It would appear that, with the introduction of the Facebook timeline for brand pages, there are a few features that will no longer be available.
With just one month left for Facebook page admins to get their content in order for the new layout, it would appear that one of the first things you’ll notice are gone are the landing tabs.
The immensely popular landing tab, which has been used to introduce potential fans to your brand, has been used for giveaways, and for the somewhat controversial like-gating, will become a thing of the past. Pretty much any extra tabs that you could add to your Facebook page are no longer available, but you can display your apps next to your profile picture, along with photos, likes and more.
This will no doubt be an issue, not only for page administrators who have gotten so used to using the feature, but will also affect quite a few marketing companies, who have built and monetized services around Facebook’s landing tabs, in particular.
Now Facebook pages will probably find creative ways of using their cover photo to introduce fans to their brand. There are, however, some restrictions on how administrators can actually put the cover photo to use. The guidelines state, “Covers must not be false, deceptive or misleading, and must not infringe on third parties’ intellectual property. You may not encourage or incentivize people to upload your cover image to their personal timelines.”
It’s not just the frontend that is undergoing major changes. Administrators will have to get used to quite a few significant changes in the backend as well.
Checking out the new Manage Permissions tab on the backend, you’ll see that quite a few options have been removed, while a few new features have appeared. While posting ability for fans is still the same – posting to the timeline, or adding photos and videos – you now have a little bit more control over the visibility, administrators now have the ability to review content on the page before it is displayed. Meanwhile, the option to manage your own translations has disappeared from the list.
Facebook administrators also have a shiny new Admin Panel to play around with. One of the most significant changes, which you can see in the screenshot below, is that you now have the option to receive messages, as we had mentioned before, via your Facebook page. The Admin Panel will also feature your latest notifications, new likes and even a little bit of analytics to boot.
Another change we spotted, although it may just be a bug, is that Facebook Questions don’t appear to be working any longer. The feature, which allows you to conduct polls and ask your fans all sorts of questions, is still visible in the Apps Panel, but is currently inaccessible, and the description has disappeared.
Of course, with the new timeline, Facebook pages will get a lot of the features we’ve already gotten used to over on our personal profiles including cover photos, the ability to add milestones to the timeline, pin posts, view friend activity and view your own activity log. With the new activity log, administrators also now have the option to hide posts from their timeline.
There are a couple of brands we’ve already spotted who are already using the new timeline feature to celebrate their brand’s history. Tiffany and Old Spice have really unlocked all of the potential that the Facebook timeline has for brands, highlight their milestones. So while there may be some major changes on the way, and many brands and social media managers will no doubt feel the growing pains, it’s definitely worth it if you want to show off your company or brand’s rich history.
What do you think of the changes Facebook is making to its brand pages? Let us know in the comments.





















I think the timeline is great. But I'm also of the opinion that the option of using an app as a landing page should remain. Facebook seems to always put down other brands limiting their chances of actually advertising on the website
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeShouting down a landing tab is a completely wrong! So what‘s the commercial benefit of having a FB page if there the most important commercial techniques aren’t allowed?
Then so many restrictions for a cover image. Well what are we supossed to put on a cover? Teddy bear saying “Hello world”?
After all what about companies who invested resources in building their facebook pages? This will definitely have some negative impact on FB as companies will now be more careful about building their businesses around FB API! API that changes every morning when we wake up... platform where features disappear overnight… it is all unreliable and it isn’t worth wasting time!
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeThere must be a few app business spewing over this. Wonder what the likes of Wildfireapps make of this?
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
Likegreat news!! grab you favorite facebook fanpage cover, group cover and timeline cover over @ http://facebookcoverlayout.com.. Enjoy!!
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
Likehttp://www.addacover.com/ now offers custom covers for fan pages and groups!
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeThe rules for the cover image is BS. Facebook took away the landing page. They could at least let us use the cover image as we want to compensate.
Cover images may not contain:
* Price or purchase information, such as "40% off" or "Download it at our website"
* Contact information, such as web address, email, mailing address or other information intended for your Page's About section
* References to user interface elements, such as Like or Share, or any other Facebook site features
* Calls to action, such as "Get it now" or "Tell your friends"
See rules: https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=276329115767498
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeAndreas Lindgren Great. Business pages with no marketing allowed!
