Today, Wednesday February 29th, Facebook announced that Pages will switch to a Timeline layout on March 30th, 2012. While Timeline brings a new layout for your page, we have been prepared for this and already upgraded your BandPage.
To help you prepare your Page for the new Timeline layout, we’ve created Best Practices for Facebook Timeline Pages.
The slideshow above runs through all of the different changes coming, the new features that have been added, and suggestions for how you can take advantage of Timeline. Timeline creates a lot of new opportunities for BandPage, and we are very excited to bring you new features and additions that will make BandPage even more useful for musicians and fans.
We’ve got some great things coming, and we’d love to hear your feedback, or any questions that you may have. Please feel free to respond in the comments below, or contact us on Facebook or Twitter with your thoughts.
Cheers,
J Sider and the RootMusic Team
Inactive - Reroute to BandPage Blog 
Will we still be able to make bandpage the primary tab for our page?
Timeline removed Default-landing tab functionality, but you can change the position of Tabs and use your Listn.to URL to link directly to your BandPage. Check out slides 5-7 in our slideshow for all the details :)
In the future are you going to make the band page the full 850px width rather than the current 520px width so that it fits the full page width of the new tabs on pages?
As currently it looks bad with the amount of white border on the sides of the music player.
We don’t have anything to announce just yet, but we’re really excited about all of the new opportunities that the new Tab design gives us!
So in the future then you will be planning to take advantage of this..
We always want BandPage to create the best experience for fans and musicians alike – and we want to take advantage of as many features as we can to create a great experience.
Wholeheartedly agreed! It was the first thing I noticed when I went to my BandPage on Fb’s Timeline UI. Even if we were able to load a background image to the full 850px width it would make a huge difference to the presentation of the page.
….And even if that 850px background was a choice of plain colour it would help. Thanks for a great App :)
Taking advantage of the full screen area as Steven said would absolutely be top priority i think.
You can change icon of the of the Tabs, for apps that aren’t Facebook standard. Edit Page – Apps – Edit settings – Click Custom Tab Image – Upload. You can also edit the name of the tab too.
A very cool tip. Thanks!
Er… Not so unfortunately. You are only offered an option to customise Tabs which are NOT the Facebook ‘standard’. So Apps such as Photos, Notes, Links, Events, etc are not customisable in any way. BandPage is editable but who would want to change such a distinctive and strong icon.
Will you be fixing the default landing tab option for the new timeline feature in the near future?
The default tab option is a Facebook setting/feature that they’ve now removed with Timeline, so unfortunately we can’t do anything with regards to Default Tabs. *But*, we can continue to create more features, options, or Facebook Best Practices/Suggestions that will help musicians drive people to BandPage. We offered some suggestions in the Powerpoint, including using the Listn.to URL in your posts, using it in your About section, etc.
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Sounds to me like Timeline is the worst news ever for BandPage and you’re trying to make it sound like you’re really “excited about all of the new opportunities” when there aren’t any.
My suggestion is you start working on a BandPage feature to automatically edit the page’s Cover photo into something that could include artist data, info and lots of arrows pointing to the exact places where visitors should click on.
I can understand it being see as bad news for BandPage, but there are actually many new opportunities for BandPage that come with Timeline. Many comments have pointed out the increased width, but there are other opportunities as well. We’re working hard right now on creating a great BandPage for Timeline solution – and we can’t wait to show everyone :)
Thanks for all of your feedback and ideas though, as it helps us know what you need and want from BandPage :)
Great introduction, thanks!!
I also would like to see you expand the width of everything to 850 or whatever the max they allow now.
Great i am exicted about the new bandpage layout thanks for the introduction
Hi.
Thanks for the info. I don’t know where my Band Page Editor is located. Is it on my Facebook page? I need instructions on where to find it so I can use the Listn.url.
Val
Your BandPage editor is at http://RootMusic.com – Click “Login”, and there you will be taken to your BandPage Editor
Thanks Sam. Have a great day!
I think Timeline for band pages will be disastrous for our continuing efforts to get folks to our pages and music.
The major change with Timeline is that musicians can no longer set BandPage as their default-tab that is seen by folks that haven’t Liked a page. *But*, there are other changes like Highlighting posts, Pinning posts, and posts that are much larger on Timeline, that all help you promote your Music and BandPage.
Try posting a track from your BandPage, highlighting it on your Timeline, and then Pinning it to the top of your Timeline. That will help drive people to BandPage and share your new track with fans :). You should also make sure that BandPage is your first Tab on your Timeline, and that your Listn.to URL is in your Page Bio at the top of your Timeline.
Time to make the change for us as well I guess…
I have a better suggestion! Why don’t you guys create your own social network page and then all of us really dissatisfied musicians will happily migrate over there!!!
Well, the Timline changes a lot right now. From a marketing tool it becomes more of an identity one. It was easier once to have all those tabs visible. Right now it’ll probably take time for users to accomodate.
