20
Add Super-Powered Facebook Features to your Website with the JavaScript SDK
The ease with which a someone can click a “Like” button on Facebook is an unspeakably useful tool. There is so much to be said for word-of-mouth; no matter how fantastic your ads and marketing material might be, a recommendation from a friend or colleague will always be ten times more effective to a potential customer or audience member.
Now, with very minimal effort,you can add that ease of sharing to your website or blog.
The SDK Code
You can find Facebook’s page for the SDK Code here. On a completely non-technical level, this code is what will enable your website or blog to understand and utilize Facebook’s applications for your site.
Here is the code you will need:
<div id="fb-root"></div>
<script>
window.fbAsyncInit = function() {
FB.init({appId: 'your app id', status: true, cookie: true,
xfbml: true});
};
(function() {
var e = document.createElement('script'); e.async = true;
e.src = document.location.protocol +
'//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js';
document.getElementById('fb-root').appendChild(e);
}());
</script>
Essentially, this code will just need to be added before the closing body tag of your site or template. If you’re unsure about how to do that, I bet your friendly neighborhood web developer could be bribed with tasty treats (Mmmm, tasty treats…)
With the SDK code entered, you have easy access to the supercharged Java versions of Facebook's Social Plugins.
Social Plugins?
That’s right, Social Plugins. You may be familiar with Facebook’s Instant Personalization if you use the awesome Yelp, the more awesome Pandora, or the pretty-okay Microsoft Docs. These three sites partnered with Facebook earlier this year. Pandora, for example, will display which of your friends have Liked the artist you are listening to, and allow you to post your own likes on your Wall with a single click.
While not quite as intensive, (or some would say, intrusive) as Instant Personalization, Facebook’s Social Plugins toolset offers a similar set of features that can be included in any website.
Your Supercharged Like Button
Here is a quick example of the simplest, easiest, and one of the best features of the Social Plugins toolset: the Like button.
This like button actually packs quite a punch. It will allow your visitor to add a comment to their “like”, which will appear on their Facebook status…
… and will display the portrait picture of any friends who also like the item.
Adding the button to your page is dead easy. Remember, at this point, you should have already added the SDK code above, or this won’t work. Ready? let’s mosey on over to the Social Plugins homepage.
There’s a lot of exciting stuff here, but for now we’ll go straight to the Like button. Go ahead and click on it.
Just a few easy options to choose here and we’re nearly done.
Put the web address you want the Like to lead back to in the “URL to Like” box (later we’ll cover how to set this up so that each of your Blogger or WordPress posts will automatically have a like box leading back to that post, but for now, let’s try a single URL).
The rest is mostly cosmetic, there are a standard and smaller layout available, you can choose to include fans’ profile pictures or not, you can change the color (light or dark), font, and verb (“like” or “recommend”) as well. One thing you’ll want to pay attention to is width. Don’t make it too wide for the box you intend to put it in!
When you’re done here, click “Get Code.”
See that big long chunk of code under iframe? … Ignore it. Because we’ve entered the SDK code, we can use the much shorted XFBML code to create our button.
Here’s where uncle Fat Dude makes a small confession… you actually could have skipped the SDK altogether and used the iframe code instead, so we have sort of done this the hard way. Except, we get some extra bells and whistles with the XFBML version, not the least of which is the option to add comments. See? Put in the extra work and reap the rewards.
From here, you will simply need to insert the code where your button belongs. If both the button code and the SDK code are inserted successfully… congratulations on your new Like button!
Beyond the Like Button
Now that you’ve added your SDK code and successfully implemented your first Social plugin, you might want to head back to the Social plugins page and see what else there is that might add some value to your page. Some are just a tad more complicated to implement than the Like button, but not much.
Please do let me know in the comments if you have any trouble, and I’d love to see links to your successful implementation of your own Like button!
19
Using Insights to Improve your Facebook Page and Ads
Or, “Stay on target…”
(A cookie to any geek who gets the reference)
Once your Facebook Fan page is up and running and you’ve had some activity from Fans and visitors, you’ll begin collecting some precious data that will be a huge help in deciding just what content is connecting with your visitors, and just who those visitors are.
What’s an Insight?
If you are familiar at all with Google Analytics, you have a good idea what to expect from Insights. If not, think of Insights as your own private data analyst for your Facebook Page. Through Insights, you can view a huge amount of data about page visits, likes, comments, and demographics.
