Just last week, Facebook updated all the business pages on its network to the new Facebook Timelines format. But is the new layout really better than the old one? Market researchers from SimpleUsability investigated the use of new Timeline behavior with an Eye-tracking study and the results are surprising.

The report called “New Facebook Brand Pages: A first look at usability” says that many new feature pages are being overlooked or misunderstood by users. It turns out, users don’t pay much attention to the profile picture and applications that are located directly under the cover.

The study shows that entries that are older than a month are no longer read, and users didn’t pay much attention to these older posts as they are more interested in real time updates. Visitors hardly bother about the entries on the home page, tending to search for content on other pages.

“The average user does not fully understand the new layout and does not interact with it as it was conceived,” said Guy Redwood, managing director of SimpleUsability. “This will likely change over time, but as the mechanics of obtaining ‘Likes’ has become more difficult for brands, they now need to drive engagement more than ever. Page editors no longer have the ability to set targeted landing tabs or applications for non-fans. In the past you could direct people onto a particular tab to encourage likes or interaction with a promotion.”

Users were interested in the about page section, although they found it hard to locate the about link and shortened descriptions. Users also showed interest in the history of brands, but again, many were jumbled at how brands were able to include content before Facebook was launched.

SimpleUsability tapped into the data behind Facebook user behavior to understand which elements of the network’s new Timeline are good enough to draw the attention of the human eye. The company uses eye-tracking technology and recorded eye movement of users. The users were provided with six samples of timeline pages of six large brands including American Express, Coco-Cola, Coldplay, Gap, Manchester United and Pizza Hut.

The main findings of the study may be useful for brands that are still working on their own timelines. First, the cover photo is not as important as many think. Second, brands must focus on helping fans understand the new page layouts and indicate the availability of new content and functionality.

A recent study by Simply Measured indicated the opposite story of timeline. The study found that with Timeline interactions and user engagement with brands grew by 46 percent. Livestrong, Toyota, and The Humane Society achieved the largest increases in fan engagement as much as 190 percent.

Offerpop Announces Deals and Look Book Apps for Facebook

While SimpleUsability study provided some insight for brands to drive user engagement, startup ventures are busy in creating new marketing apps for Facebook that integrate with the Timeline for optimal integration and access.

Offerpop, the social content marketing that runs engaging and viral promotions in Facebook and Twitter for brands, unveiled two new apps to their Facebook marketing suite: Look Book, a slideshow app for highlighting a company’s brand products, and Deals that highlights a brand’s discounts and offers in a single Facebook Timeline page.

The Look Book app offers slideshow presentations that brands can use to create visually stunning and engaging showcase for collections of their products. Each slideshow can be customized using call-to-action feature through which fans can click to buy products online as well as redeem unique promo codes and printable coupons.

The Deal app provides brands an option to display all their offers, discounts and coupons in a single area on their Facebook timeline page. This app also provides call-to-action action for fans to redeem unique promo codes and printable coupons.

“Offerpop is about helping social media marketers achieve real ROI for their campaigns,” said Mark Cooper, co-founder and CMO of Offerpop. “With Look Book and Deals, marketers can transform both their fans and the friends of their fans into repeat customers.”

The app also supports website conversion tracking, which when used can easily track campaign-driven sales and signups and report it back to Offerpop’s reports dashboard.