visitors are likely to visit your Facebook page on a regular basis you could consider changing the content of your cover image weekly, monthly or seasonally to keep things engaging. For example if you’re a magazine you could update your Facebook cover image (and any other social media platform imagery) to display the latest cover photo every time a new issue hits the shelves or if you’re in the film industry promote your latest movie release.

Show off your creative skills

If you’re in a creative industry you could consider combining the profile image and cover image to show your skill set (ie. Photographer, illustrator, designer etc) and if your solution is creative, it’ll be memorable. Some people have used the relationship between the two images in very interesting and creative ways. Giuseppe Draicchio’s Facebook page is often used as a prime example of the creative possibilities. ( See Below) 

These are just a few ideas to get you thinking creatively about your Facebook header imagery and realising the importance of brand consistency across all your online platforms. Above all have fun with your Facebook header. Be creative, be memorable and be brand consistent.

If you need any help with designing your Facebook header images or any other social media imagery please don’t hesitate to get in touch @PKirk_designer or at http://paulkirkdesign.co.uk