You can find Insights either through the box under your profile picture on your Wall, or by browsing to http://www.facebook.com/insights/.
Using Insights Data to Improve Your Content
When you first visit Insights, you’ll be provided with a general overview of your Users (people who like and visit your page), and Interactions (likes and comments on your content) over roughly the past two weeks.For both, you can drill down into deeper detail, as well as mousing over the line graph to get data from any one day.
Let’s take a look at our Interactions.
Interactions describe how your users are… well, interacting with your page and its content. The first graph shows feedback on your daily posts; how many likes and comments you got, and how many people unsubscribed from your feed. On the second graph, you see a readout of your other page activity: wall, video and discussion posts; reviews; and mentions of your page on other Facebook feeds (profile walls, etc).
All this is a great tool to show you what interactions your customers had with your page, and when. It’s a nice warm, fuzzy feeling to see those lines start to rise, which can be a great motivator, but the data is more use than just that.
By comparing spikes in activity to the actual content you released on your page at peak interaction times, you can start to determine which content is working, and which isn’t. Did you have several unsubscribes after your eight-post series on your cats’ sleeping habits? You may be disengaging some of your audience with that content or worse, spamming up their feeds. If, on the other hand, you had a huge spike after a two-week long series about Facebook Fan Pages (wink wink), that sort of content may be serving your Page very well.
This sort of trending, if performed regularly (say, once a month) can lead to a big boost in Fan engagement and retention.
Using Insights Data to Find Your Niche, Improve Your Ads
Let’s head over to your Users details. here, You’ll find some bar graphs that reiterate the information you found in your Interactions data: Users active on a daily basis and the number of Likes and Unlikes your page is receiving. We’re going to scroll past that to the Demographics.
Here, loyal reader, we have hit the Insights jackpot. The demographics graph gives you a lot of great data about who your visitors are: where they’re from, how old they are, their gender. This lets you know at a glance what demographics you are reaching most.
Your plan of attack based on this data can go one of two ways: Catering your next ad campaign to your key demographic can certainly get you some page views and Likes, but you may also want to consider those demographics you are not yet reaching as thoroughly. The chart pictured above shows a very heavily young, female audience. If this was your chart, what new contents and what sort of targeted ad copy could bring in the male audience? What about readers 55+?
Your Insights are your Facebook Fan Page’s report card. It shows you just how well your content is performing, and who is consuming it the most. Your content and ads can only benefit from you keeping a vigilant eye on your Insights.
How are your charts and graphs looking? What are you doing to get those numbers up? Let us know in the comments!
18
How to include YouTube Videos on your Facebook Page
If you’ve had your Facebook Page for a while now, and you’re a savvy social networker, you may have tried to include a YouTube video, or a Flickr slideshow, only to have nothing appear on your page. Don’t worry, this is definitely possible, and today we’re going to discuss how to make it happen.
A few things to keep in mind first:
- Including Flash content requires that you’ve installed Static FBML and have set up a new tab. See our post on this topic if you haven’t done this yet.
- This, and all other Static FBML tricks, will only work on your Facebook Page, not on your Profile.
- This tutorial will not cover how to position the Flash file on your page. If you are web design -savvy, you can do this by enclosing the below code in a div and styling it with CSS. If you don’t know what that means, your friendly neighborhood designer may be willing to exchange his or her services for tasty treats.
- This tutorial will not cover how to make videos, music, animation, or any other interactive content that plays immediately upon page load… because it isn’t possible. Read on to find out why.
The Problem
Here’s why you haven’t been successful including a Youtube video on your page. Youtube’s handy-dandy embed code works for you on your blog and your website, but if you paste it into your Static FBML page’s code, it won’t work there.
The reason is that Facebook will not allow any page to contain video, sound, or animation that ambushes the user by playing immediately upon loading. Facebook has implemented a its own FBML tag that requires that you include a place-holder image. The user has to click that image to play the embedded media. For a good example, take a look at Starburst’s landing page.
Very stylishly implemented, but a placeholder image nonetheless.
