Customizing Fan and Business Pages on Facebook

Tips on customizing your fan and business pages on facebook, original link is here

Table of contents

• 1. Discovering Facebook Pages
• 2. Creating a Username and Adding Photos
• 3. Apps to Add Custom Content
• 4. Apps to Add Social Features
• 5. Create Custom Tabs with iFrame Apps
• 6. Create Custom Tabs from Scratch
• 7. There’s More Ways to Customize

1. Discovering Facebook Pages

You probably have a Facebook profile, but does your band, business or client have a Facebook Page? Pages are a great way to connect with fans and consumers, and we're going to show you how to customize and maximize your FB Page.
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Social networking king Facebook is one of the most visited websites in the world. It has over 500 million active users with 50% logging in daily, and users spend over 700 billion minutes per month using the service. While you and most of your friends and family have a Facebook profile, Facebook Pages - whether for a business, organization, band, group, cause, or celebrity – are something entirely different. Pages can help in marketing and awareness, as well as customer and fan communication.
Your Facebook Page can serve as a website where you can display your business or organization details and keep customers or fans up-to-date with happenings, new products, and other news. When Facebook users “Like” your Page, they’ll see your posts in their News Feed, plus their friends will be notified in their News Feed that you “Like” a specific Page. Given that the average user has 130 friends, the potential exposure and buzz is something to be desired, for sure.
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Since Facebook Pages are visible to the public even without a Facebook account and are indexed in search engines, you might even consider creating a Facebook Page over making a traditional website if you don’t already have one.
If you haven’t created a Facebook Page yet, visit www.Facebook.com and click the “Create a Page” link. You’ll need to link it to a personal Facebook Profile. If you don’t have one yet, it will let you create one. Then in the future to make edits to your Page, you first login to your personal Facebook Profile. Then you can click the Account menu and select Use Facebook as Page. You can also assign others as administrators of the Page, which would similarly link it to their personal profile.
Customizing your Facebook Page can help enhance the user experience and improve marketing. First, you should fill in your Basic Information which is shown to users on your Info tab.
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Then we’ll start by customizing your website address (URL) and adding photos. Then we’ll discover some applications (apps) that can help you add custom content.
We’ll also see how to add custom tabs to your Page from scratch, so you can display generic HTML and other web content. This used to be made possible by using Static FBML apps, but that method was removed in March 2011 and replaced by using iFrames.

2. Creating a Username and Adding Photos

You probably have a Facebook profile, but does your band, business or client have a Facebook Page? Pages are a great way to connect with fans and consumers, and we're going to show you how to customize and maximize your FB Page.
So your customers and fans can more easily reach your Facebook Page by manually typing in the website address, you should create a username. This shortens and simplifies your Facebook website address, such as www.facebook.com/yourusername instead of www.facebook.com/pages/yourname/178946324913. It also makes it more visually appealing when displayed on advertisements.

Unlike with personal Facebook profiles, not all Facebook Pages can have a username. However, the only requirement is that you must have at least 25 people that “Like” your Page. Then you can create your username by visiting www.facebook.com/username/. If you’re just starting your Page and want a custom URL right away, you could setup a sub-domain pointing to your long Page URL if you have your own website and domain.

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You can make your Facebook Page more visually appealing by adding photos or images. Your profile picture is one way. While it’s best to keep the width at or just above 180 pixels, the height can be much larger. You can create a rectangular graphic (a tower ad of sorts) and then you can choose the section to serve as your thumbnail that’s displayed along your comments and wall postings. You may want to work your logo or other identifiable mark into the graphic so it can appear in your thumbnail.

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Customizing the 5 most recent photos shown on the top of your Page (when users view your Wall or Info tabs) is another way to add some visually appealing content. Even if you don’t have photos of events or people you’d like to upload, consider adding something that deals with your organization, even if it’s only stock photos.

