Your Facebook timeline is about to look different for spring 2013 – changes to profile pages are happening now, so don’t be surprised if next time you log in you see something a little different!

The updated timeline layout banishes separate boxes for friends, maps, photos and applications and replaces them with text tabs. The entire look is more minimalist and shifts ‘activity’ to one column while keeping important details about you and friends’ posts in the other.

Focus is now heavily weighted towards interests; instead of languishing in a hidden corner of the page, your favorite books, movies, and TV shows now take center stage (probably to increase the efficacy of their improved Graph search).

What do these changes mean for you?

• Take this opportunity to check your privacy settings; whenever there is a change to FB, use it as a reminder to update who can see what on your profile and what your profile looks like to a complete stranger.

• Get good photos of yourself.  Facebook has always been a visual medium, but now it’s making photos larger and take center-stage to a greater degree.

• Consider this a wake-up call to start using more apps. FB is now weighting activity on certain connected partners and giving them a staring role on your timeline. Aspiring authors need a Goodreads account, and now is a great time to get one. Also consider Pinterest, Netflix, or Instagram depending on your style and area of expertise.

Facebook will be changing everyone’s timeline over the next two weeks; don’t be surprised to wake up to a leaner, image-charged page one of these mornings!