Facebook drops 20% text rule for cover photos

Blink and you miss it – keeping up with the latest Facebook cover photo guidelines keeps you on your toes.

As of July 1, 2013, Facebook updated its Page Guidelines by removing this line “Covers may not include images with more than 20% text.” They have not yet publicly announced the change or the reason behind it yet; it remains permission-by-omission.

In May we posted an article about Facebook removing some of its other regulations such as calls-to-action, prices and contact details. The 20% text rule was one they have retained up until now.

It was one they had guarded quite fiercely, too, with pages removed from the social media site for lack of obedience.

So far it seems that posts and ads are still required to come under the 20% text rule, as according to Facebook “using images with minimal text makes your content engaging and ensures that people only see high quality content in News Feed”. But, it may only be a matter of time before this gets a reworking too. Watch this space.