How to Create a Custom Facebook Page Cover Photo

This is a guest post written by Patti Hale, If you want to contribute guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines and join our information sharing program.

At the end of 2011, Facebook had over 845 million users and over 37 million “Fan Pages” with ten or more “Likes” on the social network. As if those numbers were not enough reason to spruce up your website’s Fan Page, Google has now mentioned that a social media feedback will be a factor in determining a website’s authority. How does a Facebook page get feedback or “likes” from fans?

One way to gain instant credibility is to buy Facebook fans from a reputable dealer.

Another is to take advantage of the free apps Facebook offers for adding polls, videos and photos.

However, none of these methods will be as effective as giving your Facebook Page cover photo a professional appearance. To do this, no programming know how is needed—just a little photo editing know how.

The new timeline now takes the place of any previously designed landing page so it’s important to take advantage of using the new cover photo to your best advantage and learning to customize your tabs.

The cover photo can be 851 wide x 315 pixels wide and can display your products, your business, or people who use your products. It cannot include price, calls to action, contact information or urge people to “Like” or “Share” your page

You can state your primary services or your mission.

What do you use ?

• Pictures of your staff
• Pictures of your business
• Pictures of your products
• Pictures of your customers enjoying your products
• Stock pictures that are representative of your industry

Just be sure to get a high quality picture and crop out anything distracting from the photo.

Want to do something a little more dramatic ?

• Make a collage of products, people or customers.
• Make a grid two deep by however many you can fit in deep of pictures of your products, or customers.
• Show a bit of sense of humor by repeating the same picture of your gleaming product over and over showing one stand-alone picture of your competitor’s product in an unfavorable light.
• Add your mission statement to your picture or logo.

If there is an available area in your picture, you could add your type over your picture. If your picture or logo is squarer than it is long, you can place your logo on top of one of the many generic backgrounds and textures found on the web.

You could also add to the background of the picture by using the add canvas feature in Photoshop.

Here’s how to do that

• After you have selected your profile picture, open the image in Photoshop or one of the many free photo-editing programs available on the web.
• After your image is open, go to the Image menu and select image size. Check to see that the constrain proportions box is checked and then change the height of the of the image to 315 pixels
• Now go back to the image menu and select Canvas. Here you will see a box divided up into nine sections with the middle section highlighted. To anchor your picture to the right, select the middle section in first section.
• If it is not already selected, change the selection box to pixels in the “New size” dialogue box and then change the width to 851 keeping the height at 315 pixels.

This will give you an 831 x 315-pixel “canvas” area to work with that is the maximum size allowed for your Facebook Page Cover Photo.

You could now add type to the white background using the typing tool or change the new background area to something that will blend better with your photo or logo.

To do this, use the square marquee tool on the fly out toolbar (tool with border made out of long dashes) and select the area you want to change. Pick the eyedropper from the tool bar and click on a color in your photo that you would like to match. Go to the edit menu and select fill with foreground color. If the color is to your liking deselect, if not try again with the eyedropper tool or choose from a color from the color menu.

Another option is to use the round marquee tool and drawing a long oval. After you have the oval, where you want, go to the Select menu, choose “Inverse”, and fill the selection. This will give you a solid rectangle with a white oval in the middle to use as a background.

Now that you have the basic background, it’s time to add whatever message you desire: slogan, web descriptions, to make your Facebook Page stand out among the millions!

Author Bio :- Patti Hale is a former advertising exec and print shop owner who enjoys writing about ways to market on the web.