If you have more than five photos uploaded, you can choose which five are shown on top when viewing the Wall or Info tabs by deleting them and re-adding them each time you upload more photos. That way they’ll always be the most recent, thus shown on the top. You can also control which are shown by hiding them: click the X on the photo when editing your page.

3. Apps to Add Custom Content

You probably have a Facebook profile, but does your band, business or client have a Facebook Page? Pages are a great way to connect with fans and consumers, and we're going to show you how to customize and maximize your FB Page.
Here are a few apps that create new tabs on your Page and let you display custom content:

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Extended Info: Though you can’t create custom fields or content on your Info tab, you can on another tab with this app. Make up whatever fields and content you want: more details about your products, services, organization, etc. It even supports videos, images, music, and HTML. There are many other ways to display custom content like this (such as using iframes like we’ll discuss soon), but this method makes the process quick and easy if you like the formatting.

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Add Google Map: This offers more than just displaying a customized Google map of your location. You can also share your contact information, including phone, fax, email, website, and address. Though these details can be displayed on your Info tab, this tab (named Contact by default) is more noticeable to users wanting to contact you or find your business’ location. You can also display a contact form for users to email you, and display an icon with links to your other social network profiles.

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Poll: You can create questions with public polls. It can help increase Page activity and interaction. Get feedback, opinions, or even do market research. It even lets you download the results in a spreadsheet, which includes the user ID, name, date/time, gender, and selected option. 

4. Apps to Add Social Features

You probably have a Facebook profile, but does your band, business or client have a Facebook Page? Pages are a great way to connect with fans and consumers, and we're going to show you how to customize and maximize your FB Page.
Here are a few apps that create new tabs on your Page and are social oriented:

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Social RSS: Lists content from the RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds you choose. If you aren’t familiar with RSS, it’s a method used by many websites and blogs to distribute updates, news, and other content via a universal format. You can specify RSS feed addresses and their content will be displayed with applicable dates/times and links. You might use this to share your blog posts or news stories from your favorite sources. Facebook users can also subscribe to your feeds so they’ll see new content posted to their Wall, thus also visible and shared with their friends.

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Tweets for Pages: Shows the tweets from the Twitter account you specify. Since only the name is required, this can be any Twitter account. It displays the basic info (Name, Location, URL, etc) and the amount of recent tweets you specify. This is a great way to let Facebook users and your fans know about your tweeting. Users can also hover over a tweet, click Publish, and then post it to their Wall to share it with their friends.

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Reviews: Anyone (whether they “Like” you or not) can leave their comments and a starred rating about your products, services, etc. You and others can “Like” and comment on each review. This is a great way to receive testimonials and feedback.

5. Create Custom Tabs with iFrame Apps

You probably have a Facebook profile, but does your band, business or client have a Facebook Page? Pages are a great way to connect with fans and consumers, and we're going to show you how to customize and maximize your FB Page.
Here are two apps that help you create custom tabs using iframes, similar to the old Static FBML method:

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Hosted iFrame: This lets you add a custom tab to your Page by inserting your own HTML, XFBML, and other web coding. It’s free for Pages with 5,000 or less fans. It’s similar to the old Static FBML method but with several useful enhancements. It’s a quick, easy, and enhanced alternative to creating your own iframe tabs from scratch, as we’ll discuss on the next page.

You can define different content to be displayed to fans (likers) versus non-fans (non-likers), and even content to be displayed to both. It even provides up to 35MB of hosted storage for photos and files. It also supports Google Analytics so you can track visitors.

You can add up to five Host iFrame tabs to your page. However, it affects the amount of fans used to determine the cost. For instance, if you add two tabs you must have 2,500 or less fans for it to be free or 1,666 or less fans if you add three tabs.

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IFrame Apps: This is similar to Hosted iFrame, but let’s you display any webpage on the Internet by specifying a URL - much like the from-scratch iframe method we’ll discuss - but makes the process much more quicker and easier.  It also lets you enter HTML code into the app, but it doesn’t provide hosting of images like with Hosted iFrame. You can designate fan and non-fan content, but can’t define content to be displayed to all. Additionally, it only allows you to add up to two tabs instead of five like Host iFrame does.

