Since I started teaching courses to entrepreneurs in the use of Social Media as business marketing tools, I’ve had to keep up with the ever changing Facebook user interface. So when Facebook started suggesting to regular users that they should try the new Timeline sometime in December, I signed up to try it. At the time I didn’t upload a Cover Photo and didn’t bother to Publish my Timeline before the December 23, 2011 the trial-end deadline. When Facebook automatically published my Timeline (because I had already signed up for the trial), I wasn’t too concerned about missing the Cover Photo until a week ago when I tried to upload and save my Cover Photo.

Facebook Timeline Cover Photo issues

As and instructor, I refer learners to documentation, so I started by looking up Cover Photo on Facebook Help Center. Once I had all the facts like maximum image size (15 MB) and accurate dimensions (720 pixels wide), I tried to upload and save my Cover Photo to the new Timeline. Well the uploading part went without a hitch, I could now see my Cover Image with a control box over it saying “Drag to Reposition Cover”, I could see the image was Public, there was also a “Save Changes” and “Cancel” button right below the image on the right hand side. All was good until I tried to save the image and nothing happened, everything stayed as it was. The image could still be dragged around and I wasn’t notified about the image being saved. If I navigated away from the page and came back the image was gone.

Thinking that it was a browser related new user interface bug, I re-tried with Firefox, Chrome, Safari and even IE and no go. I had the exact same problem regardless of the browser I used to upload the Cover Photo. So I referred to the Facebook Bugs and Known Issues Page on Photos to find no mention of this bug. A little more digging around in the support forums revealed different layers of the same problem reported by hundreds if not thousands of Facebook users over the past week, many looking for answers and others desperately wanting to revert back to the old profile (which by the way isn’t possible).

Facebook timeline cover doesn’t work

Reading through hundreds of remarks on the FB forums, Yahoo Answers and a handful of blogs like this one, I gathered the different user interface issues are:

• Unable to upload Cover Photo
• Unable to Save Cover Photo once uploaded
• Unable to upload Profile Image in some cases
• Unable to change Cover Photo once saved

affecting mostly those who:

• Signed up for the Timeline trial, didn’t upload a cover and had Timeline automatically activated by Facebook on December 23 or thereabouts
• Accidentally deleted their Cover Photo Album
• Deleted their only Cover Photo rather than replacing the existing

A few users haven’t been able to change their new Timeline Cover Photo once they uploaded it.

Other FB users reported getting around the issue by:

• Switching browsers
• Uploading an image to Photos and then assigning it as the Cover Photo
• Creating an Album called Cover Photos with the selected photo and then assigning the image as the Cover Photo

None of the above solutions worked in my case or in the case of hundreds of other users.

No Support from Facebook — No Surprise!

As of today the Facebook Cover Page bug seems to be an unresolved user interface issue among a few others with the introduction of the new Timeline. I am personally not surprised that Facebook hasn’t got around to acknowledging this bug yet. There is no information about it in the Help Center and no posts under Facebook’s Bug’s and Known Issues section. Users are asked to send a report about new bugs but we know that nobody ever gets a reply from Facebook in reporting new issues.

One post I read suggested that Facebook hasn’t done anything about this issue yet because the problem hasn’t hit mainstream online media yet. Quite possible!

Thankfully the big white space on top of my FB Timeline isn’t as life changing for me as it is for some others.  I’ve put enough time looking into this to confirm it’s a common issue and can now sit back and wait until Facebook has fixed it. If a question comes up in my next Facebook for Business class about this bug, I’ll have my answer ready!

Don’t put all your eggs in the FB basket

Thought Facebook can be a great tool for connecting your business to your customers, it shouldn’t be your only method of online presence. Facebook is unpredictable, evident by the current Cover Photo issue and Facebook’s lack of acknowledgment, support and response. Facebook doesn’t grant average users like owners of small business and companies the type of control and support required to confidently represent their business online using Facbook alone.