The Code
Here is an example of code you would need to put in your Static FBML page to embed a YouTube video:
<fb:swf
swfsrc='http://www.youtube.com/v/Mtw-tC5hTZM'
imgsrc='http://img.youtube.com/vi/Mtw-tC5hTZM/2.jpg' width='480' height='385' />
<fb:swf : This is the tag that tells Facebook to embed a Flash item. This and the closing /> must be included for this to work.swfsrc='http://www.youtube.com/v/Mtw-tC5hTZM' The address in the single quotes (note everything is in single, not double, quotes) is where your flash file is stored. We'll get into specifics for YouTube and some other services in just a bit.imgsrc='http://img.youtube.com/vi/Mtw-tC5hTZM/2.jpg' This is where your placeholder image is stored.width='480' height='385' This is the size of both the image and the flash file, in pixels. They should be the same size or you'll end up with some funky results.
<fb:swf
swfsrc='http://www.youtube.com/v/XXXXXXXXXXX'
imgsrc='http://img.youtube.com/vi/XXXXXXXXXXX/2.jpg' width='480' height='385' />
17
Four FBML Tricks to Improve your Facebook Page
Image by Skycaptaintwo
Or: Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks
Now that you have your own Static FBML landing page, and maybe a few additional tabs as well, it’s time to keep adding value for your Fans with a few tips and tricks using FBML (Please note if you haven’t yet added the Static FBML app, you’ll need to do so to use the tips listed below).
What is FBML?
If you’ve gotten this far, you have at least a passing acquaintance with HTML, or Hypertext Markup Language. Just as HTML is read by a browser to tell it how to display a webpage, to too is FBML (Facebook Markup Language) read to do the same. Here are just a few simple tricks to use FBML on your page:
Fans Only Please
With this little trick, you can offer two versions of any element in your HTML, one for users who “Like” your page, and one for users who don’t.
<fb:visible-to-connection>
You are my fan.
<fb:else>You are not my fan.</fb:else>
</fb:visible-to-connection>
If you’re at least a little familiar with basic programming concepts, you might recognize the above as an if-then(else) statement. If not, here is the above in plain English:
If the person is my fan,
then, display this: “You are my fan.”
Otherwise, display this: “You are not my fan.”
Nifty, right? All you’ll need to do is copy the code above, place it where you’d like the conditional text in your Static FBML page, and replace my text with yours.
Please note that when you are logged into an account that has administrator access to your Page, you will see both sets of text when you visit the tab. I suggest you get a friend who is your fan to test the “fan” text for you, and you can test the “non-fan” text on your own by simply logging out of your account and visiting the page.
This could be useful in many situations, particularly for coupons, contests, and other promotions. When providing instructions, making “If you are not already my Facebook Fan, please become one by..” turn into “Since you’re already my Facebook Fan, go ahead and..” or “since you’re not yet my fan..” is a nice touch.
Or, you might want to add a conditional thank you message. “Thank you so much for remaining my Fan, I really appreciate your support!”
Sharing is Caring
The best thing you can hope for by placing content on your Facebook page, except perhaps a sale, is Fans who want to share your content with their friends. Make it as easy as possible for them!
<fb:share-button class=”url” href=”http://www.fatdudedesign.com/contact.html” />
That’s it, just one line of code. The result is an old-fashioned, but still functional “Share” button that looks like this:
The only thing you need to change in this code is the web address inside the quotation marks. You may want to put this button somewhere on a tab to recommend that your fans share that particular tab with their friends. In that case, you’ll want to enter the tab’s URL. I’ve also used this next to buttons that redirect to a blog, twitter account, or website, to make it as easy as possible for the reader to not only follow the link, but share it too.
When the link is clicked, your viewer will get a standard “Post to Profile” popup:
Comments from the Peanut Gallery
Another feature that can really add value to your page, not to mention interactivity, is a comments section. Maybe you want to let your readers ask questions about a how-to article you’ve posted, or provide feedback about your new art slideshow. Here’s the code you’ll need:
<fb:comments xid=”Your_Comments” canpost=”true” candelete=”false” returnurl=”http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sellers-Success/141712855859741?v=app_4949752878“ >
Here’s a rundown of what’s going on here:
- comments xid=”Your_Comments” IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT YOU CHANGE THIS. This is a unique identifier for your comments, and you may end up with comments from another page ending up in your comments box if you don’t change this. Make it something unique to you, like YourPage’sName_01.
- canpost=”true” Leaving this as “true” will allow your visitors to leave new comments. You’ll probably want to leave this alone unless you have a different use in mind.
- candelete=”false” Leaving this as “false” makes it so your visitors cannot delete each other’s comments. You probably want to leave this alone too.
