By Melody Harstine, goodmedia communications, staff writer

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You’ve probably just started getting used to the fact that Facebook gave the home page Newsfeed a major facelift last week, and now they’re shaking things up again, and this time, in an even bigger way.

If you haven’t seen the new Timeline yet, hang onto your hat, because if you’re prone to frustration with Facebook’s many changes, is definitely the biggest change to Facebook since the social network’s birth. From now on, your personal profile won’t simply be a profile displaying your updates, photos and videos. It is now a Timeline — a virtual scrapbook of your life.

Facebook’s new Timeline aims at making social media even more personal. The new profile design will have two main columns, instead of just one. Boxes of text, photos, videos, activities and anything else you share on Facebook will be organized in chronological order along the vertical timeline.

For the faint at heart, or the “social share conservatives,” it may be somewhat scary to consider that all your memories can be recorded on Facebook. For those who have already made the full transition from hard copy scrapbooks and journals to digital albums and blogs, you are more likely to be appreciative of these changes and realize their full potential.

The new Timeline is full of features, and just like starting a new relationship, the best way to get to know the new Facebook is to spend time with it. To get you started, I’ve pulled out a few of my favorite features and those I believe have the most potential.

Note: At this time, Timeline will only apply to personal profiles, not business pages. However, if you are a business owner, and use your personal profile for business, there are a number of significant opportunities with the new Timeline.

Take a Trip Back in Time With Timeline
If you or your business is older than seven, you remember life without Facebook, and your profile only contains information from your life or your business covering the last seven years. With Timeline, you can go back in time to add significant events, photos, and memories. On the top right side of the page, you’ll see a ­timeline of dates, all the way back to your birth. Want to add photos of your childhood in their proper chronological space to your timeline? Simply click to that point in time, and add your photos. Facebook allows you to add information about milestones, relationships, work and education and many more sub-categories of information.

If you are a business owner and would like to share photos, articles and other pieces of information significant in your business’ past, you can, and in a timely, chronological way.

Share the Highlights
While it may seem contradictory to what I just mentioned, as you go back in time on your new Timeline, Facebook begins to summarize your stories. The Facebook algorithm pulls out the most important stories, photos, videos, etc. and hides the less important. Let’s face it, a month from now, what you ate for breakfast today won’t matter as much as the encounters you shared with people. As Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg explained at the recent F8 convention, Facebook makes it incredibly easy to share your whole life “on a single page.”

Don’t let your heart rate climb just yet. If you really want to remember what you had for breakfast on September 30, 2011, click the “View Activity” button under your cover photo, and you can scroll through specific dates and see all of your Facebook activity for that day.

Express Yourself
The first thing you may notice about the new Timeline is how visual it is. Make a bold first impression with your cover photo, which stretches across the top of your Timeline. This photo does not replace your profile picture, it is simply an additional opportunity to express yourself. Your profile picture will still appear in the bottom left of the cover photo. For business owners, this might mean a large image of your company’s logo for the cover, and a headshot of yourself for your profile picture. Are you an artist or photographer? Use the cover photo as an opportunity to display your favorite piece, and make it the first thing people see when the come to your Timeline.

I’ve heard it said more than once in the last week that people are going to stop using Facebook because it’s getting too complicated. Facebook’s not going away, and at this point in time (no matter how hard Google tries with Google+) there is no social network that makes sharing your life so simple.

It will certainly take you time to adjust to the new Timeline. But give it time, and you’ll realize that what Facebook has done is, again, nothing short of brilliant.

goodmedia communications, llc is a strategic branding and creative boutique offering all forms of media communications to assist clients in developing, designing and executing their products and brand. We specialize in book and magazine publishing; brand development and brand expression; and website design, website development, search engine optimization, customized blogs and social media. From expert copywriting to innovative design, goodmedia communications is a creative agency committed to implementing progressive and innovative ideas in the marketplace.