Perhaps you haven’t thought about it much, but the cover photo (the large banner across the top of Facebook) on your social media pages makes a significant impression on your audience.

What is the condition of your cover photo? Are you proud of it? Does it exemplify a firm who is professional and up-to-date?

The cover photo is the first thing anyone sees when they visit your profile, so let’s make their first impression of your company a great one. Today, I’ll be sharing some easy steps you can take to improve your social media cover photo.

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1. Resize Your Photos to Fit the Dimensions

Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus all have a banner photo across the top of the profile page. This space is great for marketers to brand and promote their company. It’s easy to paste any image into the spot, but this is a bad move. Use the recommended image size for your cover photo, or else the image may look distorted or cutoff. A good design requires that you resize the image to fit the correct dimensions to ensure that it looks its best in the space.

Look at your cover photo. Is it stretched or pixelated? Did you cut of words? Can you tell what the image is? See the chart for recommended sizes.

Social Media Platform Best Dimension(Pixels) Minimum Dimension
Facebook cover photo: 851 x 315 pixels. 339 x 150
Google+ cover photo: 1080 x 608 – 2120 x 1192 480 x 270
Twitter: 1500 x 500
LinkedIn hero image 1400 x 425

2. Change the Photo Often

Changing your cover photo is very simple and takes just a few clicks. Keep things fresh by changing it often. Use the space to advertise for upcoming events, promotions, or reflect the season. For example, we posted a seasonal Happy Thanksgiving image on the ASJ Partners Facebook page. Another great example of a cover photo usage comes from The New York Times Facebook page. If you flip through their cover photo album, you’ll see they use their cover photos to highlight important images and world events from the news.

3. Create a Cohesive Look

Good branding requires that your cover photo and profile image have a cohesive scheme that matches the look of your logo and website. Choosing images that flow together shows you put careful thought into your branding, and creates a seamless picture (not to mention it just looks good). Let the cover photo be almost like a background image to your profile picture. The colors do not have to match exactly, but they should complement each other and highlight an aspect of your company.

4. Use your Fanbase

Your clients and customers are your community — that’s the purpose of social media. Use your cover photo to show what your fans do when they work with your staffing firm (e.g. get a job). But, not just any job, show the kind of work you specialize in. Are you a staffing firm for health care? Industrial workers? Technology specialists? Use images that portray people working in the environment you employ, so people will immediately know what you do. Make sure the images are professional and high quality; a blown-out, blurry picture will have the opposite effect.

Creating a cohesive look between your social media pages and your website is an essential when it comes to excellent marketing strategies. You can find out more tips on how to improve your staffing firm’s marketing by checking out more articles from our blog, or, contact us and ask a few questions. We’d love to show you how you can maximize your social media real estate to drive your fan base and your following.