Facebook Timeline Now Mandatory For Personal Profiles (and possibly business pages too)

The Facebook Timeline. You either love it or you hate it. But, over the next couple weeks, Facebook will make it mandatory that users switch over to the Timeline layout, if they haven't already done so.

On January 24th, Facebook announced the mandatory change and said that they will be making the switch over the next few weeks. Users will get the standard 7 day review period, during which, users can scour their timeline to ensure any inappropriate pictures and posts are removed. After 7 days, your timeline will go live for the world to see.

There are also rumors that Facebook will be switching business pages to the Timeline layout as well, though this has not been confirmed on Facebook's official blog or in a press release from the company. Right now, it's all hearsay. Several social media news outlets have stated that there will be a possible announcement regarding this change on February 29th, when Facebook holds its invitation only marketing conference (how can I get an invite to that?).

There are many concerns regarding a potential switch of the traditional business page layout to a new Timeline structure. Most of the concern stems around the wide use of iFrame applications to create custom "tabs" and landing pages on your brand's page. While I strongly doubt that iFrames would be wiped out completely, a massive change like this would mean that brand managers would need to spend a fair amount of time redesigning their brand's Facebook pages in order to properly take advantage of the new layouts.

Time will tell regarding business page changes, but in the meanwhile, brace yourself for your own personal timeline, arriving any day now. What concerns do you have over these changes, either to the personal profiles or the business pages? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

~JessicaE

P.S. Looking for some tips to help ease into the timeline world? Check out this post.