Category: Business News

Paris-St Germain are expected to complete their deal to sign Neymar from Barcelona for 222m euros (£198m).

Some people, including Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, have questioned how this transfer could be allowed under European football’s governing body Uefa’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules.

Remember, the £198m is only the initial outlay – PSG will have to pay the Brazilian star wages that could double that amount over a five-year contract, as well as hefty fees to his father who is his agent and insurance premiums to protect their investment.

Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu threatened to report PSG to Uefa for breaching FFP rules.

But Uefa would still not be able to block the deal. In a statement, it told the BBC: “We are not in a position to stop clubs from buying players, but the clubs will face sanctions if they fail to abide by Financial Fair Play rules.”

Uefa introduced break-even FFP rules in 2013 to stop clubs accumulating too much debt and to prevent wealthy owners from injecting too much cash into their clubs.

Money up front

The rules state that over a three-year period a club like PSG, which is owned by the Gulf state of Qatar via its Oryx Qatar Sports Investments fund, can spend 30m euros more than it earns.

It is possible that PSG has accumulated lots of profits over the past two years to make it easier for them to make such a big outlay in the current year.

Uefa allows spending on things like stadiums, youth development and women’s teams to be excluded from the calculations.

Barcelona are insisting on getting the whole transfer fee up front, but that will not mean it has to all be accounted for in the current year.

“For FFP accounting purposes, the transfer fee will be divided over the length of the player’s contract,” says Daniel Geey, a sports lawyer at Sheridans.

“So if it’s a five-year deal, that will count as around £40m of transfer spending per year.”

Image copyright
AFP

But £40m a year plus wages is still a hefty outlay, so how might PSG balance the books?

There has been much talk of the club recouping the outlay by selling lots of Neymar shirts, but Mr Geey is not optimistic.

“It’s a complete misnomer that clubs make a fortune from shirt sales increasing after big transfers,” he says.

Kit deals tend to involve a big outlay up front with only limited profit-sharing of 10% to 15% after a certain number of shirts have been sold, he explains, so many millions of extra shirts would have to be sold to make serious inroads into the extra spending.

Of course, it may mean the club receives more money from Nike when it comes to renegotiate, but its current deal runs until 2022.

Prize money

PSG is presumably confident that such a high-profile player will help it to sign other commercial deals and there is no limit to the number of official products they could have.

We do not know what deal will be struck over Neymar’s image rights, but if PSG can get a proportion of those it will help with meeting the FFP rules.

Then there is money to be earned on the pitch. PSG is already making a considerable amount of money in the Champions League – in the last five years it has reached the quarter-finals four times and been knocked out in the round of 16 once.

Last year, a team getting to the semi-final was paid an extra 7.5m euros (£6.7m), the losing finalists earned 11m euros (£9.9m) and the winner 15.5m euros (£14m). And that’s just prize money, there are other pots of cash distributed to successful teams.

The club came second in the French league last year but had won the title for the previous four years so there is not much scope for extra prize money there.

They may argue that their huge acquisition will make French football more popular and lead to more lucrative television deals from around the world, but that would be a big impact for a single player, although it might help them sell expensive hospitality packages at their stadium the Parc des Princes.

Of course, PSG could always balance the books by selling a few of their existing players, but losing them would not help their Champions’ League ambitions.

PSG fell foul of the FFP rules in 2014 when Uefa ruled that a £167m commercial contract with the Qatar Tourism Authority was unfairly generous – effectively, the governing body ruled that Qatar had been using the contract to bypass the FFP rules.

They were given a £20m fine, their spending was capped at £49m and they competed in the 2014-15 Champions League with 21 players in their squad instead of the usual 25.

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A simple device to cut the weight of washing machines could save fuel, cut carbon emissions, and reduce back injuries, according to researchers.

A typical budget washing machine is weighted by 25kg of concrete to stop it moving while on a spin cycle.

The alternative is a plastic container that is filled with water – but only once the machine is in place.

The team at Nottingham Trent University says the change makes machines easier – and cheaper – to transport.

By replacing the concrete with empty containers, the weight of the machine is cut by a third.

If the change became standard, it would cut the weight of trucks carrying the machines which would in turn cut emissions.

The research suggests that with around 3.5 million washing machines sold annually in the UK, the new device could save around 44,625 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year.

‘Must have been thought of before’

The idea was devised by product design company Tochi Tech Ltd, which works with the university to find innovative solutions to manufacturing common appliances.

It was tested by an undergraduate on a project, Dylan Henderson, 22.

He told BBC News: “Everyone thinks the idea must have been thought of before. No one can really believe it. But I promise you it definitely works.”

