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Starting tomorrow, March 30th, Timeline will be mandatory for business pages. Make sure your business page looks pristine before the changes automatically goes live--whether you're ready or not!

Here are 8 tips to make sure your new business page is right on track:

1. Create a Timeline Cover Image
The cover image appears at the top of your page, nested behind your profile picture and placed above your Wall (AKA Timeline). Your cover image is your first impression on your visiting audience so it's a good idea to put your best foot forward. This is an awesome opportunity to say something big in a visually appealing manner that will allow you to connect with your fans!

Just make sure you stay within the rules:

• No price or purchase information, such as "40% off" or "Download it at our website"
• No contact information, such as web address, email, mailing address or other information intended for your Page's About section
• No 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"

Other tips:

• Customize your image to fit the 851x315 allotted spac
• This image is public for all to see, not just exclusive to your fans
• Covers must not be false, deceptive or misleading, and must not infringe on third parties' intellectual property
• You may not encourage people to upload your cover image to their personal timelines

Experiment with different images to see which ones your fans identify with the most!

2. Upload Your History
Timeline is literally a historic timeline!

You can add milestone dates to your business page's timeline by clicking on the blue "Highlights" line that runs down the middle of the page. You can then enter in the dates, summary, and corresponding picture (image size 843 x 403) of your company's most important events, You can enter in anything such as when the company was founded, customer milestones, awards received/given, branches opened, offices moving, new leadership, etc. The possibilities are endless!

But why is it important to take the time to tediously put in all this information? The timeline allows your fans to humanize your brand. Now they can see where you've come from and how far you've made it as an organization.

Timeline fills in the gap that a lot of social networking sites seem to forget--we existed before this site was created and our past does matter.

3. No More Landing Pages
Default landing pages for business pages are gone with the update to Timeline. You can no longer dictate which page would be the main page when users visit your business page. To some this might be terrible, but there is really great opportunity with this change--many of which are highlighted in this article.

• Maximizing your potential with your cover photo
• Promoting your FB Page by using customized URLs, which lead the audience to one of your Facebook apps (discussed below)

4. Tabs Are Now Apps
If you're no stranger to the Facebook business page world then you're already familiar, and probably using, third-party Facebook tabs on your page. These tabs could be for job boards, places for HTML or iFrames, etc. Well now these tabs are called apps and they play a much more prominent role on your business page.

• 4 apps are always on display underneath your Facebook cover image; you can add,subtract and change their appearance order
• You can utilize a max of 14 custom apps on your timeline
• Create a custom thumbnail for your app, image size is 111 x 74
• Apps have a unique URL that can be used to drive traffic to a specific app, such as one functioning as a landing page
• You can purchase a customized domain URL and have it forward to one of your Facebook apps

5. Fans Can Send You Private Messages
Fans can now send fan-initiated message to your company. This is a great way to deal with customer service and other issues that you may not want displayed for all to see.

6. Highlighted Posts.
You can set any of your posts to be "highlighted" which means it will take up both sides of the page. This feature enables you to bring special attention to--and highlight--a particular post within the timeline. At any time you can remove a post from your page's highlights.

7. Pinned Posts.
If there is a post you want people to pay special attention to when visiting your business page it can be "pinned" to the top of the page. Pinned posts will stay on top of your timeline for up to 7 days before moving down the Timeline. This is a great way to bring attention to something happening this week. However, by pinning a post to remain at the top runs the risk of boring your visitors or creating the illusion that nothing new has been posted since the last time they checked a few days ago. Make sure you change it up open! 

8. Know the Rules Many of the rules were stated above but you may want to read over Facebook's page guidelines forTimeline just to make sure you and your business page is in complete compliance.

If you missed some of the image size requirements, here they are:

• Cover Photo: 851 x 315
• Profile Picture: 180 x 180
• Thumbnail image for apps: 111 x 74
• Highlighted & Milestone images: 843 x 403
• Images within Wall Posts: 404 x 404

Facebook Timeline offers a lot of fun and creative ways for business to connect with their fans. It just a matter of taking the time to learn and master the tools at hand so you can apply it creatively to your businesses sales and communication strategies.

I hope these tips help you with the basics as you make the switch from the old profile to the new and exciting Timeline!