As you all know, graphic design is what I love. All forms of design from business branding and marketing to book cover design and formatting done well draw my immediate attention. That’s why in this post I just have to share with you a Facebook social media graphic ‘hack’ that I learned and implemented just yesterday!

You already know that in Facebook, in your profile area, you can use up to five images that you have uploaded to ‘Feature’. Well, that’s all fine and dandy, but … this area can be used to better purpose by following these doable, and simple, directions.

First, you have to design the graphic. I know, not all of you are designers so you may have to ask for help from yours—or you could hire me, *wink*—but here’s what you need to know about how to design it.

• In your graphic design program open a new document and set the size to 300 x 300 px. If you go longer than that it will be cut off, as I found out the hard way and had to go back and readjust my original longer design.
• Add a CTA (Call To Action) either button or text at the bottom that we have become used to seeing so your visitor knows what you want them to do. This can be something as simple as ‘Click here’ or as specific as you want and will encourage them to click the graphic where they will find your link, which you’ll add later in the description.

• If you want to share more “About Me” information or you want more of a graphic about your services the text you use will vary. I chose to go with my services and therefore the text had to be “All about Them” rather than “All About Me”. That’s like a golden rule of advertising.
• Save your graphic as a .png. This is so Facebook won’t mess with the compression.
• Next, go to your Facebook profile page and upload your photo.
• Be sure to set the privacy for the photo to ‘only me’ so it won’t be shared all over your news feed. Now save it.
• Immediately go to your timeline and hide your graphic.
• Hover over your ‘Feature Photos’ and your will see a pen icon show up that when you mouse over it will say ‘Edit’. Click to edit. Here’s where the magic begins.
• If you have any photos selected delete them all. And then select ONLY your new graphic. Here’s the hack. This will replace all other photos and it will be rendered in all its full glory! There’s no need to add a description at this point, because it won’t show up anyway.
• Now it’s time to add your description and link. Click anywhere on your graphic and you will see an option to add a description to the left of it. If you already have a description there click it to edit it and add your text. You can add a shortened, trackable link if you like. There are free and paid services that allow you to track clicks. Save.

That’s all there is to it.

Visit my Facebook page to see my graphic in action or if you are looking for inspiration. Here’s the link: https://www.facebook.com/gmarksfl. Let me know if you need help creating your graphic, that’s what I do best.

Comment below and share your graphic. I would love to see how you did.