Mr Henderson said the average cheaper washing machine has two concrete blocks – one under the drum at the front and one on top.

For the test, he replaced the one on top with a water-filled container.

As concrete is heavier than water, the containers need to be bigger than the blocks, to make up the weight difference.

The firm is in discussions with manufacturers, who will want to ensure there is no downside to this ingenious re-think of a familiar product – and maybe to ask why no-one thought of it before.

Image copyright
Gearstd

One of the UK’s biggest business lobby groups has urged the cabinet to stop “dancing around the edges” of Brexit.

The Institute of Directors (IoD) called on the cabinet to come up with a “transitional agreement” to smooth the move to Brexit.

It wants it to bridge the “the Brexit Gap” between leaving the EU and setting up new trading arrangements.

It warned that without agreement, business faces “short-term chaotic cliff edges”.

The group criticised the cabinet for engaging in what it called “a range of speculative arguments over transition”.

In recent weeks cabinet members have given opposing views on how long a transition period would last and what it would involve.

The IoD report Bridging the Brexit Gap: Options for Transition said: “Instead of dancing around the edges, this issue must become a policy discussion for the cabinet.

“This could minimise the growing level of confusion and uncertainty in this area.”

However, Gerard Lyons, an economist and leading figure in the Economists for Brexit group this week described concern about a “cliff-edge” Brexit as “alarmist talk” similar to the fear of the Y2K bug threat to computers at the turn of the millennium.

Stalling investment

Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond warned in June: “There is a large amount of business investment that is being postponed until business can see more clearly what the likely outcome of these discussions is.”

Allie Renison, IoD head of EU and Trade Policy, said: “The Chancellor is right to worry about business investment stalling.

“This is among the most frequently considered changes to deal with Brexit, alongside relocation of operations to the EU.

“The latter is especially true for IoD members in Northern Ireland who are currently considering co-location [or] relocation.”

The IoD suggests a range of options including:

• Doing a deal to extend the Article 50 deal beyond March 2019
• Joining the European Economic Area
• Agreeing to stay longer under the rule of of EU law
• Creating a transitional customs agreement, similar to the EU Customs Union

Ms Renison said: “The IoD has put forward this range of options for transition in the hopes that it sparks a proper debate on the practicalities of how best to Brexit.

“Prioritising interim arrangements and thereby mitigating the risks of EU exit means the eventual opportunities aren’t diminished by short-term chaotic cliff edges.”

The 2016 election was a painful time for most Americans. It was so mentally strenuous that psychologists are still talking about post-election anxiety several months after Election Night.  And where did we process all that anxiety and frustration?

Why, Facebook and Twitter, of course. Some have even gone so far as to blame the results and tone of the election entirely on social media and the way real and fake information was shared.

Who among us isn’t still suffering aftershocks? Who doesn’t have strained relationships with friends and family after one too many political opinion posts? Who hasn’t been affected by use of the “delete” button? Social media, in its role as ground zero for viral political commentary, is invaluable, unavoidable, and exhausting.

But that’s not the only social media shift happening.

Demographics of social media are changing. Teens have been leaving Facebook in droves for years, and many can’t even be bothered to join because it’s what their parents use. In 2016, Facebook marked a 21 percent drop in original, personal updates as users have begun communicating more and more in shared articles and memes alone.

Privacy concerns are getting more pronounced as people become more aware of data harvesting, adding to previous concerns of identity theft.

Many in the industry are predicting massive changes as we move into the dramatically shifted post-election social media landscape. I recently interviewed Jeanne Lewis, CEO of Capsure, a new private social network for preserving memories, and she says, “Social media has really gotten away from us. It’s gotten to the point where we work for it, not the other way around. With social media as it’s been, the users are the product, which has caused some real rifts and problems between loved ones. It’s just not connecting us the way it was supposed to.”

Lewis isn’t the only one who feels that way, but she’s something of an expert on the subject, and she had some excellent points on how social media will transform in 2017 and on.

Related: To Be Blunt, a Lot of Your Social-Media Marketing is Getting You Nowhere

1. A focus on relationships

One of the first social networks was Friendster, a name which implies its purpose: Forming and maintaining friendships. That was how MySpace and Facebook ostensibly began, as well. However, as they’ve progressed, they’ve become more about personal brand maintenance and attempts to form and join various short-lived zeitgeists.

“Social platforms today have evolved into a broadcast tool both for companies and individuals,” says Lewis. “While this is valuable when you have a broad announcement to share and want to reach as many people as possible, these are no longer the vehicles for sharing photos of your kids, recording audio or staying connected with your inner circle of family and friends.”

