It’s Facebook Friday — each week we’ll offer one tip for leveraging Facebook to increase customer awareness of and engagement with your brand or business. This week we’ll show you how to change your Facebook Page (the kind for businesses or brands) to the new Facebook Timeline.

If you’re looking to update a personal profile instead of a business Page, we have a guide to Facebook Timeline profiles too.

All Pages will be forced to upgrade to Timeline on March 30, but you can change before then — right now in fact! First, make all the necessary preparations for the switch to Timeline, and then sure you’re logged in as a user with administrative access to the Page in question.

Once all that’s done, navigate to facebook.com/about/pages in your web browser.

You’ll end up at a splash page introducing the new Timeline Pages, and on it you’ll see a big green button that says, “Preview  Your Pages.” Click this to get started. It will present you with a list of the Pages your account has administrative access to. You can either preview an individual Page’s Timeline, or if you have access to multiple Pages, you can click “Preview All Pages.” Let’s focus on just one for our purposes here.

Preview Your Facebook Page Timeline

Click the grey “Turn on Preview” to change your own view of your Page to Timeline. You’ll see the new Facebook Page style, but your customers or fans won’t until you publish it after the process is complete. There will be a small link in the instructions at the top of your Page that will let you see the old-fashioned Page as needed until you finally publish your Timeline.

If you’ve already turned on the preview, you’ll actually see a blue “Publish” button instead. Clicking this will permanently switch you to Timeline for all to see!

When you click “Turn on Preview,” your browser will jump to the Timeline version of your Page. An info panel will be ever-present at the top, always providing you with the opportunity to “Publish Now” or “Take a Tour.” The tour can be helpful because it explains exactly what Timeline is all about, and what its different elements are. Whenever you’re ready to make your new Timeline live to all the people on Facebook, just click the “Publish Now” button.

But first you’ll want to make your Page looks awesome and make sure it has all the information it needs to function as a Timeline.

Add a Cover Image to Your Timeline

The cover image is a large, wide image that appears even larger than your Page’s profile photo. Ideally it should be something beautiful that really represents your brand. For example, if your business is a restaurant, this could be a high-quality, professional photograph of your dining area. If you’re a small legal team, you could use your firm’s logo as the profile photo for the Page, but include your partners’ smiling faces as the cover.

To add a cover, locate the “Add a Cover” button at the top-right corner of your Timeline — above the “Like” and “Message” buttons. Click it and a quick explanation may pop up if you’ve never clicked it before. After you’ve read that, click the “Upload Photo” option that drops down below the “Add a Cover” button.

You’ll be prompted to select an image file from your local computer to upload. The image will automatically be sized to match the Cover space, but you’ll be given the opportunity to click and drag it to the position you want it in. Click “Save Changes” and you’re done!

Add Milestones to Your Timeline

As with personal profiles, Facebook’s Timeline for business and brand Pages features a complete history of the Page’s subject — in this case your business. You can add “Milestones” — important events in your business’ history. This could include, for example, the day the business was founded, when it received funding, made acquisitions, or went public, or when it launched important new products or services.

You’ll want to add just a few of these so visitors can appreciate your Timeline, but keep in mind that if you forget something now you can add more after the Page is published.

See the field where you can type in a status update, at the top-left part of your Timeline? Just above that is a “Milestone” option. Click it to add your first Milestone.

If you haven’t done so already, Facebook will prompt you to choose the founding date for your business or brand first in a pop-up window. Take care of that then click the Milestone button again to add other Milestones.

You can specify what the event is called, where and when it happened, and provide some context in the “Story” field. You can also add a photo to accompany the Milestone, and if you’d prefer, you can hide the Milestone from fans’ News Feeds.

Just click “Save” when you’re done filling out the fields and your Milestone will appear on your Timeline!

Publish Your Facebook Page Timeline

Have all the Milestones you need? Great. Now, if everything looks good to you, it’s time to Publish your new Timeline. Scroll to the top of your Timeline preview and click the “Publish Now” button. That’s it. You’re done! Everyone can see your Timeline.

Was this tip helpful? Do you have any more ideas for getting the most out of Facebook? Let us know in the comments!