- returnurl=”http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sellers-Success/141712855859741?v=app_4949752878” This tells the comments box where to send the visitor after they’ve posted their comment. You probably want to use the URL of the page where you are putting the comments box, so they don’t actually go anywhere, unless you have something else in mind.
The end result looks like something like the image below. Notice that a like button and a list of the user’s friends who are also fans appears above the comments box, so keep that in mind when designing your page.
Add a Little Music
Here’s a quick and easy way to add a snazzy mp3 player to your page.
<fb:mp3 src=”http://host.com/file.mp3” title=”Song Name” artist=”Song Artist” album=”Album Name”/>
If you’ve had no trouble with the pother three examples above, this one should be a snap, but just in case, here’s a rundown:
- src=”http://host.com/file.mp3“: This is the full URL of your MP3 file, it cannot be stored in your Facebook page.
- title=”Song Name”: This data will appear as entered on the player.
- artist=”Song Artist”: This data will appear as entered on the player.
- album=”Album Name”: This data will appear as entered on the player.
Troubleshooting and Beyond
If any of the above doesn’t work for you at all, just simply does not appear on your page, it may be an error of copying and pasting. WordPress is notorious for dropping characters, and each character is pretty essential when it comes to coding. Make sure that every phrase that begins with a quotation mark also ends with one, and the whole shebang ends with a close carat, > .
Each one of these is a useful addition to your page, if you’ve got an application that makes sense. Just remember the Fat Dude motto… Less is more! Don’t use these tips just because you want to add some bells and whistles. Think from your reader’s perspective, and only use what adds value for that reader.
If you have any problems you can’t solve, any questions, or just a little love to share, let it fly in the comments section.
16
Turn your Facebook Fan Page Visitors into Fans with a Custom Landing Page
Image by Tatters
Each one of us is deluged by a huge amount of information and entertainment on a daily basis, so much so that we’ve become adept at screening out uninteresting or incomplete information without really noticing we’re doing it. As such, you have a very very small window of opportunity to convert someone who has taken the time to click the link to your Fan Page into a loyal Fan.
Luckily, using Facebook’s tab-based layout, an application called Static FBML, and a little html code, you can put your best face forward to new visitors who haven’t yet clicked that Like button.
Adding Static FBML
The first thing to do is to add the Static FBML app to your page.
If you go to your Edit Page menu (you’ll find the link just beneath your profile pic on your Wall), you may find Static FBML already suggested to you at the bottom of the page. If not, simply visit Static FBML’s page here.
From Static FBML’s Wall, click Add to my Page to get started. You’ll need to select which page you’d like to add to, if you have more than one.
From there, go back to your Edit Page menu and you’ll find Static FBML listed amongst your applications. Select Edit on this entry.
From here, you’ll only see three options:
Add another FBML Box: You can run multiple FBML boxes, each with its own tab. Here’s where you can add more.
Building Your Content
This is the point where a little bit of technological know-how comes in to play. If you’re not familiar with basic HTML, this is the point where you may need to trade tasty treats for a designer buddy’s assistance, or jump in to some tutorials. If you’re an intuitive person, you may be able to get by with a program that builds the code for you, referred to as WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get). Lifehacker has a rundown of some of the best.
From hereon out, we’ll assume a basic knowledge of html (and this really doesn’t require anything past html 101). Here are a few points to keep in mind when you write your code:
- MAXIMUM WIDTH HAS CHANGED! This is so vital. If you have done some web research beyond your Uncle Fat Dude, you may already have some knowledge of Static FBML… That’s very industrious of you, but please note there have been some recent changes. Maximum width used to be 760px, but as of a few days from when I write this, that will shrink down to 520px. Don’t create a page that’s too wide to fit!
- No <html>, <body>, <head> tags needed: You’ll only need to build the actual body of the page. Static FBML doesn’t support meta tags either.
- JavaScript and Flash items won’t auto-play: Facebook has designed Static FBML in such a way that the user won’t be inundated with any animation, video, or sound until the user clicks something. More on this at a later time, just plain old HTML today.
- FBML is for your Fan Page only: It won’t work on your personal profile. Sorry.
Once your code is created, launching is a simple matter of entering the code in the box provided, and going back to your Wall to view the tab. Go ahead, check it out! It may take a bit of trial and error to get it looking just right, but you’ll be there in no time.
