This week Facebook announced that their new ‘Timeline’ profile layout will become mandatory for all Facebook users within the next few weeks. For those of you who don’t know already, Facebook’s time line (described as the ‘digital scrapbook’ by Mark Zuckerberg) is essentially your life on Facebook in chronological order – everything including: status updates, pictures and posts.
So how does Timeline work and how can I set up my own Timeline? Well to answer this question, here are a few simple tips to get you started.
Work out how to navigate around your timeline – You can do this by either scrolling down your page, or at the top right of your profile you are able to choose a year and month and you will jump to that particular time on your timeline.
Choose a profile picture and a cover image – Your Profile picture will appear as your image when posting updates or commenting on other status and your cover image will provide the backdrop for your timeline itself. You can merge the two images together. Click here to see some great examples!
Match up the events in your life with the time that they happened – Yes this may be a timely project but it will make your profile a lot easier to navigate around. It’s also the perfect opportunity to clean your profile, i.e. get rid of any irrelevant or embarrassing status updates or pictures.
You can also add status and pictures to any time in history – Your first family holiday may be added to July 1992 for example. When updating your status click on the clock at the bottom of the status update box and choose the time in your life an event happened. You can tag where the event happened and with whom and also you can click on the timeline itself, at the time in history when the event happened, and add your story. The final way to add an old story to your timeline is by clicking ‘life event’, it will then give you the option to choose what type of event it was and will allow you to fill in the details.
What do you want others to see? – When updating your timeline some status and pictures may appear on your time while some may not. If you have a picture or status you particularly want to stay on your profile click on the star icon and they will remain on your profile constantly. If you wish to hide a story from your timeline then click on the pencil icon and choose the option hide from timeline and it will be constantly hidden. These stories will still stay in your activity log but only you will be able to see them.
There we have it, 4 simple tips to help you customise your own timeline and get used to Facebook’s latest feature. If there are any further questions you have about this feature then pop them in a comment in the box below.