To fix this, social media will probably begin to draw the focus back into relationships by emphasizing personal posts, photographs and small, intimate connections over outside content like memes and articles.

2. Diversity of personal posts

Until now, posts have been limited to outside material, pictures, videos and text. Don’t be surprised if, going forward, new players will introduce more diverse posting options, intermingling audio and visual components to create a unique experience for people viewing and creating posts. As digital technology progresses, people will be hungry for new and interesting ways to share experience.

Lewis emphasizes the importance audio will play in social media’s future: “Just as many of us gathered around a cassette recorder in our early childhood, the unique power of audio can be experienced once again using our smartphones.”

3. Users will pay for peace

Premium service will make a splash. This one sounds counterintuitive — after all, who would pay for a social media experience when they’ve all been free up to this point. Two things will happen to change that previous wisdom. First, with a more personal, story-driven experience, customers will want high-quality images, videos and audio files stored for posterity. Second, having a place to escape constant advertisements will become very important, something a premium social media experience will offer.

“In order to ensure our digital memories are stored and preserved there should be a direct and clear relationship between compensation and the service provided,” says Lewis. “Otherwise, what assurance do users have?”

4. Different types of groups

Google Plus tried something like this before to little success, but spurred by the frustration caused by people seeing the wrong posts, social grouping will make a comeback. In the last political cycle, many relationships were tested unnecessarily when people felt attacked by never-ending political rants. If you don’t want Grandma to see your stances on gay marriage, put her in your non-political group. This will become very important for relationship maintenance.

“Context is everything,” says Lewis. “The person we are with our family is not necessarily the person we are with our college friends. Nevertheless, there’s a desire to stay connected with all of these groups but in a separate forum.”

Related: How to Use Social Media and Not Feel Overwhelmed

5. Increased focus on privacy

Privacy concerns have plagued social media since its inception, and are only getting more pronounced. Expect future social media companies to offer more advanced network and profile privacy than ever before.

6. Less gamification

One of social media’s key components is that it’s highly addictive, even going so far as to be described as more addictive than cigarettes. New platforms will try to gear more toward long-term customer wellness as a feature by staving off more addictive qualities. They will focus more on the communal quality of social media rather than offer quick hits of serotonin from gratifying and frustrating outside content.

7. Legacy building

As has been said many times, the internet is written in ink. It cannot be erased, and in the future, people won’t want it to be. Users will want their social media to existing as an ongoing time capsule, a living record of their lives. Smart platform builders will realize posting shouldn’t be a burst about a single moment in time, to be consumed in a few seconds and forgotten about immediately, but as a multi-faceted, interactive diary involving many writers, all telling pieces of their own and others’ stories.

“We’ve arrived at a place where we are as thoughtful about capturing a personal moment to preserve as we are about carefully curating our Instagram feed,” says Lewis. “It’s a question of the legacy you want to leave behind.  If someone has 2 hours to flip through your life’s journey, what do you want them to see?”

8. Open to experimentation

The main social media giants are slow, lumbering machines, resistant to change, and unbearably clumsy when they do change.

Future models will have seen platforms of the past try different things to different levels of success and will be open to explore. They will try out wildly different ways of managing contacts, befriending people, organizing interface layouts, etc. Facebook has had basically the same layout since its beginning — don’t expect that to be the case with new platforms.

Related: 5 Social Media Rules Every Entrepreneur Should Know

9. Mobile-native

A mammoth advantage new platforms will have is that they about after the smartphone became ubiquitous. Facebook and Twitter both came before they could really function on a mobile phone, but future platforms will be designed with phones in mind from the beginning.

No clumsy borrowing between web and phone platforms — seamless integration. The future of the internet is mobile, so it stands to reason that mobile-native platforms will be built to last.

10. Build us up, don’t tear us down

The self care and heartfulness movements are big right now for a reason. In a world as chaotic and terrifying as ours, with such a constant barrage of information and stimuli, personal well-being is a thing we must actively pursue and maintain.

Family and friend communities have been part of humanity since there was humanity, and they’re there to build us up. Social media will begin to recognize that again.

11. Video, video, and more video

In late 2016, we saw a major development in social media video when Instagram release Instagram Stories and Instagram Live. Instagram’s parent company Facebook also released Facebook Live and Messenger Day. The focus on the live format follows in the footsteps of Snapchat and Twitter’s Periscope.

According to Jay Singh, CEO of PHL Venture Company, “We continue to see a shift toward live content that is composed through a camera. The camera keeps growing in importance and the ability to see through other people’s lenses in real time is becoming a powerful force in social media.”

