As part of its move turn user and company profiles into story-telling devices, Facebook rolled out Timeline Apps to help share interesting and relevant content related to purchases, trips, recipes and other activities on the Timeline. The move encourages users and page administrators to actively update their Timelines to mirror their lives.
The apps mostly deal with hobbies, such as cooking, traveling, etc., but the company will continue to innovate to allow for more relevant sharing.
For marketers, the move is highly indicative of the need to shift from static page elements, such as tabs and statuses, to more dynamic, engaging content. While many of the apps may not apply for marketers, the motivation for their development can inform social media marketing strategies. Updating fans on milestones for the business or new offerings with content shared on brand walls will keep them engaged.
Facebook’s desire to highlight more interactive content for both marketers and consumer profiles appears to have worked in the sense that people are interacting with the site differently. Under the original business page layout, tabs were a major focus of the profile. Marketers could create different tabs for content, sales or events and items they offered to drive visibility. However, Brafton recently cited a report from PageLever that found tab engagement has fallen by more than 50 percent since Timeline’s full rollout in late March.