Launching your Landing Page
Your code is written, and your new tab is live, the only thing that is left to do now is to set the new tab as the default for new visitors who are not currently your Fan.
Visit your Edit Page link from your wall, and go to Wall Settings. Under “Default Landing Tab for Everyone Else:” select your new tab.
Voila! You have created a landing page for new visitors!
Beyond Landing Pages
Now that you’ve successfully built a landing page for potential fans, you may want to consider what other tabs would add value to your page. A product description? A list of your services? A copy of your resume? The sky’s the limit. Just remember your uncle Fat Dude’s motto, “Less is more,” and don’t go too crazy, okay?
Show off your fine work with a link to your page in the comments!
13
Friday Firsts: Advertising Your Facebook Page with Facebook Ads
Image by Daveness_98
Or: Billboards on the Path to Success
We’re halfway through our two-week long Facebook Fan Page Extravaganza, and by now your Brand is well represented by your page. It may be time to finally take the leap and invite a larger audience. A much, much larger audience.
If you’re anything like the Fat Dude, this idea may be met by a not-small amount of anxiety. This is, after all, the Big Time. You’re not just inviting your friends and co-workers to your page anymore, you’re inviting strangers. A lot of them. Strangers who will summarily judge your page, your work, and by proxy, you.
It’s okay, take a deep breath. This is a good point to make sure that your page is ready to be judged. Check each tab, re-read your copy, check that everything works and looks as good as possible. Now you know that you can be judged and be proud of the face you are putting forward.
Starting your Ad Campaign
Facebook hardly makes it difficult to find where to place a new ad. I clicked the link on my wall, underneath my profile picture.
Facebook offers a lot of options up front, and only more and more from here, but everything is fairly self-explanatory and very well-documented. If you have more than one Page, you can select which you would like to advertise; you can advertise off-Facebook web pages as well.
Title: If you are advertising a Facebook page, this is already filled in for you, to match the page you are advertising. You’ll have the chance to change this, just before you place your ad.
Body Text: Here it is, right up front; the most important part of this process. This 135-character block of text is the number one thing that will determine if your potential customer will click on your ad or not. Books can and have been written about what type of pitch is most effective, and we can only scratch the surface of that in a short post like this. For now, I will simply suggest that you write three or four different options and read them out loud with this in mind: Which one of these would I most likely click on?
Image: The ad will automatically appear with your profile picture, but here you can select another image, if you prefer. Give this serious thought; are you advertising a specific product or service? Does your profile picture best represent that image, or should you replace it with another? The Body Text is the number one most important part of your ad, but this comes in a close second.
Step Two is where the fun really begins, and where you may realize that this ad is going to require way more thought than you realized. It starts out simply enough:
Location: You’ll be required to select at least one country. If you are a local business, you can narrow this down even more to the state/province level or even down to the city. Anyone outside of that area will not see your ad.
Demographics: Age and Sex are self-explanatory, although where exactly your key demographic falls may be slightly harder for you to decide, if you have not already given it some thought.
You can leave it there if you prefer. Depending on your product or service, you can also target people by their sexual preference, relationship status, and language. And don’t forget my favorite touch; targeting people on their birthday (somehow brilliant and kinda evil at the same time!)
Likes and Interests: You’ve seen these before, even if you’ve forgotten about them. When you first set up your Facebook profile, you entered your interests in your Info tab… and probably forgot all about it. Facebook didn’t though. Choosing keywords can be as tough as writing the right ad copy, but after you’ve chosen several, Facebook will start trying to fill in the gaps for you by suggesting more.
Education & Work: Much like the Likes & Interests options, these will let you further narrow your demographic by profile information, in this case by education level and workplace. Keep in mind the more specific you get, the closer you narrow in on a specific demographic… but you exclude more people from ever seeing your ad.
Connections on Facebook: Here, you’ll be able to include or exclude viewers by Page, Event, Group or Application that they are or are not connected to. Interestingly, you can also target users whose friends are connected to any of the above as well. This is getting uber-specific, and I wouldn’t go this far unless you have an equally uber-specific ad in mind.
Keep an eye on this box that is floating on the right hand side of your screen:
This is a quick summary of the criteria you have entered so far and a rough estimate of the number of people who meet that criteria. Keep in mind you do want a fairly large number; when your ad is placed you are likely to see that less than 1% of people who are shown your ad will actually click on it.
From here, we continue on to dollars and cents.