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeWeird thing:
When you add admins to your page, those can't see the wall since timeline is set up anymore.
The only way to see the page wall again is to be removed "as admin"
Any solution?
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
Likeif your looking for timeline covers go to http://coversforfacebooktimeline.com/ they have thousands
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeI did a video review of the new timelines this afternoon, it can be found here (http://www.mnwebco.com/blog/new-facebook-brand-pages-video-review).
I like the changes but I will miss the default landing pages.
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeHere is my insight on the Timeline for Brand Pages and how Facebook still lacks user customization (that communities like Pinterest have mastered): http://www.ezanga.com/news/2012/02/29/facebook-timeline-for-brands-creates-sense-of-identity/
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeTNW - You guys need to do some research and rewrite this post. Tabs are not going away. They're still there and they'll add about 50% more wdith (520px to 810px) to use on tabs.
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeEric Lepping Landing tabs are indeed gone, meaning the capability to default to a view when a visitor comes to your Facebook page.
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeDrew Olanoff That's true but the panic in some of the comments below are off base.
This, from the post, isn't accurate - "The immensely popular landing tab, which has been used to introduce potential fans to your brand, has been used for giveaways, and for the somewhat controversial like-gating, will become a thing of the past. Pretty much any extra tabs that you could add to your Facebook page are no longer available, but you can display your apps next to your profile picture, along with photos, likes and more."
Tabs will not become a thing of the past. Tabs are apps and will not go away. The ability to have a specific Landing Tab does look like it's gone at this point but no one who has built their business (or part of it) on building tabs should think that their business is gone.
In fact, I see some pretty nice new opportunities in the changes.
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeEric Lepping I agree that there will be new opportunities.
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeThe selling point behind Landing tabs was that they could be default instead of the wall, and like gated to give you full Brand Advertisement to new users up front and center. That way you would at the least be seen by a new user, and build a steady audience with the possibility of capturing a sale, instead of being trolled by users skipping over fan pages (like it will be now) without liking your page. There will be way less likelihood they will like your page now, even if it is a good Brand, nor click on your custom tabs to see your Adverts.Why? Because now they are not brought to the first page in the book anymore, but the last.. Most will like a few of you wall posts, not like your page, and see ya, on to the next. You will have to spend huge amounts of your time now pushing the brand presence on the wall with mini articles.Do you folks know what a Professionally made Landing page is? Do you even have one? And I'm not talking about the hundreds of generic cloned freebies.
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeDrew Olanoff Eric Lepping Fan-gating is alive, however there is a bug. https://developers.facebook.com/bugs/228778937218386?browse=search_4f4e6c6fda0933657992089.
Landing tabs still have their place on Facebook. Losing the default view option is unfortunate, but the more visible Icons at the top of your page help bring attention to them. Apps can also be highly effective when used as landing pages for advertising, or when linked directly to from your website and any other online presences you have. In reality, a very small percentage of historical page views to our client Welcome tabs would have been lost due to this change. Most are direct links from external sources.
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
Likehorrible. Never liked Timeline now you rip away landing pages and hide the icons I spent months getting people to notice.
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeEpic Fail!
As a landing tab developer and seller, this is complete BS. They encourage making apps and landing tabs for years, you learn all their language and how to do it, people build their business around Apps and landing tabs, then just like that without consideration poof your business is gone by taking the default tab out. They did not have to do that, in fact a better wider landing tab in the Iframe, looking more like a web page with a like gate could have been implemented now with the new Timeline. But hey, lets just step on all those businesses toes without warning that made FB fan pages and advertisements more receptive for customers and all their Fan page users.I had seen great potential in Timeline for Landing tabs, now I see FB has no vision or considerations, and cloned the public Timeline to fan pages without businesses in mind. I also see a possible lawsuit coming on!
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeBill Wooding drop me a note to drew at thenextweb.com, have a few questions for you on this.
