Facebook 101: Branding & Customization

You’ve claimed your Facebook page and optimized your about section. Next comes the fun part: designing your profile picture and cover image.

The Profile Picture

Many companies like to put their company logo as their profile picture for branding purposes. While I agree that this makes a lot of sense for a large corporation like Target or Red Bull, I don’t believe this is the best strategy for a small, professional service like dentistry. Larger corporations are supposed to be faceless entities with their own reputation and easily recognized logo. I believe that dental offices should always have a professional photo of the top dentist for their profile picture. Dentistry is a highly personal and trust-based industry and facial recognition is a great way for your people to get comfortable with you before they even meet you.  Every post you make also has your profile picture next to it. I also think that readers respond better to news feed posts that show a human is creating them especially in an industry with face-to-face contact.

Editing your profile picture.

Profile picture size is 160×160 and is shown as a square but the image you upload has to be 180×180 or more to be accepted. A professional head shot where you look relaxed and approachable works best. If you use a rectangular image you will have to edit it after you upload to get the best visual. Keep your profile picture current by changing it up once in a while. When you change your profile or cover image it shows up in people’s news feeds.

The Cover Image

Facebook cover images are relatively new. For those if you not familiar with them, they are the large banner images at the top of your Facebook profile page. They are available for both personal and business accounts. For a business page, the cover image is very important. It’s the first thing people see when they view your page and gives the first impression of what your business is about. Here is where you want to show off your creativity and eye for design.

Be creative!

The dimensions for the cover are 851×315 although I like to design them a little bigger so I have room to move the image around a bit in the given space. This is where you want your logo featured and possibly your tagline or practice motto. Just keep in mind that in the bottom left of the image you need to leave sufficient space for your profile picture to overlap (see below).

Facebook sizing cheat sheet.

Keep it colorful, interesting, and eye catching and don’t forget to change your cover image every once in a while. I like to change up covers when the holidays roll around and when a practice is doing a promotion, I’ll feature that on the cover as well. Just keep in mind to keep in Facebook’s cover image guidelines, which include not having your website address in the cover and not having more than 20% text.

Here are some examples of cover images I’ve done for various dental practices:

Fall design for a dentist in Calgary.

Fall cover for NJ dentist.

Spring cover for Lafayette dentist.

Experiment with different ideas and see what you can come up with. Remember, this is the fun part!