6. Create Custom Tabs from Scratch

You probably have a Facebook profile, but does your band, business or client have a Facebook Page? Pages are a great way to connect with fans and consumers, and we're going to show you how to customize and maximize your FB Page.
If you require even more customization than what’s provided by the iFrame apps discussed on the previous page, you can create a custom tab from scratch. It lets you point to and display any webpage on the Internet by specifying its URL, so this is best if you already have your own website or hosting server. It’s similar to iFrame Apps, but you can choose the tab icon displayed on your Page. While this method actually involves creating a Facebook app, it doesn’t require any coding or programming experience beyond the same basic HTML understanding required when working with the iFrame apps.

First, add the Facebook Developers app to your personal Facebook account (or one that’s assigned as an administer to your Page) and click the Set Up New App button to get started. If you haven’t already, you’ll have to perform an account verification using your mobile phone or credit card.

Here are the chief app settings you need to define, organized by the setting tabs:

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About:

    Icon: Shown for your custom tab when added to your Page.

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Website:

    Site URL (http://www.yourdomain.com)

    Site Domain (yourdomain.com)

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Facebook Integration:

    Canvas Page: enter a page name to be used for your Facebook URL.

    Canvas URL: enter the URL that Facebook will pull in your iFrame content. In other words, this should point to a webpage on your separate website (http://www.yourdomain.com/facebook/) that you want displayed on your custom tab of your Page. Keep in mind this can’t point to a main domain, it must point to a directory. Thus you’ll have to have an index webpage uploaded to the directory.

    Secure Canvas URL: should point to the HTTPS URL (https://www.yourdomain.com/facebook/) of the same page. If you don’t have your own SSL certificate, you may be able to use the one from your website host (https:// yourdomain.yourwebhost.com/facebook/).

    Tab Name: enter what you want should as the name of the tab in the left column on your Page.

    Tab URL: enter the same as you did for the Canvas URL.

    Secure Tab URL: enter the same as you did for the Secure Canvas URL.

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To add the app (custom tab) to your Page, visit the My Apps page of your developer account, click the Application Profile Page link, and then click the Add to My Page link from the left column.

7. There’s More Ways to Customize

You probably have a Facebook profile, but does your band, business or client have a Facebook Page? Pages are a great way to connect with fans and consumers, and we're going to show you how to customize and maximize your FB Page.
Zoom
Now you should have a more customized and interactive Facebook Page, or at the very least the knowledge to create one at some point in the future. We discussed how to increase a Page’s visual appeal with your profile photo and the five most recent photos shown on the top of your Page. We also discovered several different apps to add additional content. Lastly we showed you out how to create custom tabs using apps and by creating your own app.
Remember, you can change the name of most tabs you add to your Page. Go to your Page’s settings, click Apps, and then click the Edit Settings link for app/tab you want to change.
You should think about making a welcome page by creating a custom iFrame tab to get more visitors to “Like” you. You can select a tab that visitors see when first entering your Page. Thus you can prompt them to “Like” you so they can see additional content. Then you can specify different content to be display once they “Like” you, such as an introduction to you or even a coupon or special offer.
To change the default tab of your Page, go to the Manage Permissions tab of your Page settings and change the Default Landing Page.
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We only touched on a few basic customization techniques for your Page. You may also want to consider using Plugins and/or Dialogs on your website or custom tabs for additional interactivity.
ZoomFor ideas on what you can do with your Page, check out the pages of your favorite companies or groups, or even your competitors.
Remember, there are plenty of other apps out there that can help; do your own searching, too. Just keep in mind you’ll also come across apps that are for general users or to add content to personal Facebook profiles, which isn’t supported now. Look for apps specifically designed for use by Pages.
To better understand how to reach the 500+ million Facebook users, start by reading the Social Channels article from Facebook. If you really want to drive deep into Facebook page and app development, check out the Graph API as well.