You heard you needed a Facebook presence, so you threw together a page for your business. When it came time to load an image, what did you choose?
If you were in a hurry to get something up, you probably just tried to find any image related to your business that seemed like it could work. Maybe you cropped a stock image to be the right size or picked something generic but basically relevant.
If you just went for an easy image that fit, you’re missing a real opportunity. Your Facebook cover photo does matter and you should invest the time or money to create one that really communicates what your business is. If you’re still skeptical, here are a couple of reasons to reconsider.
Facebook is where a lot of your audience is.
Facebook has over 1.65 billion active users, over a billion of which visit the website every day. With numbers like that, chances are a lot of your customers and potential customers are spending time on Facebook.
[bctt tweet=”Chances are a lot of your customers and potential customers are spending time on Facebook. ” username=”hostgator”]
And a lot of them are interacting with brands while they’re there. 52% of people using the popular social media platform have said they’ve liked brands on Facebook before.
Facebook therefore shouldn’t be treated as an afterthought. It’s a place for you to directly connect with your customers, which is extremely valuable to you. More importantly, for a lot of your customers, it may be the main place they see and interact with your brand.
The face you put forward on Facebook will have a significant impact on how your customers see you.
Your photo is the first thing they’ll associate with your brand on the platform.
If you look at any Facebook business page, you’ll immediately see that the photo dominates the page. It’s the first place your eyes are drawn to.
When someone finds your business page on Facebook, that image will be the first thing they notice and associate with your brand. You need to make sure whatever you use represents your brand well and makes your page look good.
What Makes a Good Facebook Photo
Your Facebook cover photo has a few main jobs it needs to do.
It should match the style of your website branding.
To start, your Facebook cover photo is a branding opportunity. You can use it to forward the view of your brand that customers will find in other places, in particular, your website.
Chewy.com’s Facebook cover photo echoes the website’s blue and white color scheme, prominently features the brand’s logo, and includes the brand’s tagline “where pet lovers shop.â€
At a glance, it clarifies who the brand is, who it’s for, and the kind of items they sell. And for anyone that goes from the Facebook page to the website, the visual relationship between the two is clear.
It should communicate something about what your business does.
Your Facebook cover photo isn’t just a branding opportunity; it’s a chance to show off what you do. ModCloth’s cover photo shows models wearing several dresses, skirts, and tops available for sale on their website.
The photo demonstrates the company’s style, makes clear what they do (sell clothes), and doubles as a selling opportunity – several Facebook followers commented on the cover photo to ask where they could find the outfits to buy.
It has to look good.
Any image associated with your brand has to do one last extremely important job: look good.
Adagio teas makes use of the beauty of the setting where their teas are grown to make their Facebook page look great.
The photo’s both beautiful and relevant to what the company sells.
With Facebook cover photos though, there’s a bit more you need to consider to make sure you come up with a cover image that looks good to all your users. You see, your image can’t just look good on a desktop; it also has to look good on mobile devices, and Facebook sizes their cover images differently.
You need an image that works both at:
- 828 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall on desktop, and
- 640 pixels wide and 360 pixels tall on smartphones.
In other words, you need an image that is at least 828 pixels by 360 pixels, but still works if you shave off some of the top and sides. Adagio’s image works just as well on mobile, but check out the comparison.
The difference between the two sizes isn’t too big and therefore finding an image that works on both shouldn’t be too hard to pull off, as long as you’re aware of the issue and make a point to choose something that works in both sizes.
As we already established, coming up with the right Facebook cover image matters. Consider hiring a graphic designer or photographer to help you get it right. A little bit of expense is worth it if it helps solidify your brand and catch the attention of your customers on Facebook.
Kristen Hicks is an Austin-based freelance content writer and lifelong learner with an ongoing curiosity to learn new things. She uses that curiosity, combined with her experience as a freelance business owner, to write about subjects valuable to small business owners on the HostGator blog. You can find her on Twitter at @atxcopywriter.