The worse case scenario I can picture is having the only FB account connected to your business page suspended by Facebook. This can prove to be extremely costly if you have an active page with lots of followers. Even if something like this happened in error, you’ll have no chance of receiving support from Facebook.

For business and organizations I’ve always recommended the use of a Content Management System or a blog integrated into a website over posting to Facebook alone. This provides the site owner with a place to post exactly what they want their audience to see. Signing up for a cloud hosted solution like WordPress can enable users to manage their online content as easily as they would post to Facebook. WordPress offers a great support section. If you choose to self host, you can pay for support or find a designer who can assist you. Whatever form of online solution you choose to publish your web content, as a business I recommend not relying on Social Media alone to achieve this.

For the average Facebook user my advice is to back up your FB data if it really matters to you. If you are dealing with a Facbook issue like the Facebook Cover Photo bug and not finding the answers you are looking for, don’t get frustrated and trust that you are not alone. Instead make a statement to Facebook by logging-out, going outside for some fresh air and enjoying some human contact until they’ve figure it out!

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Other blogs I found on the subject:

AIS Journal: This guy made me chuckle.

A Tech Girl’s Life

PLEASE NOTE: The information provided here on this subject reflects the personal opinion of the writer. This information is provided as reference material to our Social Media and Web clients.

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After seeing numerous friends post to their status about “Unsubscribing to Comments and Likes”, I’ve taken it upon myself to correct this misinformation.

Most of you may have seen a message similar to this posted on Facebook by a friend:

Hello FRIENDS! As you all know I like to keep my FB private except to those I am friends with. So if you all would do the following, I’d appreciate it. With the new FB timeline on its way this week for EVERYONE… please do both of us a favor: Hover over my name above. In a few seconds you’ll see a box that says “Subscribed”. Hover over that, then go to “Comments and Likes” and unclick it. That will stop my posts and yours to me from showing up on the side bar for everyone to see, but most importantly it limits hackers from invading our profiles. If you repost this I will do the same for you. You’ll know I’ve acknowledged you because if you tell me that you’ve done it I’ll “like” it

I teach courses in marketing using social media sites like Facebook so I have familiarized myself with most of its features and all there is to know about privacy.

The new Ticker function on the top right side of your Facebook homepage only shows activities and updates of you and your friends on other people’s pages if you and your friends have made your posts public.

“Un-check Comments and Likes” of friends,  and YOU will no longer see their activity updates

If you “Un-check Comments and Likes” of friends, YOU will no longer be notified of your friends’ activities on your timeline. However this action doesn’t stop your friends’ activities from showing on the Ticker.

Because this false message is being passed around on Facebook in error, Facebook has posted more information about it on their help page.  Please visit the Facebook Help section on the subject Who can see stories about my comments and likes in ticker? for detailed information.

Post author determines post privacy

Here’s the complete help page on Facebook explaining how the Ticker works. On this page Facebook notes the following in regards to comment privacy:

To control stories about your commenting activity in ticker and News Feed, always check who can see the privacy of the posts you’re commenting on.

The privacy level of a post determines who sees the post.  The visibility of your comment on a post is directly dependent on the privacy settings of the post. This means regardless of who is “Subscribed or Unsubscribed” to your “comments and likes”, your comments will be visible to the public if you comment on a post which is set to be visible to the public.

Again please refer to the Facebook Help pages on this subject to get the correct information about sharing.

Cheers,

Nikta

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Both documents are PDFs with live links to essential pages.

Facebook For Business — Beginners (Downloads PDF file)

Facebook For Business — Advance (Downloads PDF file)

Customized user manual was designed for user. Provided one-on-one training to client for using the site as a content management system.

Visit the site: silvertonresort.com

view the complete booklet here

Other products and services provided for this client: business card design & production, web-page design, auto decals, site signage, print marketing and advertising

We also created a complete CMS website, created the design and managed production of all printed marketing material.