Conclusion

The most recent political cycle has exposed a lot of what was rotten in social media, making us all so constantly aware of what is wrong with ourselves and others that we barely have space in our heads for anything other than frustration and anxiety.

If they’re smart, new social media platforms will understand that create a new kind of social networking — a kind that actually feels like a personal asset instead of a detriment.

The appeal small businesses have often stems from a strong company culture. When a team is smaller, all levels of the organization are typically closer and engaged with one another on a daily basis.

Related: The 153 Best Company Cultures in America (and What You Can Learn From Them)

Consider the experience of Sam Malouf and his wife, Kacie: When they started their bedding company, Malouf, in Logan, Utah, they had a small team. And each day, Sam told me, that small team would have lunch together.

“That was a good way to generate ideas and fix problems,” he wrote in an email. “As more employees came on board, that time we shared helped everyone get to know about each other’s families and interests.”

Today, with more than 200 employees, the company is still keeping this tradition alive and still maintains that small business feel by having a culinary team cook lunch for everyone each day. “I think a lot of businesses would see that as cost prohibitive for a staff that big,” Malouf continued. “But, lunch together has been a great way to talk and learn about other people’s ideas since the beginning.”

Here are more ways employers can keep their company culture alive as they grow:

1. Function like a family.

When teams start out together, they begin to feel like family. This is something Deborah Sweeney holds on to. Sweeney is the owner and CEO of MyCorporation, a leading provider of online document-filing services, based out of Calabasas, Calif., that helps clients form a corporation or limited liability company.

Related: Company Culture Comes From Good Leadership

As her small team grew to more than 50 employees, she shared, she strived to keep the family spirit alive. “We work with so many startups that the startup mentality has rubbed off on us,” Sweeney wrote by email. “We literally dance around the office to pass out paychecks on Fridays.”

The fun goes beyond payday. Employees also engage in a variety of team activities. “We go on field trips; we do live talent shows starring our team members and we hold a potluck for pretty much any occasion,” she wrote. “Most of all, we treat one another with kindness and encourage each other to contribute. This allows us to focus on the big picture and work hard, but also enjoy those work days, too.”

Despite the company’s expansion over the course of six years, everyone still feels close and connected.

2. Keep executives accessible.

A major appeal for employees in a small company culture is accessibility: Employees and senior leadership are able to see each other more and communicate better. But an unfortunate side effect of growth is that executives become more distant.

Power Digital Marketing, an online marketing agency based out of San Diego, Calif., grew from 12 employees in 2014 to 45 employees this year. But CEO Grayson Lafrenz is well versed in keeping a strong company culture alive.

“Everything we do is very intentional, with each employee’s happiness and well-being as our number one priority,” he said via email. “For example, each month, our team holds personal one-on-one meetings between executive team members and junior and newer team members. This ensures that everyone feels like a priority and that their voice is heard. It also deepens the bonds and relationships between our team members.”

These intimate sit-downs show the company cares about making its employees feel valued. Team meetings help maintain a stronger rapport among all levels of the organization, no matter their size.

3. Pay attention to feedback.

A small company setting enables employees to regularly provide feedback. That way, management responds and takes action to suit the team’s needs. Unfortunately, however, growing organizations may lose this sense of staying “in touch,” in which case employee feedback falls on deaf ears. And when employees don’t see the changes they need, they leave.

David Waring, co-founder of FitSmallBusiness.com, a New York City-based online publication that serves small business owners, faced this issue head on.

“We were so focused on growing the business in the early days that we did not place a big enough emphasis on making sure people got to know each other personally,” he told me via email. “After reading some complaints about our New York office on Glassdoor that former employees had left, we met with the team and decided to do a quarterly outing together.”

His solution helped create a sense of unity for the entire team. Today, the company hosts weekly video conferences, with all hands on deck.

“Each staff member updates the team on what he or she has been working on over the last week,” he wrote. “This helps keep the familiarity alive, especially considering that some of our staff is distributed throughout the country.”

These conferences further help determine what employees need to succeed. Once employers know what their team members need, they should keep their processes simple and in one place.

Consider tools like EverythingBenefits, which simplifies administration and delivers a better employee experience This software integrates with existing solutions, helping employers handle compliance, while making enrollment easy for employees.

Maintaining a strong company culture is especially difficult when employees work in various locations. Regular outings and video conferences are great for keeping everyone connected, and software solutions can help streamline HR processes to make both the employer and the employee’s lives easier.

4. Continue to learn from each other.

When David Kalt founded Reverb, an online music gear marketplace located in Chicago, he started a simple tradition — all employees would participate in a stand-up meeting. They started with five employees crammed in a small room above a drum shop.

