How To Optimize Your Facebook Cover Photo
The cover photo on Facebook pages is an excellent opportunity for brands to personalize their pages and advertise their services. Chris, our social media manager, noticed a problem with cover photos recently – namely with the way they're showing up in the newsfeed. Since Facebook changed the feeds users can see, page cover photos are shown in two instances: as a suggested page via paid advertising and when a friend likes a page. Facebook crops the image in different ways depending on the reason they're being shown in the newsfeed. Unfortunately, Facebook crops only certain areas, regardless of whether the important stuff is in those areas. So the text or product you picked especially to represent your brand? It's been cut in half or, worse, not included at all.
For example, here's how one brand's, Snow Lizard, cover photo appears on their page:
And here's how it looks in the newsfeed as a suggested page:
The most important part of Snow Lizard's cover photo, the product, is cut off. Not to mention, the suggested page version of their cover photo doesn't tell audiences anything about Snow Lizard as a company. So how do you make sure your cover photo will be cropped correctly no matter what?
Fortunately for us (and you!), iQuarius is a full service media agency, so Chris was able to talk to Georgette, our interactive designer, and figure out a solution. The best practice is to create a 851x315 cover photo, as those are the exact dimensions of the space. Of course, Facebook is still going to crop your photo in the newsfeed. You then have to make sure that the most important part of your cover photo is in the “safe area”. The safe space is the area on the cover photo that is always included when your cover photo is cropped.
When done incorrectly, the most important information will not fit into the safe area:
According to Facebook’s rule, text on a cover photo most only take up 20%. The text on this image is too big and not properly located. The cropped image would feature dismembered bodies and other floating body parts -- not the image anyone want’s associated with their brand!
By choosing a better suited, correctly sized image and relocating the text, the important information fits into the safe area:
If Snow Lizard had implemented these tips, their suggested page would look like this:
Much better, right?
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