12 Creative Ways to Use Facebook Cover Images for Business
Do you want to do more with your Facebook cover image?
Wondering how other businesses are using Facebook cover images?
Your cover image is the perfect space to tell visitors more about your brand or products or drive home a call to action.
Discover twelve unique ways to use Facebook cover images for business.
#1: Inspire a Purchase
You hear a lot about using video to show how people use a product or service. The same opportunities exist with photos. When you show off your product in your Facebook cover image, you’re planting ideas with your customers that can inspire them to engage with you.
In this cover image, Edible Arrangements puts its product front and center with a “Happy Birthday” message in the background. It’s subtle, but you can use this tactic to paint your product in a way that says, “this is something special.” It’s a clever way to position the colorful display, because we all know someone with a birthday coming up.
While the product is front and center, a Happy Birthday suggestion is also present.
#2: Share Your Value Proposition
Could you define your business in a single second? One of the best and simplest ways to spice up your Facebook cover photo is to challenge yourself to find creative ways to one-line your value proposition and present directly to the people who find your brand on Facebook.
That’s exactly what EYStudios did with a recent cover photo: a sharp and impactful one-liner that expresses who they are and what they can do.
Can you describe your business in one second?
Lee Odden’s team at TopRank Marketing shoots for the same impact.
Short. Inspiring. Descriptive.
#3: Express Your Personality
Any kind of visual content is a huge part of marketing, and it’s one of the best avenues toshow off who you are and the personality behind your business. Your cover photo is a great spot to showcase content that aligns with how you present your brand in other places online.
MailChimp uses its cover photo to show off the company’s personality, along with some clever use of negative space to fix your attention.
Put some brand personality in your Facebook cover photo.
#4: Appeal to the Senses
Any business in the food industry (restaurants, catering, etc.) has a stellar opportunity tograb attention using enticing photos of their mouth-watering offerings. With seasonal changes that bring about new dishes and menu updates, you can swap out Facebook cover photos to showcase what’s new on the menu, along with new promotions.
It can be effective to have a call to action to help describe a product and get visitors moving. However, sometimes it doesn’t hurt to let the product image speak for itself.Little Caesars takes that route by showing off a close-up of their new stuffed crust deep-dish pizza.
Sometimes it’s best to let the product speak for itself.
In the same vein, Papa John’s shows off its product to cater to people who love the look of a mouth-watering pizza. In addition, they saved space to promote a key relationship with Major League Baseball.
Even a small icon helps position Papa John’s in a favorable light with the MLB audience.
When customers love a specific thing about your business, especially a certain product, you can leverage that connection in your Facebook cover photo.
Olive Garden is confident that their customers are addicted to endless breadsticks and massive salads. So, customer favorites are featured in a zoomed-in shot, which makes you feel like you’re sitting right at the table. It’s cruel, but effective.
Are you hungry yet?
#5: Speak to a Niche Audience
For product-based businesses, the Facebook cover photo is a perfect way to feature new or seasonal products, along with your newest and grandest promotions. To maximize impact, include compelling copy and information about the products along with release dates and calls to action.
Logitech G, a company known for computer accessories, used their cover photo to promote a specific line of products. They’ve highlighted an affiliation with the ESL (Electronic Sports League) to promote products for gamers.
Logitech is using an affiliation to showcase products to a specific audience.
Like the Papa John’s cover, this kind of affiliation can improve a business’s position with specific customers.
#6: Inspire Creativity
Your Facebook cover photo doesn’t always have to be a place for explicit advertisement and promotion. Sometimes the strongest message and the best results stem from letting creativity take over.
Take a cue from Toys “R” Us, whose cover photo is a creative play on the imagination of both kids and adults. Fun can be had even with the simplest of things.
Let creativity take over.
#7: Promote a Hashtag
Hashtags are powerful. A number of businesses have had great success with tracking the conversations of fans and monitoring the reach of various marketing campaigns and launches.
Give your hashtags a prominent space within your Facebook cover photo to promote a campaign and spur engagement. That’s what Calvin Klein and Monster Energy have done.
Hashtags in cover photos can kickstart engagement.
Do this with each of your campaigns and it helps train your audience to start watching that space for new promotions.
Cover photo hashtags help train your audience to watch for new promotions.