Now, nearly 200 employees gather each Thursday in an unfinished basement.

“At each meeting, three to four team members jump into the Fight Club-style circle to speak about whatever’s on their mind,” Kalt wrote via email. “Every story gives employees a piece of advice they can apply to their daily work.”

Related: How These 8 Founders Are Innovating Company Culture

This allows them to get to know one other better and helps them learn from the advice and experiences of others. Reverb’s company culture is founded on learning and openness, Kalt said; and as CEO, he said he keeps that spirit alive.

Even in today’s digital age, some small business owners, surprisingly, are still bucking the online trend: A CNBC poll recently found that only 45 percent of small business owners polled said they had business websites. And that’s a problem.

Related: Do You Have a ‘Cash-Flow Conundrum’? If Yes, Remind Yourself that Cash Is King (and Queen)

Another problem: Of those businesses that did have a website, only one-third used them to communicate with customers.

Now, a website, as important as it is, is only one aspect of the much larger blueprint needed to construct a successful company. That leaves an observer to wonder about those two-thirds of businesses polled that acknowledged they had no website: What else are they doing wrong?

In fact, building a business is a lot like building a home. Both need solid foundations that won’t crack under pressure, and both require a tremendous amount of attention to detail, because all the pieces must fit together to create something viable. That means that more than a great idea is needed to sustain a growing business.

Business owners need to pay attention to the nuts and bolts of operation — details that are often overlooked in favor of the allure of overnight success. Navigating and juggling these components is essential to fortifying a new business against collapsing — usually with the entrepreneur inside it.

The nuts and bolts of building a business

According to a U.S. Bank study, cash-flow problems account for 82 percent of business failures. In addition to a lack of funding, these problems may include issues with office management, compensation or vacation packages and buy-sell agreements.

Such practicalities are often put off until a startup has already taken off, but the reality is that not making time for them sooner can make or break a business. For instance, seasonal businesses must account for the ebb and flow of profit when analyzing their cash flows, in order to budget accordingly. Many other businesses lack standardized invoicing practices, which disrupts billing and may affect loan payments.

It’s easy to be overwhelmed by all these details when you’re starting a business, and priorities must be set. But scaffolding your business should be one of those priorities. Here are four strategies for ensuring you’re building a framework for success.

1. Never lose sight of your blueprint, but don’t be afraid to update it.

Know the industry and research whom your business is really being built for. Business, marketing and, most importantly, financial plans should already be established before a product is launched. And the research and planning doesn’t stop after the initiation phase. A strong business with consistent growth is the result of focused planning and re-planning.

Related: How to Reach the 5-Year Mark Without Imploding

Sophia Amoruso, former CEO of Nasty Gal, offers a cautionary tale of poor planning. Nasty Gal’s sudden rise through the fashion industry led to many financial and structural changes, including lucrative partnerships with fashion and footwear brands that enticed venture capitalists. Yet CEO Amoruso’s inability to restructure and refocus her plans in accordance with the company’s transition led the company to fail to keep pace with its growth, resulting in bankruptcy.

2. Dot those i’s and cross those t’s.

A viable agreement between partners is something needed from the start: Ensure that every avenue that can be covered is covered, with agreement as to when and how a partner can sell his or her ownership and what happens in the case of a personal crisis, a break from a partner and so on.

The history of entrepreneurs is littered with people who have failed to get things down on paper. Most famously, perhaps, is the case of the Winklevoss twins and their partner, Divya Narendra. They claimed that their then-Harvard schoolmate Mark Zuckerberg, whom they’d hired to write some code a few weeks earlier, stole their idea for a social networking site called ConnectU.

After the launch of Facebook, Narendra and the Winklevosses sued the new company for millions in lost income, a lawsuit that might have been avoided had Zuckerberg been required to sign an agreement.

What’s more: The tighter these agreements are, the better a business will be established for the future.

3. Stifle the jack-of-all-trades mentality.

An incredibly common trait of smaller startups is the jack-of-all-trades mentality. This mentality, often applied to both executives and low-level employees, says that those who don’t exceed the expectations of their job description aren’t considered team players.

This approach can weaken accountability, hurt the company dynamic and lead to burnout — which more than 60 percent of American workers already suffer from, according to a survey by CareerBuilder. What’s more, if people within a company are unsure of whom to report to or what their core responsibilities are, efficiency will suffer.

Ensure early on that your employees have access to equipment, training and mentors to help them take ownership of their work. It’s much easier for people to shirk responsibility if they believe they don’t have the necessary job tools. So, give them what they need, and make sure everyone knows his or her job parameters to prevent overwork.

