Creating well-designed, custom Facebook pages to welcome your visitors and create valuable offers is important for making your page stand out and encouraging your visitors to “like” your page. This connection creates a communications channel between your brand and your fans.

Since the major Facebook page upgrade in March, however, creating custom landing pages has gone from relatively easy for the non-technical page administrator using Static FBML to relatively hard using an iFrame application. Although there have been many good tutorials that simplify the process, it can still be a challenge for those unaccustomed to programming as well as those who are pretty tech savvy but are not real developers (like yours truly).

Being the closet geek that I am, I took the challenge and created an iFrame application for my landing page. All worked well for those browsing on an unsecured (http) connection. Getting the application to work across all browsers using a secure (https) connection was another matter. And although not a requirement now, those browsing Facebook using a secure connection is growing rapidly (Facebook stated that as of April 2011, 9.6 million people are browsing over HTTPS and the trend is continuing to increase).

Enter Static HTML iFrame Tabs Facebook Application

Creating quality custom Facebook Page tabs can easily be accomplished with the Static HTML iFrame Tabs application developed by Jason Padvorac and Timothy Mensing. With almost 37 million monthly active users (where have I been?), it helps you quickly create your custom tab.

This application:

• Is easy to install
• Can display content for fans and non-fans
• Enables you to install up to 12 tabs per page
• Is free with no branding
• Includes a FAQ and Help center in the application
• Supports calling a page from your own website or blog
• Supports secure browsing
• Offers support from the developers directly on their Facebook Page

Rather than reinvent the wheel, visit this tutorial by Louis Steiner for details on how to install and implement your page with this application. She shows you how to embed the page code into the app. The screenshot above is how you implement calling the pages from your website or blog.

Which leads me to the next wonderful tool to help you with this task.

Facebook Tabs Plugin for WordPress

Now, for those of you who don’t want to learn HTML, CSS and JavaScript and are WordPress fanatics, the Static HTML iFrame Tabs application works with posts created using the Facebook Tab Manager plugin by David Carr. This plugin offers those who need to create a custom tab a way to utilize WordPress as your development environment, making it almost as easy to create as a normal WordPress post. The difference is you may want to create a style sheet to adhere to the 520 pixel restriction.

I had no problem creating a custom Facebook page with this plugin for those using http (unsecured). My problems arose when I tried to make the plugin work for https (secured). Although FireFox was fine, I just couldn’t get IE of any version to work. I’ll assume the issue was using the shared SSL certificate on my server rather than acquire my own. Anyone who can offer advice, please do so in the comments!

The Best of Both Worlds

Using the Static HTML iFrame Tabs application to call a post that I created with the Facebook Tab Manager worked effortlessly. Creating a custom tab that included fan-only content (reveal tab) is as simple as creating two posts using the plugin and then using the Facebook application to call each as appropriate.

For those of you who have stuck with FBML pages because you were afraid to tread on unfamiliar ground, fear no more. You now have a solution that will offer you all of the flexibility you want with the ease of use we all need.

Try these two applications for yourself and let me know what you think!

©2012 Masterful Marketing. All Rights Reserved.

Creating Custom Facebook Page Tabs is an original post from Debra Murphy, Small Business Marketing Coach: Masterful Marketing - Marketing in the New Media World. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Debra on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

Whenever I go to my Facebook Business Page, I feel like I’m on a treasure hunt looking for new feature gems that suddenly appear. Recently I noticed the new per post insights information on my Page and another time I looked at my fans and noticed a “remove admin” box appear quietly next to my name. So I decided to assemble a list of significant changes that have been made over the last six months that affect Facebook Pages and came up with the following eight:

• Remove the Creator Admin- Until the addition of this feature, not being able to remove the originating administrator when the person who created the page left the company was one of the largest complaints voiced by businesses. This lead to people playing games with business accounts and fake profiles that were used primarily to create the page in a more generic way. With the addition of this feature, businesses now can maintain control of their page. There are, however, two potential dangers to this feature:
  • People have mistakenly removed themselves as an admin of the page and had no other admin to take over;
  • Malicious administrators can remove all other admins and take over the page

  The addition of this new feature does solve a lot of the issues experienced by businesses, however just remember to always have more than one admin on your page and pick your admins wisely.

