Why is Facebook cover photo important for your brand?

With over 90 million pages (small business), and more coming to the platform every day, you have some serious competition. But not many people/brands know how to successfully engage their audience and maximize their FB business pages’ potential.

Your cover photo gives the first impression of your brand to your potential customers, so you need to do it right. An excellent Facebook cover photo will grab your audience's attention, and with its help, you can also direct them to your website,  increase engagement, gain more followers, etc.

So let’s take a look at how to do it successfully.

Best Facebook cover photo practices

If you want your brand to leave a good impression and draw in likes and followers, keep these FB cover photo best practices in mind:

1. Use the right size for the image

The right size and dimensions of your FB cover photo will guarantee that your audience can see it clearly, whether it’s on desktop or mobile.

Your cover photo should be:

• For desktop 820 x 312px

• For mobile 640 x 360px

• Minimum 400 x 150 px

• If using one photo for both desktop and mobile, then 851 x 315 px.

File size:

• No bigger than 100kb

Format:

• JPG, PNG, or sRGB

Keep these dimensions in mind and try to get as close to them as possible. 

And in case you need predefined templates with proper dimensions for your cover photo, there are various tools that can help you with that. (such as Glorify)

2. Follow the rules

If you want to use a Facebook cover photo as part of a social media strategy for your brand/business, there are specific rules you must abide by.

Nobody likes rules, but if you want your page to remain where it is and not be taken down, you need to be aware of them.

Some of these rules are:

1. Make sure that the image you’re using is unique for your brand, therefore, people can recognize your brand right away

2. Make sure that your image is not deceptive or misleading

3. Make sure that you don’t violate someone’s copyright rights

3. Keep it simple

If there are too many things to put on your cover image, you won’t be able to draw the attention and focus of your audience to the things you need them to see. Instead, they’ll be lost in a sea of information.

Therefore, it won’t be clear to them what you do, what’s your business/brand about, and why they should follow you.

Choose a simple and clear image that draws the audience’s focus, and get rid of anything unnecessary (elements and text), thus providing your audience with an understandable and focused message.

4. Make sure it’s clear on both mobile and desktop

The vast majority of people use mobile devices when browsing through social networks, and for Facebook, this number is over 98%. So you need to make sure your cover image looks good on mobile devices too. 

You need to pay attention so that some important elements don’t get cropped out or blurred if you’re designing the cover image just for desktop and not mobile, or the other way around.

Choose an image that would look good in both landscape and portrait mode since the first is the type of image mode for desktop and later for mobile.

5. Be as unique as you can

You want your brand to look as unique as possible to elevate you from the harsh competition. So generic images and stock photos are a big no-no. 

Hire a designer or do it yourself using a proper tool for it. That way, you'll know you’re definitely getting something unique and distinctive.

Your FB cover photo should reflect your brand in all aspects. Your style, color palette, fonts, etc., must match your other social media platforms and website. Uniform design across platforms gives your audience a feeling of coherence and creates trust in your brand.

6. Make it readable and consistent

If you decide to add some text to your FB cover photo, it must be readable. So check out on both desktop and mobile to make sure it is readable on both devices.

Make sure to choose a simple, readable font(s), a bigger size, and if you need, make it bold. Don’t overcrowd your cover image with text - make it under 20% of your photo. Facebook relaxed its 20% text rule, but businesses that have below that percentage of text have better performance.

Choose your words carefully so they reflect your business/brand’s ideas, intention, or what you stand for.

7. Linking and captioning

You can use links and captions with your cover photos. When people click on your cover photo, and it opens, you can put captions, hashtags, and/or links there that will help you boost your business.

Put a CTA (call to action) here, or notify people of your event or sales. Then, you can lead people to the page of your website that corresponds to what’s going on on the cover photo (seasonal sales, promotions, sing-ups, etc.)

Pro tip: You can include an arrow on your cover photo that directs to the CTA button on your page. This will guide your Facebook page visitors to respond to your CTA and do what you want them to do.

8. Choose video instead of a photo

Videos give you an opportunity to make more compelling and engaging content. They capture audiences’ attention more than images and texts. Videos might present your brand/business better because they give more insight into your business compared to photos.

More than half of internet users would prefer videos to anything else, so brands and businesses should make a note of this. For example, using a FB cover video instead of a FB cover photo might be a great idea for attracting new leads.

You can use it to present your product, show how your software works in a few seconds, and provide more value to your Facebook page visitors.

Facebook’s guideline says your video should be 820 x 462px and be 20 to 90 seconds long. They don’t play sound automatically until you click on it, so your video needs to look great even without sound. Also, make sure that the cover photo of it looks good on both desktop and mobile.

Facebook cover photo ideas

You can let your imagination run wild when designing a cover photo for your Facebook business page. Here are some great examples that can give you inspiration for your cover photos:

1. Put your logo and slogan

This might be a fantastic opportunity for businesses and individuals just starting with their branding to introduce themselves and for established brands to remind their audience what their brand is about from time to time.

2. Event promotion

Your FB cover photo should show what the rest of your marketing strategy is showing when you want to promote an event or a seasonal discount.

Give some kind of offer to your audience, adding details (what, when, where, etc.) and a CTA in the end. Then, use the link that leads the audience to your website, where the event or discount is.

Here we have an example of “Bose” headphones changing their cover photo to correspond with NFL season.

3. Service or product presentation

You can launch your new product or service via FB cover photo or a video. You’ll need to have a clear photo of your product and a description that will entice the audience to go and try it.

If you’re offering a service, you’d need an image or a video that clearly shows what you’re offering or a simple, short text as an explanation that goes with the picture/video that’s related to your business.

Here’s how Glorify does it. The New 3.0 version will give you even more options for your cover photo to make it look professionally done.

4. Showing users' opinion of your brand/business

You can post some user testimonials or review quotes of your service or products in the FB cover photo or video.

It’s vital nowadays that your brand or business has some social proof of its influence. So having other people, especially celebrities or influencers, give positive opinions on your product/service gives you credibility in the eyes of your audience.

5. Showing your team and space

Many businesses and brands choose this type of cover photo to help bring them closer to their audience. This says “we’re not some faceless business, we’re people too, and we’re here for you.”

So, this is a great option for businesses focused on their customers and customer services. You can choose a team photo or a collage of individual photos as a way to introduce your team members.

Also, if you have a fantastic-looking office building, store, or some space that looks inviting, take a picture of it and include it in your cover image or video. It might make people want to do business with you or even work there.

Conclusion

Since your Facebook cover photo occupies a big portion of your page and is the first visual element your potential customer sees, that makes it the most important part of your FB page. So you should try to make it as eye-catching as you can.

Luckily for you, creating a FB cover photo that grabs attention and elevates your brand/business above your competition is not that hard. You just need to follow the advice from this article and this mini how-to for your DIY with Glorify, and you’ll soon have a great-looking FB cover photo:

1. Create a profile on Glorify if you don’t have it already.

2. Navigate to the “Facebook Cover Photo.”

3. Choose “New from Scratch” or browse Templates.

4. Add or change backgrounds, images, fonts, text, and elements, and make it your own.

5. Save it or download it and use it for your needs.

That’s it! You’re done.

So start creating your Facebook cover photo right now, it’s free!