4. Get the digital word out.

While it’s common for a tech startup to have a website and social media accounts, many companies that don’t do their business online have the misconception that establishing an online presence is a low priority or, worse, unnecessary.

Related: ‘Why Does My Business Experience More Obstacles Than Others?’ (Hint: It Doesn’t.)

This type of thinking ignores a striking reality: Facebook reported that, as of October 2016, more than 1 billion people were visiting Facebook business pages each month. A company’s online presence, which should be much more than a website and a Yelp page, can’t be overlooked.

A reality check? Most small businesses continue to rely on traditional word-of-mouth marketing, but entrepreneurs who aren’t bolstering their outreach with a digital campaign are leaving a huge pool of potential customers untapped. Moreover, an active social media presence increases visibility and ensures that the right people are controlling the image of a brand.

In sum, all too often, entrepreneurs let a million-dollar idea blind them to the painstaking work that goes into fulfilling it. To truly become more than just the creator of another also-ran, entrepreneurs have to be willing to approach building their business with the same care they’d put into building their house — by tightening every bolt properly and stabilizing the foundation from the start.

Some people who complain about your business have valid complaints. They’ve tried your product or service and seen a real flaw that you need to fix as quickly as possible. 

Unfortunately, most people who complain about your business don’t actually help you improve the business the way a valid complainer does. These people can leave negative comments simply because they’re negative people, they disagree with your politics or some other reason. In this video, Entrepreneur Network partner Patrick Bet-David explains how you should react to each person who complains about your business — whom you should listen to, whom you should make changes for and whom you should just ignore.

Click play to learn more.

Related: A Single Leak Can Ruin Your Business. Here’s How to Protect Yourself.

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The Facebook cover photo — it seems like it should be easy to pick one, yet finding the perfect image can be really hard at the same time.

You only get one; one photo, one shot to make a good impression, one chance to convey a distinct feeling, so what should it be?

Related: How to Keep Up With Social Media Updates in 10 Minutes a Day

Your Facebook cover photo is one of the first things people will see when they visit your Facebook Page, and that is exactly why it is so important to make the best first impression possible and for the cover photo to convey exactly what it is you are aiming for. Even though it sounds simple, we’ve found that it’s pretty tough! No worries, though, we’re here to help you.

Let’s jump in and figure out the best way to make the most out of your Facebook cover photo, together.

In this article, we’ll do three things:

1. Introduce you to the Facebook cover photo and ideal dimensions.
2. Guide you through how to create a cover photo and how to select the perfect image.
3. Provide some examples of Facebook Pages with brilliant cover photos.

Let’s begin with a quick summary of cover photos and the best image size to use…

What’s the ideal size for a Facebook cover photo?

820 pixels wide by 462 pixels tall

The best image size to use for your Facebook Page cover photo can vary. According to Facebook, your cover photo:

• Displays at 820 pixels wide by 312 pixels tall on your Page on desktops and 640 pixels wide by 360 pixels tall on smartphones,
• Doesn’t display on non-smartphones,
• Must be at least 399 pixels wide and 150 pixels tall.
• Loads fastest as an sRGB JPG file that’s 851 pixels wide, 315 pixels tall and less than 100 kilobytes.

Whoa, okay. So what does all of that mean?

It means that even though we only get one photo, Facebook is going to use it in two very different ways:

• In the rectangular format of 820 pixels wide by 312 pixels tall for desktop;
• And the ever-so-slightly more squarish format of 640 pixels wide by 360 pixels tall for mobile.

If you want to use a single image that works pretty well on both desktop and mobile, 820 pixels wide by 462 pixels tall seems to be the best.

New: Cover video!

You can now use a video, instead of a static cover photo. With a video, you can share more about your business and tell a longer story.

Here are the specifications:

• It should be at least 820 pixels wide by 312 pixels tall.
• It can be 20 to 90 seconds long.

Pro tip: If you found an image or video that you love and the dimensions are a bit off, you can still use it! You’ll want to choose that image or video (or upload it), and then you’ll be allowed to ‘reposition’ it. With the reposition feature, Facebook is essentially allowing you to crop your cover photo in a way that you think best fits in the space.

Desktop vs. mobile

It’s great always to be mindful that Facebook Page cover photos on desktops and cover photos on mobile look different.

For example, here’s how a cover photo looks on a desktop:

And here’s how it looks in the Facebook mobile app:

They look similar, but there is a slight difference:

On mobile, the top and bottom portions are slightly expanded — by 75 pixels each to be precise — assuming you didn’t reposition the photo. The parts highlighted in red are not shown on your Page when viewed from a computer.