Loved the Timline for personal site. Totaly disliked for the pages. But after this text I guess it’s generaly about the change in thinking about facebook. Now it’s more a news page.
Time will show what Timeline will bring us…
Thx BandPage for Your article, and foremost for Your great app, best wishes and I’m looking for the new BP design! :)
you guys need to fix that asap. Regardless of the change you should be prepared when people pay for this. I say its bad for business and if I knew that this was going to happen I would have used something free. Jus sayin check my blog out! http://www.dizzywunda.wordpress.com
I can’t really understand why everyone is so serious about this. Things change.
Thanks Sam and others for making it so easy for us to understand what’s going.
If your music is good enough, the actual promoting wont have to take place on just the internet. If you / your band is strong enough, you’ll survive a “Timeline defeat” on Facebook. peace
Things change indeed, but in an extremely competitive environment such as the ‘independent music scene’, things changing for the best would be a more welcome change than this type of backward change, with facebook shoving said changes down our throat. (Changes who are ultimately solely serving their own advertising agenda).
Statement like “If your music is good enough, the actual promoting wont have to take place on just the internet”, while true is also completely disconnected from the current reality. As independent unsigned artists, we NEED social network(s) exposure and to have the opportunity for people to access our MUSIC with a single click..not the funny picture of our singer back in June 2009.
Whether we like it or not, currently, for bands without label support, PR agencies and alike, FB is still the go to place for anyone who has some kind of interest in checking out your band. And FB inconsiderate attitude towards that reality is not something I would personally shrug off as a ‘things change’ issue.
Use RootMusic’s option of a nice short web address //listn.to/ and promote yourself using that. Don’t be afraid of change – The latest Fb UI isn’t so bad. Check out my Timeline page as an example: http://www.facebook.com/pages/RedRobin-Music/364102870284243 I used to use my BandPage as landing but much prefer to land on Timeline which has more interest and it’s so easy to then go to my music from there.
A change I’d like to see is our ability as a Musician/Band to invite ‘fans’ directly (I don’t want a Fb Personal Page).
I’m not afraid of change but I do have a problem with changes made on our pages having a direct negative impact on our business. I will be using the listn.to url ‘trick’ once the change is inevitable but it is a bit of a hotchpotch.
I’m glad you’re liking the new timeline but for what I’m concerned it’s a poorly designed, confusing, obtrusive and ineffective piece of layout.
In any case, even with timeline in place, the option to have (any) music player as a landing page should never have been removed. It is after all music we’re talking about here, and imho music streaming /download should be available first and foremost, without requiring people to look for and click on a separate link.
The irony here is that we have been spending hundreds on fb ads pointing to our music player to promote the band and releases, but will be putting a halt on those once March 30th comes around.
I personally cannot wait for a new true music orientated social networking site to take over fb..one can dream I guess.
I agree that Fb should have offered us the option rather than force it on us.
I can see what you mean about the Timeline layout design but if you embrace rather than resist it, you can do things like feature, pin, and delete/hide what you don’t want.
The bottom line is that there’s nothing we can do about it except leave and go back to MySpace (which is apparently regaining popularity). Fortunately I don’t create my music for financial gain, although I wouldn’t say no to a bit of Rock n’Roll lifestyle! I want a Ferrari!
Rootmusic (HUGETHANKS)
it means alot to have something to be able to sue (free)
Unfortunately, I do think I have to jump on the ‘wont be re-subscribing’ this year wagon.
The process of custom pages for FB now out the window a subscription based service for customising and personalising my dominant landing page in fb seems hold less value.
However! I have faith in anyone working on a service and concept that benefits artists of all criteria and continue to be excited by whatever you all come up with to fight the fires in the coming months and eventually revolutionise artist representation within Fb.
+ If you ever want a UX architect to talk to you should get in touch.
I second everyone on saying BandPage should fit the wider timeline pages sometime in the future. Other than that, timeline does look a lot better than the old standard. Once people get used to it it will be great. Can’t wait to see what you guys come up with for BandPage in the future :)
Will BandPage work on my personal “People” Facebook page
http://www.facebook.com/stan.dembowski
or only on my “band page”
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stan-Dembowski-aka-The-Silverfish/7072794041
It doesn’t seem to be working right now?
BandPage only works on Facebook Pages. Looks like yours is setup and working :) http://fb.bandpage.com/TheSilverfish
Click this link:
http://www.facebook.com/stan.dembowski
Now click the Bandpage Icon, third one over.
Why doesn’t this work?
BandPage only works on your Facebook Page. The BandPage section of your personal profile is an aggregate of your activity across all BandPages on Facebook, and a BandPage cannot be installed in its place.
Sorry for any confusion!
It’s obviously great to have the extra width for the BandPage header to better match Fb’s Timeline but we have lost depth and so the image proportions now have graphic limitations. Sure, we have to be creative with whatever we are given to work with but the new header proportions are more limiting.