15 Excellent Examples of Small Businesses Rocking the New Facebook Page Design

If you have a Facebook page for your business, you’ve encountered the notice that your page will be changing on March 30.

Ready or not, all Facebook pages will be set up to look like the new personal profiles.
 If you don’t take the time to get your page set up correctly now, your page won’t look too great come March 30.

While many large brands have already got their brand, spankin’ new page up and running, smaller businesses are scrambling to determine how to set up their page to accommodate the new look.

To help you convert to the new look in style, I’ve compiled some of the best resources I’ve found to help you get up and running:

• Five Tricks Every Marketer Needs to Know to Exploit the New Facebook Design – Duct Tape Marketing
• New Features of the Facebook Timeline: A Guide for Business – Lunametrics
• The Complete Guide to Setting Up the New Facebook Design – Hubspot
• 28 Things You
   Need to Know about the New Facebook Pages – Kissmetrics

And, to give you inspiration for your new page, I’ve collected 15 of the best small business and non-profit pages I’ve found so far. Sure, you can look at Coke, Subway or Walmart, but I wanted to show you that you don’t have to have a huge marketing department to have a sleek new Facebook page design.

Great Cover Images

Perhaps the most noticeable change to the Facebook pages is the addition of the cover photo. While this offers a great visual component to your page, you need to be careful that you avoid calls to action with that image so you don’t violate Facebook’s terms of service.

Even with that caveat, I think the cover photo gives businesses a nice opportunity to visually showcase your brand. Below are a few small businesses that are doing it right.

Arrington Vineyards

Arrington Vineyards proves that your page design doesn’t have to be complex to stand out. The cover photo shows their logo in an interesting way. And the avatar is of Kix Brooks, the founder of the vineyard. Nice. Simple.

Chat Noir Books

Chat Noir Books has one of the most simple, yet creative, images I’ve seen. A kids’ head tucked in a book just says it all.

Zeitlin & Co. Realtors

Zeitlin & Co. Realtors chose a great cover photo that automatically makes you feel at home. Isn’t that what every realty company would want people to feel when visiting their page?

Nashville Ballet

With a stunning cover photo, the Nashville Ballet simply added their logo to the image to help reinforce the brand. Simple. Elegant.

Ross & Rosie Designs

As a company that sells hand-made items, Ross & Rosie Designs created a nice collage that showcases their handiwork.

Charity: Water

Charity Water’s cover image might just be the best one out there. It shows you everything the charity is about with just one image.

Heart Ministry Center

Non-profits may have the easiest job for creating a cover image – just use a compelling that tells the story about your charity. Heart Ministry Center does a nice job with theirs.

Emma

Emma
 proves you can use text to create a gorgeous cover image. And, it’s clever too. It doesn’t cross the line of call to action copy, but when you read this, you know exactly what they what you to do. Smart.

Goodwill of Middle Tennessee

The cover image is a great way to reinforce advertising campaigns outside of Facebook.
 Goodwill of Middle Tennessee
 uses an image that’s part of their billboard and television advertising campaign.

If you’re looking for even more cover photo ideas, check out this nice round up of examples from Nate Riggs.

Hot Buttons

Now that the landing page is gone, you need to make good use of the buttons below your cover image. Here are a few that do a great job of making use of that space.

Paint the Moon Actions

Paint the Moon does a fantastic job creating calls to action with their buttons. When you click on each of the buttons, it takes you to a custom landing pages that drive you to their website. Smart.

Orthopaedic Educational Services

Full disclosure – this is a client and we developed their new page. But, I think the Orthopaedic Educational Services page offers a nice example of what’s possible with the application buttons. For this page, we set it up to encourage sign-ups for their free CME course and e-letter.

The Nashville Symphony

The Nashville Symphony
 created some nifty buttons to go to their custom content. The FB Fan of the Week is a great idea to engage fans. They also have buttons that take you to their upcoming concerts and events.

Sweet Timelines

One of the things you’ll notice with the new pages, is the timeline that runs to the right of the cover photo. This offers a way for businesses to showcase milestones in their business. The New York Times offers one of the most robust timelines I’ve seen, but then again, most small businesses haven’t been around for 150 years.

Here are a few good examples for inspiration.

Magnolia Bakery

Magnolia Bakery has done a lot of things right with their page (what’s not to love about the sweet treats in the cover image?!). But, they’ve also done a nice job with their timeline, showcasing milestones (with images), such as when the bakery appeared on Sex in the City and SNL. Sweet.

Our Savior Lutheran Academy

There are a lot of things to love about the Our Savior Lutheran Academy page – a great cover image with strategic copy, a nice, complete “About” box, and smart buttons to drive awareness to their upcoming events. And, to top it all off, their timeline is filled with great photos of student activities. Nicely done.

One Mango Tree

One Mango Tree’s page is littered with gorgeous photos throughout. Although the timeline doesn’t give much history, businesses can learn a lot from how visually stimulating the timeline looks.

What are your favorites?

We’re still more than two weeks away from the launch of the new Facebook pages, so there will be more excellent examples emerging soon.

I know these just scratch the surface of what’s out there. So, let’s find some other good examples.

Which new pages are your favorites? Feel free to share links below!

P.S. We just updated our Facebook page to the new design too! Click here to check it out and let us know what you think.