All the above should be no problem until we come to:
Daily Budget: Give this number some serious thought. Unless the demographics you entered are very, very specific your estimated reach is still likely to be one million or more. Unless you make a very very low bid (see below), you will hit this number on a daily basis, at least for the first few days of your campaign if not every single day. Whenever you hit this dollar amount for a given day, your ad will no longer appear (and you will incur no further charges) until the next day.
Schedule: Your ad will run every day, or you can choose a date range, right down to the hour.
Bids: We’re almost there, just one more tough decision to make. This is simplifying things a great deal, but you can picture bidding like this: Every time a Facebook user with your criteria logs in, an auction begins amongst every advertiser whose criteria also matches that user. Whoever bids higher gets the ad space.
I would suggest that you take Facebook’s suggested bid amount at the beginning. After your first day, you’ll be able to tell how many “impressions” you had (i.e. how many times your ad was presented to a user), how many “clicks” (how many times someone actually clicked your ad), and how quickly your Daily Budget was spent. If you used it up within just a few hours, you know you can lower your bid. If you didn’t hit your budget at all, you can raise your bid.
From here, it’s just a matter of submitting your payment information, and then congratulations are in order for your very first Facebook ad campaign! In a future post, we’ll explore how you can track the effectiveness of your ad and see just how much of an impact it has.
Until then, the comments are always open. Post any questions or ideas you have!
11
Supercharge your Facebook Page with these 6 Apps
Or: Better, Stronger, Faster.
When we left off my Facebook Fan Page had one Wall post and one Fan… Me. Not such a glorious start, but I’m going to keep my nose to the grindstone and really add some value to my Page by adding some Apps.
What’s an App? Where do I find one? How do I add it to my Page?
You’ve seen them. Every time you have a post in your feed saying that Aunt Stacie found a Baby Sheep in Farmville or one of your co-workers got whacked in Mafia Wars, it’s delivered to you by a Facebook Application. Basically, an App is any program or code written by Facebook (or usually a third party) to add a feature or game to the site. Luckily, they’re not all as obnoxious as Farmville, or as worthless either (sorry, Farmers).
The easiest way to browse Apps for your Page is to go to your Edit Page link, beneath your Fan Page profile portrait (be sure that you’re logged in, or it won’t appear).
When the Application Directory appears, you’ll want to make sure you select Pages for Apps that are compatible with your Fan Page (No peeking at the games, it’s time to work!)
When you’ve found an app you want to add, just find the appropriate button on the App’s page:
Honestly, using the Application Directory is a very poor way to find Apps for your Page. There is a slight problem of, shall we say, separating the wheat from the chaff? Better instead to ask your friends what pages work well for them.
Shall we be friends?
Connecting your brand’s social network:
Connecting your blog to your Facebook Page is really an essential step to adding value to your Page, as well as connecting your online network. I’m assuming at this point that you have a blog. If I’m wrong, I would actually suggest that you stop what you’re doing, launch your blog first, and come back to Facebook when you’re done.
Social RSS will add an RSS/Blog tab on your Page that Facebook visitors can access to view the full feed from your blog. This of course may or may not be of use since they could simply visit your blog for this. The real value in Social RSS is that it will post to your Wall as well. Adding Social RSS and adding your feed means a new Wall post will appear on your page every time you post a new entry. With a robust list of options, Social RSS is Fat Dude’s choice for adding our feed to our own Fan Page.
Once your blog is connected to your Facebook, it’s time to do the same with your Twitter. For this purpose, I highly suggest Selective Tweets because it allows you to be, well… selective. Once allowed access to your Page, and given your Twitter address, Selective tweets will watch your Twitter feed and change your status message to match your Twitter update… but only if you tell it to. Only tweets ending with #FB will be added to your Facebook Page, which is great if you are a high-volume Tweeter and only want to send select Tweets to your Page.
Selective Tweets gives a great setup interface that makes selecting different Twitter feeds for your profile and each of your Fan Pages a breeze. Please be aware though, if you already have an App that automatically sends your Facebook status updates to Twitter, you’re going to have one massive feedback loop if you don’t disable it before enabling Selective Tweets.
Adding Value to your Fan Page:
The default Info tab that Facebook provides is anemic at best. It is nice to get a little information about yourself or your company out there, but the Info tab offers so little information that you may see very few of your Fans actually ever look at it.
