Customize Your Facebook Timeline

Facebook Timeline is a new Facebook layout that represents a history of your Facebook activities. In a sense, it's more of an autobiography than a news brief. Before your profile gets converted automatically, you can enable and customize your Facebook Timeline on your own terms by following these simple steps.

Steps

Enable Timeline for Your Facebook Page

  1. Go to Facebook Help and Click on "Facebook Basics."
  2. Click on "Editing Name and Profile (Timeline) Info" under the Manage Your Settings heading.
  3. A gray box will appear that says "Introducing Timeline, a New Kind of Profile." Click on "Here's How" at the bottom right of the gray box.
  4. Under the tab How do I Get Timeline? click on "Introducing Timeline."
  5. Click "Get Timeline" on the bottom right corner of the page.

Browse your Timeline

  1. Click on the years on the right hand bar of your profile view a particular year's events. You will be able to see pictures posted during that year and friends you made as well as wall posts and other stories.
  2. Click on the Map to view your posts by place.
  3. Click on a cluster of events to zoom in more, or use the "+" or "-" buttons on the top left of the map.
  4. Hover your cursor over a pin in order to view the story that took place at that location.
  5. Click on the tabs at the bottom in order to view the stories by category.

Edit Your Life Events

  1. Look for events in your timeline. Events such as Work and Education milestones, Relationship Statuses and Health and Wellness events show up as bigger stories that span the entire page rather than appearing in only 1 column.
  2. Edit an existing event by clicking on the "Edit or Remove" icon.
  3. Edit the information listed, and Select or Upload a Photo.
  4. Click Save when you are finished.
  5. Add events to your timeline. To do this, hover over the line in the middle until you see a "+" button.
  6. Click the button, and select the type of story you want to add.
  7. Edit the information in the box.
  8. Click Save to finish adding your new milestone event

Edit Your Existing Stories

  1. Find the story with privacy settings you would like to change and hover over it in order to see the Edit buttons. Hovering over the pencil icon will give you the option of hiding the story in your timeline, or deleting it altogether.
  2. Click on the icon of the star in order to "feature" the story on your timeline. Featuring the story will make it span across the page and become one of your Life Events.
  3. Click on the icon next to the date of the story in order to view your privacy settings. Choose a group to share it with.
  4. Choose the "Custom" button and edit your privacy for that post if you would like even more control over who can see this story.

Changing Your Cover Photo

  1. To do this the first time, click "Add a Cover."
  2. Select where you would like to upload your Cover from. You can either choose one of your own photos, or upload a new one from your computer.
  3. Choose a picture from the menu that pops up, or click View Albums to find a picture more easily through your albums. Click on the picture you have selected.
  4. Click and drag on the picture so that it looks good. Unfortunately, you cannot resize the image or cut it down to show exactly what you want, however, you can still move it around so that it shows the best parts of the picture.
  5. Click Save Changes after you have repositioned your Cover. Before clicking Save Changes, click on the circled icon below in order to control who can see your Cover image.
  6. Consider using Photoshop or a similar photo editing software like "Gimp" to create a fun collage with your cover photo and profile picture. You can make your profile picture part of a collage or have your profile picture interact with your cover photo in another way.



Tips

Warnings

  • Make sure that your privacy settings are up-to-date. Click on the down arrow in the far upper right corner of your Timeline. Then choose "Privacy Settings" and set your privacy settings in each category.

Things You'll Need

  • A Facebook account
  • Photos to upload

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Sources and Citations