Let your community show their support now, while gathering email to reach them later with the frame social action.
With our new Profile Picture Frame social action you can create a campaign that benefits your supporters and your cause.
- They get a cool profile picture overlay to show their friends they support your cause.
- You get a list of names and emails of everyone who believed in your cause enough to associated it with their most prominent Facebook image.
It's a win-win. And best of all, if you contact these supporters in the future, you won't be spamming them. They've shown the world they stand for your cause, making them that much more likely to show support for future actions related to your cause, too.
How to create a Profile Picture Frame Social Action
First log into ActionSprout and select your Facebook Page to work with from the Accounts screen.
Next click on the Social Actions tab in the left hand menu of the screen:
Start by filling in the basics:
- Give it a catchy title
- Be clear about what you're asking supporters to do
- What do you want the button to say to get them to click?
- Choose an engaging image to promote the Profile Frame. What's likely to catch their attention while they're quickly scrolling through their busy Facebook News Feed?
Once you've entered all that, you'll want to upload the overlay or frame image itself. This will be the picture your community adds to their profile images to show their support.
We recommend you use an overlay image that's 1000 x 1000 pixels. Also, make sure you save it as a .PNG file with a transparent background.
If your overlay image is not a square, you'll have the chance to crop it once you upload it into ActionSprout. (It has to be a square because profile images are square on Facebook, and your overlay needs to match up exactly.)
Once you're happy with your overlay image, write a description for your social action. Make sure the wording helps persuade your supporters to change their image for your cause. Not sure what to say? We have an entire best practices guide to will help you create a killer action description!
You can also customize your thank you screen, privacy info, opt-in message, donation appeals, and whatever info you'd like to collect when supporters complete your Social Action and apply the frame to their profile images.
Then Save Changes at the bottom of your screen. When the screen refreshes, click the link at the very top of the page to view your brand new Facebook Profile Frame.
Please note: This does not share your new frame with anyone else, nor will it cause your new action to be visible on your Facebook Page. To share your action with supporters, please see this guide.
How it works on your supporters' end
Let's use the following example of a Facebook user who wants to support a honeybee conservation effort.
First, she logs into Facebook and clicks on her Profile Picture Frame link to preview the profile image, like this:
In this example, it makes it look like a bee is flying over the profile picture. If she likes what she sees, she can click Create Profile Picture button.
When the screen refreshes, she'll be able to see a preview of her profile image with the bee on it. To finalize the change, she'll click the Use as Profile Picture button.
Facebook will then pop up a message asking her to confirm the change.
Once she clicks Confirm, the overlay image will appear as her profile image anywhere she goes on Facebook!
PLEASE NOTE: The experience will happen in mobile view even on a desktop or laptop device. This is expected and how the tool works. Don't worry too much about it as 70% to 80% of your supporters will be viewing your frame from a mobile device. 😀
Tips for creating your .PNG overlay image
Pixlr Editor
This is a free web app that lets you create and save images. Just choose "Create new image" and make sure you check "Transparent." This lets the image float on top of the supporter's profile picture, rather than completely covering it up.
Canva
This is another handy (free!) tool to help you create nice overlay images. Just click the Download button at the top, choose PNG (Recommended), and make sure the Transparent background box is checked.
Gimp
For a more robust photo editor, check out Gimp. This free Photoshop lookalike downloads software right to your personal machine for use (versus doing everything online like the other two). Once again, remember to save your new image as a .PNG file with a transparent background.
