Homepage feeds now have a Twitteresque feel with live updates from friends, otherwise known as the Ticker. The most recent posts that appear on a Facebook feed are now a direct result of the latest content being published. And of course, this all led us to where we are now with the somewhat controversial new change, Facebook Timeline.
Now that the complete rollout of Timeline to all Facebook users is nearly complete, the change means one crucial thing for Facebook marketers: The life of a status update is diminishing. Fast.
That means it's time marketers recognize that since Timeline is altering the shelf-life of Facebook content, we must now change the way we use Facebook.
Enhanced User News Feed Calls for Strategic Posting
Formerly, users' homepage News Feeds offered two options for viewing: 'Top Stories,' meaning posts with the most likes and comments from your friends, or 'Most Recent,' which was simply the most recent updates regardless of response rates. The majority of users (many without even knowing) had theirs set to 'Top Stories' so they could see which stories were most popular and getting discussed by their friends.
Then 
Facebook aggregated these two features into one through its EdgeRank algorithm. In short, this algorithm decides what is most important on Facebook for a specific user by taking into account which pages/profiles that user frequents, the popularity of it, and most importantly, how recent the post is.
According to URL shortening service bitly, the mean half life (the time it takes a link to receive half the clicks it will ever receive after it’s reached its peak) of a link on Facebook is 3.2 hours. There's a good chance this number will go down with the Timeline rollout, too.
Marketing Takeaway: Test the waters by posting your content at a different time every day for one week to identify at what hour your post performed the best. Check your Facebook Insights to analyze when you had the most success, and post at those times. According to AddThis, a bookmarking and sharing service, most users click on content two minutes after content is shared. If users are clicking that rapidly and you only have about a 3-hour time frame to garner attention, you have to ensure you're posting exactly when your audience is on Facebook. Otherwise, they'll likely never see your content.
Throw Out the "Post Once a Day" Rule
The old rule of thumb for Facebook was to post regularly, but not more than once a day so that each update received proper attention while simultaneously not being spammy. Well folks, today we're here to say that this rule should no longer apply. Posting once a day in conjunction with the Ticker and EdgeRank algorithm means that your post only has a short span of time during which people will likely see it. Once those three hours are up--your status is old news (pun intended). And if you think you're going to be spamming users by posting more than once, think again! Your post will be quickly overridden by the hordes of other updates becoming the top stories in a user's News Feed.
However, don't let this lower the quality of your updates. When a user sees y
ou in their News Feed or Ticker and navigates to your page, they're likely to see all of your other content. On the HubSpot Facebook page, I tested the waters by posting every hour. That's right, every hour. Each hour, a completely different group of users liked, commented on, and shared the content. Furthermore, because each post appeared in a users' Feeds at different times, I was able to attract a more diverse set of users because each group logged onto Facebook at a different time. Not only did we not experience a decrease in fans, but our strategy also brought fans to the latest update and got them liking even more content that was also on the wall -- content they may have never seen otherwise (see image at right)! While we don't necessarily recommend posting every hour unless you have a large fanbase on Facebook and are creating high volumes of content, the point is, once a day isn't going to cut it anymore.
Furthermore, the high number of posts per day was not taken as spammy. Instead of backlash, we received positive feedback in regard to all the valuable information we were posting. This means that people truly do hold access to valuable content in high regard. Whether it's keeping them in suspense for the next episode in a television series, sharing the latest remedy your researchers have discovered for the flu, or simply educating marketers on how to be inbound rock stars, content is key. And if it's written and presented in a way that is appealing to your specific demographic, you will see positive results.
Marketing Takeaway: You need quality content, and you need time. If the new Facebook is calling for more updates a day, you need valuable content that is worth posting. Simply updating for the sake of infiltrating feeds won't cut it--that's when users will mark you as spam. But if you're strategically posting remarkable content, then they'll like, comment, share, and love you for it. You also need to allocate more time to posting and monitoring the content than before to make this happen effectively. Consider investing in some social media marketing automation to make the most of your time.
Recent Activity Is More Apparent and More Important Than Ever
Furthermore, the moment someone clicks 'like,' it will appear in their friends' Tickers instantly. In fact, Facebook slipped in a new data point to their analytics that is literally called 'Timeline,' which indicates the number of fans who 'liked' your page by seeing it in someone's Timeline! 
So quantity (and quality, as always) does matter. The argument that 7,000 die-hard fans is better than 14,000 regular fans is not sound. If you have twice the fanship, you have double the reach and two times the opportunity to get your message sent and your brand heard. When you successfully gain a new like on Facebook, it's far clearer to friends of those fans. This will truly help you grow your Facebook presence in a much faster way than ever before on Facebook. But to do so, you'll have to follow the aforementioned tips to gain those initial 'likes' that will hopefully catapult your Facebook marketing.