What’s cool here is that Facebook doesn’t stretch and squeeze the same image, they change the crop. This is awesome because it ensures that your image looks its best by not distorting anything.

Desktop sizing guide

With the new Facebook Page design, all the things that used to be on top of your cover photo (such as your profile photo, Page name, Like button, etc.) are moved out of the cover photo — yay!

For personal Facebook profiles, your profile photo, your name and several buttons still overlay the cover photo.

Double check your design on mobile

If you’re using text on your cover photo, like a call-to-action (CTA), you’ll want to pop over to the Facebook mobile app to take a peek just to make sure there’s nothing wonky going on. For example, if your cover photo is not tall enough, the sides of your photo (or a few characters of your CTA) might be cropped away on the mobile app.

How to create your cover photo

If you have some design skills, creating your own cover photo from the ground up using software like Photoshop is an excellent way to go. Going this route allows you to create a pixel-perfect representation of how you want to portray yourself or your business.

Related: How to Create a Stellar Social Media Marketing Plan for Under $100

Photoshop cover photo templates

To help you to jump straight into designing, we’ve created a Facebook cover photo template (820 x 462px).

This is how it looks like on desktop and mobile:

You can see an example of this here. (Hat tip to Cover Photo Size Helper — so helpful!)

Here are a few extra details for designers to consider about your Page’s profile picture:

• Displays at 170×170 pixels on your Page on computers, 128×128 pixels on smartphones and 36×36 pixels on most non-smartphones
• Will be cropped to fit a square

We know that we might not all be designers, but that doesn’t mean we can’t all have a beautiful Facebook cover photo. Here are some places you can look at to create your cover as well as some tips for making sure it fully represents you and your business.

Your photos

Your Facebook cover photo should be all about you or your business, so why not use one of your photos that represent you?

During our Madrid retreat, we took a team photo, which became our Facebook cover photo for several months.

Stock photos

If you don’t have any personal photos you would like to share, how about using a beautiful stock photo? We even shared 53 free image sources for you to find the perfect image for your cover photo. My favorite websites to find beautiful stock photos are Unsplash and Pixabay.

If the license of the photo allows, I would encourage you to edit or enhance whatever photo you pick with Pablo, Canva or PicMonkey to make it more personal. For example, you could pick one of your favorite quotes and lay it over the photo, and Pablo even has a few beautiful quotes you can pick directly in there.

Canva

If you don’t want to use a photo or if you’d like even more help to create your cover photo, Canva offers pre-made templates for you to use and customize however you would like.

To find these templates on Canva, select “More…” when you are creating a design and look for “Facebook cover”.

How to select your cover photo

Now that we know how to create your cover photo, the question is what kind of cover photo you should select? Are there cover photos that work best than others? Let’s investigate.

Best practices

First up, let’s discuss some of the best practices when it comes to a Facebook cover photo. Hubspot has put together a great list of Do’s and Don’ts when it comes to cover photos. Here are some of the highlights:

• Follow Facebook’s guidelines
• Respect Facebook’s required dimensions (820px wide by 312 px tall for desktops)
• Stay mainly visual and have a clear focal point
• Keep in mind how your cover photo will look like on mobile
• Integrate your cover photo design with the rest of your page

What type of image attracts people?

We looked into some of the components that make images shareable which turned out to be:

• Emotion: Making people feel, leads them to take action
• Relevance: Including something that fits with your audience’s interest
• Colors: Picking the right colors that will lead to the most shares
• Typography: Choosing the right font that will make your message clear
• Hashtags and text: Find the right words that will lead your audience to interact

These components can also be applied to your Facebook cover photo to make people feel a certain way or take a specific action when they come to your page.

For example, Coca-Cola’s cover photo shows several happy young adults clinking their coke bottles. This is likely to be in the hopes of making people feel happy when thinking of Coca-Cola and to make the connection in people’s mind that drinking a coke means happiness. Straightforward and effective!

Where do people look?

When coming up with your perfect cover photo, it might be interesting to look into some eye tracking studies. Something that I found particularly interesting in an article from Kissmetrics on the subject is the idea of “directional queues.”

It was found that if you would like to draw attention to a particular item in an image, having a visual queue like a person’s gaze looking at that item will guide viewers to what they should look at next. This could be an interesting way to use a person’s gaze in your Facebook cover photo.

Something else Kissmetrics found that might be worth playing around with is to include an element that “pops” in your cover photo. That element should be the one that matters and the one that calls for action.

For example, when HubSpot launched their Summer Startup competition, they changed their cover photo to encourage people to apply.

