By now you must have heard the announcement that by the end of March all pages on Facebook will be rolling over to the new timeline look.  With this comes a long list of changes that not only related to the look of page but will also have important impacts on functionality.

Some of the major changes include

• Lose of custom landing tabs
• No more "Wall"
• Ability to "pin" items to the top
• New message functionality

There is lots more to know about the coming changes so you can plan and adjust your strategies.  That however is not what this post is about.  For the latest breaking information (and killer videos) I would strongly encourage you to check out and subscribe to John Haydon's blog.  Quicker than you can say "What is happening" John will have a video up telling you exactly how it will affect your nonprofit.  In fact he literally wrote the book on Facebook.

Other helpful recent blog posts on changes and tatics include:

• Beth Kanter
• Debra Askanase
• Nonprofitorgs

So What's This Post About

This post is simply to share a couple resources for those folks looking to build their own covers.  You can simply crop a photo to fit the new dimensions (849 x 413) or even upload a regular picture and do the auto-cropping thing. 

For those with a tiny bit of experience with Photoshop looking to do a bit more here are a few PSD files that you can use to create and view mock-ups.

Cover Photo Template

This is a basic file that allows you to work on your layered cover photo with a basic overlay of how the Profile picture might overlap and interact with it.

Download Facebook Timeline Cover PSD file

It will be exciting to see some of the creative results that nonprofits come up with over the next month.  Below are some examples to get your creative juices flowing.

Example from personal profile

*Originally posted at Razoo

*Origianlly posted at SocialFresh

*Originally posted at SmashingHub

*Originally posted at Inspirationfeed

Full Mock-Up Template

It is helpful to see a preview or "Try on a few outfits" without having an update go out on the Facebook news feed saying you updated your cover. No one likes to draw attention to themselves during a rehearsal.  It can also be a helpful way to share previews with other members of your organization prior to going live.

That is why I found this PSD file for the full mock-up preview useful. In the interest of maintaining credit where it is due the originator of the file Hongkait.com has his branding on the template.  I have modified the file you can download so that you can cover that up by simply making a layer visible.

Download the full mock-up PSD file

Some Basic Tips

With custom landing tabs going away this cover image is your new first impression so use it wisely.  Herer are a few tips on things to include:

• Show your personality
• Show your "actions"
• Give an example of the “impact”
• Offer versions that fans can download and use to show their support for your organization

*Be sure to adhere to the Facebook Guidelines for cover images

Not A Photoshop Ninja

For those not ready to use Photoshop below are a few good free online resources for some basic and user-friendly tools to do some layering and effects.

• Aviary.com
• Pixlr.com

So what are your plans? Do you have a cover image you would like to share? Would love to hear about it or see links in the comments to nonprofit examples.