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeThis is an interesting twist for brands on social media. We're so used to open communication on Facebook and Twitter - which will still be available, but now brands can bury user generated content and push their messages more. I guess it's good for brands, but not so great for open communication
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeBrand pages are no longer allowed to contact - or even identify - 95%+ of their fans.
Seriously, what's the point of having them?
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeMark McAndrew where do you see that? can't you go into "likes" and see all of the people who have liked the page?
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
Likemrjessebh Nope. You could a few weeks back, but clicking 'likes' now takes you to the Insights page. All fans are now anonymous. Not sure when they pulled that little trick. Killed our ad spend stone dead, that I do know.
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeMark McAndrew mrjessebh Nope Mark, you CAN see all the likes of your page. Even when you are taken to the insights page, there is a link at the right top of the first graph. saying "See likes".
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeMark McAndrew mrjessebh You can also use this little trick to view a page's fans (works with any page that you have the ID for).
Paste this into URL bar (append the page ID of the page for which you want to see the list of fans): https://www.facebook.com/browse/page_fans/?page_id=
To find your page ID if you have a vanity URL:
Click the "Admin Panel" button at the top right of the page. In the box that opens up, the bottom left section is titled "New Likes." Right click on "See All" in that section's title bar and copy the link. Paste that anywhere so that you can see the actual link. Copy the number listed after "page_id=" (this is your page's ID).
You can just click on "See All," but then you may not see all of your fans at once. I also find it easier to view all of the fans on one full page, rather than in the little box that pops up.
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeSonal Agrawal Mark McAndrew mrjessebh Ummm, where do you see this "See Likes" feature? I'm logged into one of my pages, and do not see it to the right above the graph........????
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeLooks like the potential is great, and we'll have a lot of fun working with our clients on making the most of this... and then we'll have a lot of fun working with our clients on the NEXT iteration of Facebook's brand pages when they change it all again in another 6-months or so... just like they usually do!
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
LikeConversation from Facebook
When I first saw the previews of the Timeline at F8 2011 I was one of the few people I knew who was pretty excited for the new direction Facebook was headed with personalization. I love the idea for individuals and I think it's got a lot of potential to be pretty effective for each person (assuming they learn how to utilize it to their advantage). That being said I don't know that the same incarnation of the Timeline is as effective for Facebook's 'pages'. A good portion of us have spent considerable amounts of time working on designing the pages to align with our brand images, and some have even dropped cash into landing pages, custom tabs, etc. I'm a little surprised the guys on Zuckerberg's team wouldn't have taken that into account...
Timeline is not the way to send a company´s message...you loose all impact... lets see what FB will bring...
Time to get creative AGAIN!
horrible. Never liked Timeline now you rip away landing pages and hide the icons I spent months getting people to notice. Thanks for the 'help' FB
Loss of landing pages will require complete shift from link-gate model. Initial feedback from users has been negative but we'll all get accustomed to it.
Hello MySpace 2.0. Pretty pathetic that: "You may not encourage or incentivize people to upload your cover image to their personal timelines."
Wee Little Arts, Inc. To lose the landing pages will upset millions of businesses. They need to fix this within the month. Check out ours while you still can. :)
I HATE THE TIMELINE,WAY 2 COMPLICATED
I'm a little ceptic...
Yeah I think the change has the potential to be positive but in it's current form it appears rushed. The custom tabs option is marginalized in the sense that going to a custom tab now takes the user to an incomplete-looking blank page without the familiar components like ads, cover image and the ability to navigate to other tabs. I'm lukewarm at best about this.
I had hoped they'd make it editable by the page so we could re-arrange things. I'd like to make photo albums more prominent than friends who like this, for example.
"Discussions" have already "been disappeared"...
Actually.... I don't like it
Thank god I use the Matt Kruse's browser plug-in "Social Fixer" so that I see the timeline in 1 column and don't have to follow this 2 column zick-zack
i'm wondering what's going to happen to the customized landing tabs. vanishing?
i think i might need to consider G+ spend lots of time on costum facebook sites they are robers
It's going to make the revamped Groups look more attractive again.
It's GREAT!
loathesome
Me parece bien me gusta.
I think it's going to have a huge learning curve for people unfamiliar with the timeline setup.