6 Rules For Facebook Cover Photos That Convert

Posted on Jun 17th 2016 in Social Media

What’s the first thing people look at when they arrive on your hotel’s Facebook page? You got it – it’s your Facebook cover photo.

Since it's probably the most noticeable part of your page, it’s essential that your cover photo is eye-catching, engaging and sticks to Facebook’s best practices. Not sure what you should be aiming for? These 6 simple tips serve as a great guide.

1. Get Familiar with Facebook's Cover Photo Guidelines.

This one seems obvious, but it’s important to include. Adhering to the Facebook guidelines in general is vital if you don’t want your hotel’s page taken down, but here are a few important things you may have missed when it comes to your cover photo specifically:

Your cover is displayed publicly.
The photo must not be deceptive, misleading, or break any copyright laws
It is against Facebook rules to encourage your guests to upload your cover photo to their own timelines.

If your hotel violates any of these terms and conditions, your page may get taken down, so be sure to read the guidelines in full and adhere to them.

2) Get the Cover Photo Size Right

No matter how much time you spend designing a beautiful cover photo, if you get the size wrong, it will look terrible once you upload it to Facebook.

The optimal size for cover photos is 851 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall for desktop, 640 pixels wide by 360 pixels tall for mobile.

3.) Simple is Best

Since your hotel’s cover photo is generally the first thing that hits your guests’ gaze when they land on your page, if it’s distracting or bad quality, people are likely to leave pretty quickly.

The most effective cover photos generally have a single subject as the focal point, (a clear image of your pool or a great shot of the front of your building in the sunshine, for example) and make clever use of white ‘empty’ space to make the subject of the photo, any text or CTA buttons stand out.

4) Keep Mobile Users in Mind

Recent Facebook stats show that more than 50% of users access the social network exclusively from their mobile devices. That’s a huge amount of people engaging with friends, family and brands from behind small screens – and exactly why it’s so important to keep mobile users at the front of your mind when designing and selecting your hotel’s cover photo.

When viewing from a mobile device, your hotel’s profile picture and page name are displayed in the space above the cover photo, which means that the sides need to be cropped. Images which are larger than 640 pixels wide by 360 pixels tall will not display correctly on Smartphones, which means you may lose visual elements displayed to the sides of your image. Keep that in mind, and don’t forget to refer to this Facebook help document for more information.

5) Align Your Page CTA with Your Cover Photo Description

If your page includes CTAs for guests to book a particular package, and you’ve chosen your cover photo to tie into that, be sure that the description of your cover photo also features a text CTA and link to the same offer. If you do this, guests that view the cover photo directly will know exactly where to go if they want to find out more about the offer.

Don’t forget to shorten your links and add UTM codes so you can trick the clicks.

6) Pin a Post to Tie in with Your Cover Photo and CTA

Does your hotel ever ‘pin’ posts to your Facebook Page's Timeline? In case you didn’t know, pinning a post allows you to highlight an important post which then stays at the top of your timeline for one week.

If you’ve worked hard to ensure your hotel’s call to action, cover photo design and description copy all align, it makes good sense to create a corresponding pinned post that will be displayed at the top of your timeline. By doing this, you’ll give your guests one ultra-clear, compelling call to action throughout your page’s design – which should drive conversions.

To pin a post: Just publish the post to Facebook as usual, then click the downwards pointing arrow on the top right hand side and select "Pin to Top."

Have you picked a great cover photo for your hotel’s Facebook page? Do you change it regularly to align with various offers you’re promoting? Let us know in the comments below!