Facebook rolls out new brand pages, includes Timeline

Timeline was big news when it landed on all our individual profiles, even if it took a long time to roll out to everyone. Thing is, brands with Facebook pages have been waiting even longer.

Their wait ends today. Brands can upgrade their pages include Timeline immediately, although they do have the option to curate their timelines for 30 days before having to do so.

The social network claims that the new Facebook Pages “help businesses, organisations and brands share their stories and connect with people.”

Among the first brands to receive Timeline were Coca Cola and Starbucks.

TechCrunch’s Josh Constantine reckons that “Timeline should inspire users to spend more time browsing Pages and reading their feed stories”.

The feature could work particularly well for brands with long histories. Think about it, a big news outfit like the New York Times could populate its Timeline with digitised versions of its biggest stories, all the way back to its founding in 1851. In fact it’s already done pretty much that.

MTV’s page meanwhile could remind users of a time when it actually played music.

While Facebook Timeline was initially pitched as “telling the story of your life”, brands must have been considered in their implementation.

Facebook has already made Timeline attractive to some companies by including them apps from some 60 new media partners, such as Foodspotting, Foodily, Ticketmaster, Pinterest, Rotten Tomatoes, Pose, Kobo, Gogobot, and TripAdvisor.

The new apps allow users to update their timelines with activities relevant to them. Pintrest or Pose users, for instance, can use the apps from those companies to post pictures of their favourite items onto their timeline.

The creator of Timeline, Facebook product manager Sam Lessin told TechCrunch that Facebook is “doing this because consistency matters. Organizations have identities too. A lot of brands are’t great storytellers, but the best ones are. All barands should aspire to that level with their Timeline. It weaves together the best stories from the brand and the best stories from your friend about the brand.”