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I’ve just updated Despreneur fan page on Facebook by adding a new cover image as Facebook has recently refreshed their page structure. Facebook being the biggest social network in the world is helping millions of business to market themselves as well as communicate with their customers.
In this article I’d like to share some tips that will help you to make your business page look professional and more appealing to your audience. Utilising these 5 easy to implement tips you will be able to design a precise and sharp looking cover image that will attract more fans and keep them engaged.
1. Pick a welcoming image
Vranov nad Dyji Town, Czech Republic by Viktor Hanacek
A picture is worth a thousand words. Pick an image that tells what your page is all about or at least is interesting enough to grab visitor’s attention and you’re half done.
“Many people buy for emotional reasons. If you make them feel just right, they’ll take action. The same rule applies when choosing images for your site. A positive image brings out positive emotions. Emotions are powerful, and they work.”, claims Mustafa Khundmiri on KISSmetrics blog.
Here are 15 great sources for free images for your next Facebook cover.
2. Use negative space
Use negative space if you want to draw attention to a message or other part of the image. Take a look at the Mercedes-Benz example above of how message has been placed on the top left corner of the image taking advantage of its darkness and contrast between the background and the message.
3. Make sure to leave space for profile image, description and buttons
In the new Facebook page structure call to action buttons such as “like”, “message” and “other” buttons overlay the cover image creating some potential legibility issues if you are using a visually noisy or very bright image.
You should keep in mind that this may confuse users and make it hard to locate the needed button so you may lose potential fans. To avoid such loss you can simply ensure that you have solid color at the bottom of your image or you can simply put elegant black-to-transparent gradient on the bottom of the image to make it more suitable for light buttons.
4. Use the exact cover image resolution
Click on the image for full view and use it as a template.
The new cover image resolution has changed by just one pixel in height but that will definitely make a slight difference. Always use the exact resolution of the cover image to avoid automatic resizing that results in disproportionately stretched image and blurriness. The new Facebook cover image resolution is 851×314 px.
One more very important thing is not to place anything important at the bottom where profile image, page title and buttons will cover up the image.
5. Save as PNG
Finally, after you’ve designed your cover image save it as PNG. This is the format that Facebook doesn’t destroy that much after uploading a file. I use this format for uploading pictures I use to illustrate posts or links on Despreneur Facebook page. Compared to JPG, PNG looks much sharper and not pixelated after uploading. Most likely Facebook has a very strong compression engine that basically shreds your images to be as lightweight as possible what turns out to be a crappy quality at the end.
For better performance use TinyPNG, online tool that compresses PNG files without losing quality.
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