#8: Feature Your Fans
To celebrate 100 years in business, Oreo uploaded a new Facebook cover photo every day featuring fans who were celebrating a birthday.
Customers love being a part of a brand’s story.
If you make fans a part of your cover photo, it will help them feel valued, show authenticity, and humanize your company. Incorporate their activity, their smiles, or even images of them using your product to tell your brand story.
Red Bull is a people-driven brand and the company loves to incorporate user-generated content. Red Bull’s Facebook cover image acts like an extension of its website, a content hub rich with customer-centric images, videos, and stories.
Integrating user-generated content in a Facebook cover photo can have a powerful effect.
#9: Celebrate Memories
Emotions play a huge role in how consumers act and react, so the emotion that your company evokes in someone can have a big impact. You can use your Facebook cover photo to tell an amazing story fueled by emotion and even nostalgia.
Those emotions drive decisions, change consumer mindsets, prompt action, and can strengthen the loyalty and personal connection someone has with your business.
David’s Bridal plays on the powerful emotions of couples, especially brides, who are envisioning their wedding day. It’s the moment when they’re finally married, the planning is done, and everyone is crazy excited. That can stir up big emotions, and motivation, for the company’s target audience.
Playing on emotion can be a powerful motivator.
Think about the wonder and awe the first time you went to the zoo. Each animal was an amazing discovery. The Detroit Zoo wants you to remember that feeling by featuring a cover photo that attempts to tap into that memory.
Wouldn’t you like your own children to experience the wonder and awe of the Detroit Zoo?
A cover photo from Parents Magazine stirs up emotions tied to parenting, and all at once connects the visitor to the brand. It’s that instant “Parents Magazine gets it” feeling.
Tiny truths. Parents Magazine “gets it.”
#10: Sell the Experience
Businesses that used to just sell products now entice customers with extensions of their businesses: classes, entertainment, social experiences, workshops, and more. They do this because people want experiences.
Don’t sell the product; sell the experience.
Companies can do very well promoting products with their Facebook cover photos, but why stop there? Think about how your customers use your product or your service, and what part is the most memorable for them. Turn it into a visual experience at the top of your page and your followers might want to try it.
Great Wolf Lodge pulls this off with gusto. Sure, they could show a landscape view of their expansive indoor water park, but why not show off the gut-wrenching giant funnel in the middle of a water slide?
Kind of makes you want to try it, right?
Great Wolf Lodge’s giant funnel water slide. Want to try it?
Polaris sells an all-terrain vehicle that crawls over rough ground and brush when necessary, but the company also knows exactly how a lot of their audience really uses their product.
Know your product and how your audience uses it.
#11: Promote a Giveaway
There are a lot of ways to notify your followers when you’re holding a giveaway or contest: push notifications, email, local flyers, social posts, word of mouth, etc. But a lot of those methods only reach people who are already following you. Your Facebook cover photo is a smart way to make sure that contests are visible to everyone, especially new visitors.
KOA (Kampgrounds of America) is known for massive giveaways that include an RV of some kind.
Cover photos can help inform visitors about contests.
#12: Cross-promote Other Social Platforms
If you want more followers on other social networks like Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, or even Pinterest, you’ve got to let people know. Use your Facebook cover photo to swap in the occasional creative that features your top social channels of choice and encourage people to join you there.
Iconic online comedian and family-friendly Batdad uses his Facebook cover photo to feature his other social profiles.
Use your cover photo to let followers know where else to find you.
Conclusion
Want to add a little zest and style up your Facebook cover photo like the brands and public figures above? Keep these tips in mind as you create your own attention-grabbing covers:
- Make sure you design your cover photo to the right dimensions (851 pixels wide x 315 pixels tall).
- Consider using elements that direct the focus of the visitor, especially with a call to action pointing to tabs or your customized CTA button. Arrows are the most obvious choice and work well.
- Make your cover photo part of your content marketing and editorial calendar. Update your cover photo with changes to marketing, new campaigns, new products, events, giveaways, etc.
- Try to update your cover photo at least once a month if nothing else big is happening.
- Use visuals in your cover photo to answer a visitor’s question: “Why should I like this page?”
What do you think? Can your Facebook cover photo incorporate some of these suggestions? How are you using your Facebook cover photo? Please let us know in the comments below!
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