You may have noticed that some of your FB friends have already adopted the new FB Timeline profile and you can easily recognize the FB Timeline profile by its large showcase picture, (742 px. width) displayed at the top of a FB Timeline profile page.

Customizing the Timeline:

The Years:

Navigate to the About Timeline page.  Click on “get timeline,”  and you will now be presented with the Facebook Timeline page. The first step in customizing your timeline starts at the upper right hand section of the page. This is the chronological year's area that starts at the bottom, with the text icon, “Born” is the area's starting point, the year of your birth.

Click on the “Born” icon and a pop up window will open allowing you to add photos or upload photos pertaining to the event(s) of your birth. You can also add a location to this area along with names of people who may have been present at the time of your birth. Lastly, in this same area, you can add a story about your birth.

If you click on any date in the timeline area along the “Born” text icon axis line, i.e., 2008, 2006, 2004, or whatever dates are present in your date axis line, these will also open event pop up windows. These event pop up windows will display any information that is currently stored in those date events. You can also choose to add new event information in each of those year areas, just as you did with the “Born” event.  In short, this is your life history on a single page.

Life Events:

Located under the main showcase photo (the large 742 pixel pic), at the top, and just to the left of the center line in the middle of the page, is where you can add Life Events information, such as;

• Work & Education
• Family & Relationships
• Home & Living
• Health & Living
• Travel & Experiences

To Access a Life Event category, Click on the “Life Events” tab at the end of the row where you will see Status, Photos, Place and Life Events.

When you click one of the Life Events categories, a sub menu of items will be displayed. For example, if you click on “Work & Education,” its sub menu will emerge with the following items listed:

Work & Education:

• New Job
• Retirement
• New School
• Study Abroad
• Volunteer Work
• Military Service
• Other Life Event

You can now click on one of these sub menu items and a pop up window will emerge that can be populated with information and photos, etc.. Each Life Event category has a sub menu item list that you can choose to populate.

Listing Friends:

If you are wondering who will be able to view your Life Event category details, you have control over the selection process.

Once you have opened a pop up window from a sub menu item under a category listing from the Life Events area, you will notice a “Public” box at the bottom right of the pop up window and from there, you can select which friends, groups and/or lists you will allow to view this information.

You can also choose to type in a name, or names of friends you wish to grant viewing access for a sub menu topic. Note: It is important to start creating lists of friends and organize them into various groups for viewing purposes.

Cover Art:

For those of you who are looking for a quick way to add the 742 pixel showcase image at the top of the Timeline, and do not have access to a professional graphics program, visit http://www.picnik.com. There you can find free art to use for your Timeline images.

Locations:

Another new area in the FB Timeline is the Location/Map box. This box is located on the row containing a set of four boxes; Friends, Photos, Maps and Likes. The Map box is located to the left, under the main showcase picture. The Map box allows you to set locations for a number of instances such as; places you’ve lived, or liked, trips you taken, etc.. You can also add photos to the map and more.

Featuring Your Content:

You can feature your content with a simple click. Choose a box on the page that is populated with content and hover your mouse over the box area. A star and pencil icon(s) will appear at the upper right corner of the box. When you click on the star icon, your box image now expands across the width of the page, similar to the showcase photo at the top of the page.

Editing Your Content:

When you want to edit your content, (any content box) click on the pencil icon (next to the star icon) and a drop down menu will appear with the following options:

• Change date
• Add location
• Hide from Timeline
• Delete post
• Report/Mark as spam

Video Feature:

Do you want to upload a video from YouTube directly into Facebook?, you also have the option of choosing to feature the video. What is really outstanding about this feature is that when you click the star icon to publish the feature option, the video will take up the entire width of the page in HD. Cool! At 1017 x 566 pixels on the timeline, that’s awesome!

To upload a video directly to FB, select the second box, “Photo,” located on the same row as the “Life Event” selection box. Once you open the photo box you will be presented with video upload options.

Now that you have a handle on how to customize your FB timeline, you are ready to invite more friends to join and share your life’s best moments online.

See you next week at Today’s Marketing Blog’s Thursday Edition, where we will present Part 1 of the “Head In the Cloud” series, “Today’s Web Experience Challenges.”

MatterMax Media is a full service integrated marketing agency located in Stone Mountain, Georgia.  MatterMax Media provides strategy, technology, marketing and training for individuals, businesses and government.  Today’s Marketing Blog focuses on Entrepreneurship, Marketing and Web Matters.  When you require assistance with your website creation, branding/marketing strategy, feel free to contact us.