Do you see any other ways Timeline is changing Facebook marketing? What do you think of the idea of posting more than once a day on Facebook?
Image Credit: Aloha Sweets; Captivation Media
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Eric Williamson 12:08 PM on December 30, 2011
Thanks for the article, and FB/Timeline breakdown. The advice on how to go about testing for optimal timing is solid, so thank you for that.
....however, I think you glossed over what IMHO is the most important part of what a brand must create -- "remarkable content" that actually adds value for the fan.
Since your summary paragraph seems to promote quantity of fans over highly engaged fans, I fear that most people who read-by-skimming will read your article and take away ...A) Test for the right time to post, ...B) You can post several times a day and ...C) You need to worry about how many "likes" you have any try to "acquire" more likers.
Hopefully they will read your article more closely and will get more out of your article and its great points.
Angelique 12:44 PM on December 30, 2011
This is a great article! It's full of timely advice, and easy to understand as well. I know that Facebook SAYS most people have the new Timeline, but practically none of my Facebook friends have it. In fact, the only ones who have it are developers. That's the only reason I have it. Who are the "regular users" who have the Timeline?
Anum Hussain 12:49 PM on December 30, 2011
Eric, I can understand how a reader might think that by giving a quick scan, but my hope is that the importance of this change conveyed in the introduction prompts people to read the whole piece--it'd be a shame otherwise! But again, this is for readers benefits, so it is up to them to take what they want from it :)
Angelique, actually, most of my friends have Timeline! It's been rolling out to regular users, or, you can go to http://www.facebook.com/about/timeline and click "Get Timeline" to get it right away! Just about everyone's Facebook should be changed by early January. I'm also a regular user who has it :)
Thank you both for reading the post and sharing your feedback!
Social Media Chimps 12:59 PM on December 30, 2011
Thanks for sharing. What about testing to see the effects of multiple posts released in short proximity during the time periods your posts get the most attention?
Pam 1:28 PM on December 30, 2011
I have chosen not to adopt the new Timeline on my own, and as someone else said, the majority of my friends are not using the new Timeline either. As for marketing on FB? I think the type of business you are in is a huge factor. Not every business benefits equally from FB. Each business needs to determine what marketing/advertising strategy works best for them and put the majority of their efforts there. That may or may not be FB.
Rachel Parker 1:51 PM on December 30, 2011
Just one question: Is the new "OK to post more than once a day" strategy Zarrella-approved? ;-)
Tracy Terry 2:22 PM on December 30, 2011
I have the new Timeline and have for quite awhile as I signed up as a developer to get it. I still have a newsfeed with top news and most recent news in it. I can switch between them anytime I want. Edgerank is still and has been a determining factor for what appears in the top news feed. Yes, I have a ticker now, which I completely ignore because I have been internet eye-trained to ignore those things (like paid ads on Google). I jumped in to read because the headline said how Facebook Timeline radically changes my marketing. However, I don't see anything in here that has changed from my old profile to the new Timeline at all. I even had a ticker in my old profile. Everything, even posting, is exactly the same as it was before. Actually, Hubspot was teaching to post every other day, according to your webinars with Dan Zarrella. But, I also wonder if all that data is only on Hubspot's customers and if so, it's not enough to go on as they are only a small piece of this huge social media pie. 5000 compared to 700 million just on Facebook alone. I had been seeing a lot of success anyway with posting several times a day, so continued doing that. It all depends on the account and the audience. Anyway, please, tell me what has actually changed? I took the time to read the whole thing and well, sorry, I just can't find what has. I'm also sick as a dog, so maybe I just can't read. LOL
Scott Bolen 2:29 PM on December 30, 2011
This is a great primer for newbies to grasp the essence of facebook oriented social media marketing for 2012 and a nice refresher to get Social Media veterans up to speed on the Facebook timeline functions for 2012. I think it had just the right amount of material so as not to overwhelm but inform.
Malika Vishnu Patel 4:47 PM on December 30, 2011
In his presentation at Le Web in Paris, Forrester CEO and Chairman, George Colony, explained that social is running out of two drivers of its exponential growth: HOURS and PEOPLE.
Now facebook or any other social network can not increase HOURS or PEOPLE, the other option is "THROW OUT THE "Post once a day" rule and let users post as much as they like "the new Facebook is calling for more updates a day"!
Happy new year!
Shannon Nelson 4:49 PM on December 30, 2011
Great info, but I disagree about the social media automation. With the new timeline also comes Facebook grouping third party apps together. I noticed that with clients that used Hootsuite, Networked Blogs, Tweetdeck, etc. that it would show one person's post in my timeline and then say "see 42 other updates using Hootsuite", therefore updates were getting missed. However, if I manually posted the updates, they had a better likelihood of being seen. I also monitored this with Facebook insights and manually posted updates were seen double if not triple than those updates posted using automated tools.