Thinking outside the box

The cover photo is a great way to express yourself but also a way to stand out when people visit your page. Here are some ways you can use your cover photo:

• Use your cover photo to promote your social media campaigns

• Change your cover photo based on special occasions, events, sales or holidays

• Use your cover photo to send people to a special offer

• Ask your fans to “Like” your page
• Ask your fans to share your page
• Include Easter Eggs that lead fans to a special giveaway or special event

Who does it well? A showcase of great cover photos and videos.

Now that we know what makes a good Facebook cover photo, how about we take a look at some of the Pages that do it well? Hopefully, you might find some inspiration.

Related: 7 Social Media Analytics and Reporting Tips for Becoming a Data-Savvy Marketer

Photos

Videos

Over to you

Before I turn it over to you, I have one last cover photo I wanted to share with you… yes you guessed it, it’s the Buffer cover video!

With this video, we wanted something that reflects what Buffer is, and Buffer is nothing without the people behind it.

Our team is such an integral part of Buffer that it makes sense the team would earn the coveted cover photo spot on Facebook. The video also gives a face to the company that people can connect with, and as our community is very important to us, it seems like the perfect choice.

People only buy for one reason and 99% of salespeople don’t know what that is, but do you know why people don’t buy from you? There are actually many reasons why people don’t buy from you. Understanding your buyer and the reasons why they don’t buy is essential to deliver creative, captivating communication and ultimately provide the service of the close.

Here are but just a few of the reasons people aren’t buying from you. 

1. Lack of time.

This is a reason people might not be getting back to you. You have to solve this time problem with your client to get your product, service and your company back on their agenda. They lack time to call you back, to email you, to respond to your text and to make time for another presentation. Look for creative ways to solve the lack of time issue.

You can’t do that with a better product, by explaining the product, by making the product better somehow, or by reducing your price. None of those things solve the lack of time issue. How do you take time out? Go to them. Send them information. Maybe you overtly address the time issue, “I know you’re busy and how busy you get, what can I do to solve your time problem?”

Related: 10 Most Innovative Movers and Shakers in Sales Leadership

2. Cash flow.

This is a major concern for every business. Cash flow has nothing to do with your price, product or brand. It’s their problem that you inherit. He is worried about the cash flow of the business effecting the business.  You lowering the price and adding value does not solve the cash flow concern.

Stop thinking like a salesperson and start thinking like a business person. The true professional salesperson will flush out that cash flow is the issue and resolve the issues in creative ways. You can simply ask, “Is this a cash flow issue? You mean if the cash flow problem wasn’t there, you would do this right now?” Offer deferred payments to bring the deal to fruition.

Related: The Many Ways You’re Marketing Even When You Don’t Even Know You Are

3. Able to do without.

Many people can go on without your solution. They have decided that they don’t need to do this right now. Why? They are making money and getting by, they don’t feel like they need to buy what you are selling. Until you can get your client to want your product so bad that they can’t live without it, they won’t buy.

You have to establish what the real problem is, the pain, that pivotal thing that makes them feel they have to do something now.  You have got to find that out.  Until you find that thing that makes them realize they can’t carry on without this, you won’t make the sale.  If they showed interest once they’ll probably have interest again.  Keep following up.  They showed interest, had a problem, and for a moment thought they needed it right now, but the feeling went away.  Be there when the winds change again.

Related: 5 Ways to Make Your Customers Say ‘WOW’

4. Your reputation.

You might have a black eye you don’t know about. Search the internet and maybe you’ll see something they saw. It could be a Yelp review or google review, something on Facebook — somebody somewhere posted or said something about your company and you need to handle it.

Ask people straight up, “Have you heard anything about me or my company that’s keeping you from doing business with us?” Just watch for an answer. You’ll see it show up on the buyer’s face. You’ll need to provide real hard data that whatever they’ve heard is not true.

Longer term, the best way to handle your reputation is to earn a good reputation. Get lots of people saying good things about you and your company. Too many people wait until there is a reputation problem and then try and play catch-up.

Every day you need to be telling the world what you are doing to contribute, make it different, to make your community, area or group better. Build and sell your reputation. The old adage of not blowing your own horn is stupid — then why have a horn? Build your reputation and your brand, and make it golden. You don’t need it to be perfect.  If you’re going to make it to the top you will have haters. You’ll have people post stuff about you that is not true. Get lots of people to post good stuff that will overwhelm the few haters.  

There are many more reasons people aren’t buying from you. To grow your business you must understand your buyers and the many reasons they don’t buy from you so that you can fix those issues and get sales. I’ve created programs to help business owners and entrepreneurs grow sales and increase market share, but it starts with understanding why people aren’t buying from you.