Facebook Timeline, Where to Get it and How to Use it.
Yesterday, Facebook began rolling out a new feature called Facebook Timeline. It’s not an option that you can just enable through Facebook, however. Today we’re going to show you what this new feature is, and how you can go about enabling it if you so choose.
What is Facebook Timeline?
Timeline is a new feature that replaces your regular Facebook page and wall with a new interface that is a reverse chronology of your Facebook life, displayed in a story format. It’s a mix between a visual blog and a scrapbook. Timeline has been in beta testing for several weeks now, and is finally ready for a public release.
Timeline
The first step in getting Timeline is to visit the Timeline landing page. At the bottom of this page you will find a button labeled “Get Timeline”. Click it to enable Timeline.
Clicking this link will take you to a setup page, where you can start working on your Timeline. It’s not active until you decide to publish it, so you have time to work out the details. However, if you do not publish it within 7 days, it will automatically enable and become visible to your friends if your profile is private, or to everyone if your profile is public.
Now it’s time to start customizing your Timeline. First, you can upload an image to display as a splash screen for your profile, known as a “Cover Image”. You can also add events, data, photos, or whatever else has been published to Facebook in the past. This is where you’ll want to review what you’ve posted in the past, and decide whether you want it to become part of your Timeline. If you do not want it on your Timeline, you’ll need to delete it, or restrict who is able to see it. Every post you have made will have a small pen icon in the corner. You can use this to edit the preferences for each post. At this point, it’s time to consider backing up your Facebook data. If you plan to delete some posts from your Timeline, you’ll want to make sure they’re not gone forever. We’ll show you how to do that now.
Backing up your Facebook data:
If you aren’t concerned about backing up, you can skip this section and continue on to more information about Timeline.
To begin backing up your Facebook data, you’ll need to be aware that this will take some time. If you’ve been on Facebook for some time, you’ll have a lot of data. You’ll also need to answer several confirmation emails, so don’t stray too far from your computer. Make sure you have a couple of hours free to get this done.
- In the upper-right corner, click the “Account” link.
- Select “Account Settings”.
- Find and click the link that says “Download a copy of your Facebook data”.
- Click “Start my archive”.
- Wait for an email that requests confirmation to begin backing up.
- You’ll now need to go through some steps to verify that you are really you.
- Click the link in the email you received and enter your password.
- This part gets tricky. You’ll need to verify your identity by identifying some of your friends who are tagged in photos. This can be difficult if your friends like to post a lot of photos of them in makeup, costumes, masks, etc. If you fail the verification test, you’ll have to click the link in your email again and give it another go.
- Once you pass your test, you’ll get a sizable download containing HTML files and your photos. If you’re not familiar with HTML, these files will look like a bunch of garbage. They are, in fact, all your personal information.
- That will do it. You now have a backup of your data to repost if necessary.
Timeline’s Setup:
Timeline with a Google+ Cover Page. Sneakin' it in on Facebook
Once you have your Timeline set up and published, you’ll have a new look on your Facebook page that will show your latest posts from this month by default. When you scroll to the bottom of the page, it will load posts from last month, and scrolling further will load “highlights” from the last year. You’ll note that you also have a sidebar now with each month listed. You can click on this to see posts from a particular month. You can also access a dropdown menu to jump to specific points in time. Along the top of your profile are other menus to access your photos, likes, and profile.
Adding things to your page now has a couple of other options. For instance, if you want to post a photo of something that happened last year, you can post it at the top of your Timeline as you used to do. However, you can also go back to a the date at which it happened and post it there. To do this, post your picture, comment, or whatever, then hover your mouse over the post. Click the little pencil icon and select “Change Date” to post it elsewhere on the timeline.
Timeline
You can also change to look of your timeline in various ways. The interface is pretty much the same. You can add status updates or make new posts just as you always have. Now, though, you should see a “cover” image at the top of your page, as well as your profile photo. Using the “Add Cover” button on the right-hand side, you can add a new cover image. You can change your cover photo at any time by hovering your mouse over it and selecting “Change Cover”.
Another new feature you’ll see is “starring” a post. If you want to draw attention to a particular post you, or someone else, made on your Timeline you can star it. Just hover your mouse over the post and click the “Star” button. This will make it larger, stretching it across both columns on your Timeline. To delete or edit a post, just hover over it and click the pencil icon.
The big downside of this layout is that everyone can see every post you’ve ever made on Facebook. In some instances, you might not want that. Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to go through and change things. It’s going to take some time and tedium. You can either go through each post individually and hide or delete them using the pencil icon. The other option is if you have any posts that were exclusively sent to groups or friends. You can change the privacy setting for those posts to “Friends Only”. To do this, click the arrow button next to “Home”. Enter “Privacy Settings”. Scroll down to “Limit Audience for Past Posts”. Click “Manage Past Post Visibility”. Click “Limit Old Posts”. This will ensure that only friends can see your older posts. Any new posts will be subject to whatever privacy settings you currently have in effect.
The Timeline feature doesn’t really provide much in the way of new functionality, but the cosmetic update looks very nice. Enjoy the new look of your page!
