There are five major new features to the timeline-based profile on Facebook. For a good example, please check out mine profile at facebook.com/stevensmacdonald. Please read the rest of this Facebook Training article for a quick review of all the top new features!

New Feature #1 – The Timeline

This is a very unique way to organize a profile…over time. It use to be that the important events in our lives, and then the resulting status updates would quickly fade away and out of view on Facebook. A personal profile should be more than just what’s currently happening, plus some basic information on the back end. Now, you can add photos, videos and standard status updates on your timeline to showcase any point in your entire life. This could represent anything small to the larger milestones of life like your first car, job or child…to business events like starting your company, new product launches, expansions, etc.

The new timeline is also a great tool to start to understand more and more about your prospects! The more that you know about them, the easier it will be to ignite the conversations and relationships!

New Feature #2 – The Cover

The cover is a big billboard at the top of your profile. And I do mean big when I say it. You cannot miss it. The cover is an area where you can place a huge image of you, your family, you playing a sport, exploring one of your hobbies, or just the best picture ever taken of you!

You will start to see why a picture is worth a thousand words. These new covers are adding an incredible opportunity to create instant emotion and a real sense of connection to your profile. This is really good if you are prospecting for business and want to build relationships one-on-one from the start.

New Feature #3 – Story Management

It use to be that your updates, or stories on Facebook, just stacked up chronologically on the page… much like newsfeeds. Now, stories can not only be added onto a timeline over any point in your life, but they can even be highlighted as “featured” stories. Never before did you have the ability to tell Facebook a prioritization of what stories were more important than others. Now you can!

New Feature #4 – List Options

The ability to create custom lists has long been a part of any personal profile on Facebook. And those lists have been extraordinarily useful for prospecting since you can filter your newsfeed by any customized list. Now, Facebook has added two new categories of lists. The first is a set of  ”Default” lists covering categories of friends that Facebook thinks will be important to you. These include Close Friends, Acquaintances, Family and one for your work if you have included it in you basic information.

Another category is called the “Smart” list. This takes information from your personal profile like the high school you attended, or university and puts all your friends that say they have graduated from there as well into these lists automatically. Also, they will give you a list of people that live in the same city as you! Pretty nice that this happens without you lifting a finger.

New Feature #5 – Applications

Facebook has added applications to your profile. Similar to the apps for iPhones or Droids, you now can use apps that automatically put new updates onto your Facebook profile. These apps will update the activities you do in life from running, to watching movies, listening to music, reading books and more. The list of available apps should be growing hugely in the near future!

Other New Tools

You can also see important stories that you would have missed if you hadn’t checked in for a few days. Previously the stories would have just faded away as new stories appeared. Now Facebook knows how long you have been gone and saves Top Stories for you.

You can also subscribe to an individual profile. You never before had the ability to tell Facebook that you wanted to make sure to see updates from a specific person in your newsfeed. Now you can by simply subscribing to that person, even if they aren’t a friend of yours on Facebook.

As you can see, there is a lot of great new features in the timeline-based personal profile on Facebook. Make sure that you watch the webinar to get all the details and implications for you and your business!

The author, Steve MacDonald, is the founder of the Practical Social Media University.

The Practical Social Media University offers an easily understandable curriculum for the busy solo-entrepreneur with no previous social media experience. Through a full training curriculum of webinars, videos and articles, you can learn how to effectively use social media to market your small business online with precision. The trainings are suitable for anyone that is new to social media and doesn’t have any previous experience through the more savvy individuals looking for more advanced techniques and strategies.

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Quote from Steve MacDonald, Founder of the Practical Social Media University, “Our goal is to simplify the overwhelming amount of information and choices to market your business online today into the practical action items that will create the greatest return for your business and bottom line. The Practical Social Media University Offers visual, Step-by-step, practical advice that anyone can understand and put to use immediately in marketing any business.”