Today, Facebook is rolling out a new look and feel for business pages by incorporating Timeline across the globe. Timeline was rolled out a few months ago for personal profiles and now business pages are getting similar treatment. There are some really terrific timeline pages out there, such as Coca-Cola, Starbucks and the New York Times to name a few. Of course, we’re proud to show off our creative handy work as well. What’s neat about timeline is it allows companies to not just post content, but also display it in a timeline layout with visual elements, like photos, videos and other creative assets that add texture to the “timeline event.”
Dell has a number of Facebook pages, so I was challenged to select just a few to showcase here: the main Dell Facebook page, the Dell Enterprise page and our awesome gaming brand page, Alienware.
The passionate admins here at Dell are having fun dressing up the new timelines. The team meetings and emails are really fun. It’s one of the most creative efforts I’ve seen for a social media brand page launch. Kudos to Facebook for empowering brands to really showcase their history, their values, their fans (yeah, that’s YOU guys!) and of course their products and services. In fact, it is in this same spirit that Dell works to provide its customers the power to do more. Facebook is definitely delivering on that principle and we’re excited to incorporate the new capabilities of timeline.
In 2008, Dell first joined Facebook when there were “only” ~130,000,000 people on the site (see image below). Boy, has Facebook grown since then! Facebook now has 845 million active users.
Historical timeline events are rich way for a company to share its early documents, logos, product shots, customers, designs, buildings and other fun facts about that company; for example, one of the timeline events is the company “Founded” event. For Dell, we’ve included the founding year of 1984 and one of Michael Dell’s very first handwritten invoices when he was starting his business back in the dorm room at the University of Texas.
Coca-Cola and the New York Times also have some nostalgic historical timeline events. These timeline photos definitely bring these brands to life, allowing everyone to connect with the brand’s historical roots.
Here’s another great milestone from 1989: Dell turns five years old. Company photo below.
Here’s another fun timeline event, Dell’s first laptop. It was really portable and light for the time in 1989, weighing in at only 15 pounds! It is amazing to see just how much technology has progressed. Do you remember these early Dell laptops? Did you have one? We’d love to see your old photos of Dell products like this.
Here’s how some of the Dell Facebook page looks before (left) and after with the new Timeline activated (right):
The Dell Enterprise Facebook page:
Here’s the new Alienware Facebook page:
We look forward to sharing more than just “status updates” now that we have timeline which is much more interactive. We look forward to sharing full-width posts like the one captured above, including rich media videos and full width photos.
What kind of timeline events do you think we should be adding to our pages? We’d love to have you suggest events, photos and videos to include on our pages.
Of course, we welcome your feedback here on the blog and definitely welcome your thoughts over on our Facebook pages too!