Is Your Facebook Page Cover Image Acceptable?

Back in December 2012, Facebook revised it’s guidelines in regards to cover images on Facebook Pages and added another stipulation – your cover image must not consist of more than 20% text.

Your Facebook Page Cover image must now abide by the following guidelines:

1. Covers can’t be deceptive, misleading, or infringe on anyone else’s copyright. You may not encourage people to upload your cover to their personal timelines;
2. Covers may not include images with more than 20% text;
3. Covers may not include price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it on socialmusic.com”;
4. Covers may not include contact information such as a website address, email, mailing address, or information that should go in your Page’s “About” section;
5. Covers may not include references to Facebook features or actions, such as “Like” or “Share” or an arrow pointing from the cover photo to any of these features;
6. Covers may not include calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends.”

All of these guidelines have been in place since the introduction of the Timeline in March 2012 apart from the 20% text rule, which came into force in December 2012.

You can view all the Facebook Page Guidelines here

There has been many questions and confusion as to what actually is 20% and how do you know if you are abiding by the rules or not.  There has been grids and images published but it was still a bit of a guessing game.  And in my opinion, you don’t want to risk all your hard work establishing a Facebook presence on a guess.

Now you don’t need to guess any longer.

I just discovered this cool tool where you can specify your  Facebook Page and it will upload your cover image so you can determine how much text is in your image.

Go here http://coverphoto.paavo.ch/ and enter your Facebook Page ID.  Once your cover image is uploaded just click on the boxes that contain text and your percentage will be calculated immediately.  Quick and simple.

If you need to update your Facebook Page cover image – just a reminder that the size of the cover image is 850 x 315px.

Please share this post with everyone who has a Facebook Page so that we can make sure everyone is abiding by the 20% rule and don’t run the risk of having their Page shut down by Google.

 

NOTE ADDED 25/3/2013:  Guidelines for Facebook Page Cover Images were updated 6 March 2013 and most of these conditions no longer apply.  Please see this post for more information.