Extended Info adds a new Info tab (there is no replacing or deleting the one Facebook provides, unfortunately). This new Extended Info tab will allow you to add as many sections as you’d like. You can title them yourself, of course, and you can even add video and sound, making this a very worthy addition.
One of the most important things you can do once you have a FB Fan Page is to create useful, relevant content that will keep your Fans coming back (and thus keep them your fans in more than just name). If you’re looking for an exciting way to share that content, you should check out SlideShare.
Slideshare is a slideshow application that is capable of importing ppt, pdf, odp, and docx files, just to name a few. You can also embed Youtube videos or audio to make a truly robust way to share how-to’s, classes, demonstrations of your products, or just about anything you can think of.
SlideShare has their own home page with a large community and a huge amount of presentations to view, as well as a presence on Facebook and LinkedIn. A presentation uploaded to one can be viewed on all three, making a very high-visibility tool for your brand.
Taking your Fan Page to the Next Level:
Here’s where the real fun begins. The applications I’ve mentioned up until now will truly add some important value to your Page, but it’s these two applications that will help you take your Page to a whole new level.
Through the use of each of these applications, you’ll be able to add custom tabs to your Page filled with any content you can imagine (well, any content that you can create with HTML or flash anyway). If you’re not as much of a tech geek as your Uncle Fat Dude, that may not mean anything to you. Take a look at some examples of some tabs created with FBML, by popular brands that you may recognize:
Your Brand, Taking off on Facebook
I hope you find these applications as useful as I have, and I’d love to hear about what you’ve done with them to spiff up your Fan Page… or simply take a look for myself! Hit me up in the comments with a link to your Page!
16
Friday Firsts: Your First Facebook Fan Page
Image by: JoelZimmer
What is it?
Assuming that you have not been living under a rock for the past five years, you are undoubtedly already familiar with the social media juggernaut that is Facebook. You probably already have a page there, as does most everyone you know (including, regrettably, your parents).
Chances are, then, that you’ve already seen Facebook Pages, even if you’re not aware of it. Every time you see someone become a fan of Victoria’s Secret, or Paranormal Activity, or Kevin Smith, you’re seeing Facebook Pages in action.
Simply put, your Facebook Page is a profile for your brand, business, project, or even yourself. It’s a place to reach one of the largest online communities in the world.
Why do I want one?
I know, I hear you; “I already have a Facebook profile. Why do I need this?” Besides the fact that a Facebook Page will seperate your business from your personal life (and from those pictures of your terrible, drunken bowling at Lucky Strike last night)… well, actually, let’s not shove that aside as a “besides the fact”, because that’s sort of the point. With a Page, you’ll keep your Facebook business and Facebook pleasure seperate. You’ll have a totally seperate Wall, totally seperate photo albums, totally seperate video tab, all designed by you to promote yourself.
Don’t take our word for it, check out Facebook’s full low-down via PDF right… here.
How do I get started?
Now that Facebook Pages have caught your attention, sidle over to their homepage to get started.
The setup process is pretty self-explanatory, though it’s worth noting that this is not the feature to use if you’re looking to create a page to show your love and devotion for Barney Stinson. Facebook’s created Groups for that. Instead, this is specifically for yourself, your project, or your client who’s authorized you to build a page on their behalf. Once you choose the category you want your Page to be listed under (most of what we want is under Artist, Band, or Other Public Figure, but don’t miss Other->Professional Service for folks like photographers who need their potential clients as nearby as possible.)
Once you get past this page (it took us two tries to avoid a “Make sure your electronic signature matches your name listed above” error, so there may be a time limit), the real fun begins:
Your brand new Facebook Page has been born! Just like your profile, you’ll want to upload a profile picture, fill out your info, and start posting!
What’s next
There is a really wide range of things you can do to make your Facebook Page more effective. In the coming weeks, keep an eye on FatBlog! for tutorials on:
- Customizing your Page with Discussion Boards, Events, Links, Notes and Video
- Customizing your Page with Apps.
- Adding value with oversized profile pictures.
- Adding link icons to your wall.
- Building an attractive landing page for new fans.
- Promoting your Page with a Fan Box.
- Advertising your Fan Page.
- Linking your Fan Page to your blog and Twitter account.
In the meantime, comments are open! Ask any questions you have about starting your Fan Page, or let us know how you’re using the one you already have (And if you should shamelessly drop your link, we just may look the other way)!
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