What's a new layout without cool features? Facebook Milestones is the coolest feature of the new Facebook Timeline layout. This new functionality enables users to share their important lifetime milestones—graduations, proposals, marriages, birthdays, and so on.

For businesses, however, it's an opportunity to connect with their fans in a creative, exciting manner. After all, what social media training teaches you about reaching your audience, building a community and posting interesting and valuable content can all be achieved with Facebook Milestones.

Here are three great examples of how brands are using the Facebook Milestones feature for their social media marketing.

• Fanta's “Go Back in Time” game cleverly uses the Facebook Timeline layout and the Milestones feature to actively engage both old and new fans. Fanta highlights clues and asks fans to “Like” posts so that they can send the Fanta characters back in time. The game jumps in the timeline through the decades, adding quirky game pictures in years like 1956 and 1988. Fanta's use of Facebook Milestones is a great way to not only gain new fans and get them to spend some time on Fanta’s page, but it also seeks to recover fans by having them “Like” posts from the past.
• The U.S. Army is all about American history, and it wants its fans to know a little bit about it, too. The military branch has been using the Facebook Milestones feature to highlight crucial moments in U.S. history, like the birth of the U.S. Army on June 14, 1775, the Indian War, the founding of West Point, and wars of the twentieth century. Fans can have a lot of fun clicking through the years on the right side of the Timeline, and learning about various moments in American history.
• SportsCenter's Facebook page, one of the go-to places for hardcore sports fans on Facebook, uses the Facebook Milestones feature to highlight major sports champions since SportsCenter's start. This encourages fans to look back at their favorite special moments in recent sports history, while also leading them through a nice collection of photos from the original show. It's an opportunity for SportsCenter to keep fans on their profile and also increase “Likes.”

The right Facebook training can enable your business to take full advantage of the features available in Facebook's redesign. Splash Media U offers the best in social media training. Take a look at our classes by visiting www.splashmediau.com and take advantage of our special offer—a 14-day free trial that includes SplashCube, our proprietary social media management software.