Shahid 12:37 AM on December 31, 2011
Just when I thought posts on FB had a longer lifespan than Twitter, this article shed a new light by looking at it from the new timeline perspective.
Nice work!
Jason 7:54 AM on December 31, 2011
TIME LINE SHOULD BE A CHOICE NOT IMPOSED ON USERS. I can't follow my friends any more on FB so have stopped using it.
jason 7:57 AM on December 31, 2011
FB is now more interested in making money from adverts than the social side of the site.
Heather White-Laird 11:37 AM on December 31, 2011
A good thought starter for sure, but I've had the new Timeline since Sept, and if you don't have it yet, I hear FB will force you to adopt it soon. I do think it is a good improvement on the UX of Facebook, but I don't believe most people actually use it as their default view. I find those with the new timeline are still using the newsfeed. Are they going to remove the newsfeed altogether and force you to only have the Timeline? Also I have also heard the the FB alogrithm does penalize third party apps so using automation can hurt rather than help.
Abby 1:29 PM on December 31, 2011
I have decided not to use the new timeline. I really miss the old newsfeed and I see only a few friend's posts now. I tried to keep everyone together by adding them all to the "Close Friends" column but all of the pages refresh and kick me back up to the top every few seconds. I love Facebook for the opportunity to connect with my friends each day. Now it seems that Facebook is chosing who is important to people and it is sad. It affects some people in a negative way because they think that what they are saying isn't important to anyone. I also had a friend split with her boyfriend because he showed up in the ticker box an hour after he was actually online. I prefer the way it was for people. Maybe it would be best to have a separate approach for the marketing part because not everyone on Facebook is technically savvy and aren't marketing a business or themselves. I love Facebook but it would be great to have a choice to go back to the other way. I remember when MySpace did this and now everyone logs in about once a year. Please consider not turning Facebook into a business friendly service but a people friendly service like we have all loved so much. Thanks!
Vickie Tolbert 8:05 PM on January 01, 2012
Are you saying that the ability to sort by "recent stories first" vs. "highlighted stories first" will be altered with the Timeline?
Tracy 12:52 AM on January 02, 2012
Who in the WORLD told you to post to FB only once a day? That's insane. However, so is wheedling for "likes." Produce content that makes them WANT to like you. Don't try to buy them.
bootland 9:46 AM on January 02, 2012
I am really anxious to find out what willl happen to the FB experience when to go public - haven't got the 'do no evil' felling with this one :-/
Murthy 4:33 AM on January 03, 2012
I havent tried yet the facebook time line. after reading this info, i think i should try using timeline facility by facebook. Good start for newbies.
Nicholas @ FastBlink 9:46 AM on January 03, 2012
Great content! Finally, someone said it: Throw out the "One Post Per Day" rule! EdgeRank changes everything (again).
Paul 1:50 AM on January 04, 2012
Wow! So many great ideas and ones we had not thought about. Thank you for the great blog - we have work to do!
ST 2:52 AM on January 05, 2012
Am I missing something here? Timeline replaces the Profile page, but I don't see that it alters the Newsfeed page. A fan sees your posts on their own Newsfeed page. They don't go off and look at every other pages' wall (well, I don't)...so how does Timeline have any relation to the frequency of posts?
Chin M C 8:20 AM on January 06, 2012
I changed to Timeline end of year 2011 .
Have to learn how best to make good use of it ...
Yes I discovered that we have to post more often otherwise our post will be read by different of people who are online at the time of our posting.
I guess we have to time our posting to target the right people ...
That means staying up all night ???
Sally Tibet 10:17 AM on January 06, 2012
Very good article, thank you. It makes good sense to me. I don't mind the timeline -- I can go to a friend's timeline and see where they are, what they've been posting. But I sure don't want to do that for everyone. I was also enlightened about the auto posting and how they don't show up all the time... interesting.
I don't appreciate Facebook's jumping around (especially when I'm trying to post a comment - argh!) nor do I appreciate that they decide who I want to see based on an algorithm. Is Google+ any better on this count? I'm slowly migrating over there. I prefer the slower Facebook experience over the mind-numbing Twitter experience. The more FB gets to be like TW, the less I like it.
Kimberly 5:19 PM on January 07, 2012
It is unfortunate that facebook like most major corporations does not subscribe to the needs of its customers/users. Facebook has forced so many changes on its users that I pretty much only use it to play games. If this is another change that is forced on users then I will be saying goodbye to fb and all of the national and international friends that I have made. I know that it does not good to voice concerns or objections over this because big business simply does not care...so sad.
Kerry Rego 5:05 PM on January 11, 2012
Hubspot is great at providing data, particularly Dan Zarrella. I'd love to see some data to back up the optimum frequency of posting to FB Pages.