• View Insights Per Post on Small Pages – Being able to see how many impressions per post on your Business Page wall will help small business owners determine what content is valuable to their community and what isn’t as interesting. As an admin, you will see this information just below the post. The number of impressions is how many times a post is viewed, anywhere on Facebook, not how many people have viewed the post.

• Reduced the Size for Landing Tabs – Facebook reduced the size of the tabs from 760 pixels to 520 to provide a more consistent view across all tabs. This required the redesign of custom landing tabs to ensure they weren’t cut off on the right and coincided with the addition of the standard profile image across all tabs.
• Removed Boxes / Boxes Tab – Facebook made changes to the layout of Pages and Profiles to streamline the look for its users and to make more room for advertisers by removing the boxes from the sidebar and the boxes tab in general. Many Page admins used the boxes as ways to provide base information to their community or sign-up forms for their mailing list and now need to do so in other ways.
• Added a Spam Filter on the Page Wall Tab – Facebook added a spam filter for pages that enable visitors to post updates. This is a welcome addition if it helps reduce the amount of spam being posted to Brand Pages, as it is annoying to go to your page and see someone advertising something inappropriate. Comments and interactions are always welcome when within the context of the page, but people who like your page only to put their advertisement there are unwelcome.
• Allowed Page Name Changes for Pages with Under 100 Fans – Although many Business Page owners would like to rethink their page name, being able to rename the page is a welcome change for small business owners that make the attempt but don’t quite name the page in the most beneficial way. This will give those of us who work with small businesses a chance to affect change before they grow their fan base to help them get better visibility.
• Claim Community Pages – Being able to claim a community page is a significant feature for many brands. When Facebook introduced Community Pages, pages were created for everything you listed in your profile, creating many empty community pages. By being able to claim these pages, brands can have better control of their content. After a verification process, Facebook reviews the request  to merge two similar pages. Although the process hasn’t worked for me yet (I keep getting an error message when I complete the verification), I expect this will work for everyone soon.
• Claim Facebook Place Pages – If your business has a store front, chances are you have a Facebook Place page created for your business. Facebook used Localeze to populate Places with owner verified listings. If you already have a Facebook Business page, you will be encouraged to claim the Place page and merge it with your Business Page. Right now, you should only merge a Page with a Place if you have one, physical location and one Facebook Page. However, if you are doing any customization on your fan page, like custom landing tabs, don’t merge the two right now. The merged page no longer has a way of setting the default landing tab.

Facebook continues to advance their platform, providing more features that help small businesses better market their products and services. What new Page features have they added that I missed?

Update: when you merge your Business Page with your Places Page, you also lose the per post insights.

Another update: When you create a page, they are visible automatically, no longer requiring you to publish the page. However, they have now added the ability to make the page visible to admins only. You need to edit the page, go to manage permissions and check the box for visibility.

©2012 Masterful Marketing. All Rights Reserved.

8 Recent Updates for Facebook Business Pages is an original post from Debra Murphy, Small Business Marketing Coach: Masterful Marketing - Marketing in the New Media World. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Debra on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

Creating a Facebook Page for your business is one of the more valuable exercises you can do as a small business owner. But once you have the page set up and you are providing valuable, relative content, how do you get people to like your page?

Invite your Facebook friends that fit your target market profile

To invite connections you think would be interested in your Facebook Page, use the Suggest to Friends link.

If you have connected with clients via Facebook, invite them first as your clients should already be supportive of you. Next invite other connections that fit your target market that may be interested in finding out more about what you offer. If you have done a good job of organizing your professional colleagues, customers and prospects into Friend Lists, you can invite these lists as groups to your Facebook fan page instead of sending individual invites.

Be selective in who you invite and as a courtesy, invite them once only. Don’t annoy people with Facebook Page invitations that aren’t interested in your business or know nothing about you. If a person rejects the request, be careful not to send them another invitation.

Invite your email newsletter subscribers

When you are ready to send out your next email newsletter, include an incentive to get your subscribers to visit your Facebook Page and become a fan. Put a free download on your landing page tab for non-fans that will appeal to your subscribers.

To set up your landing tab, use the Facebook Static FBML application. FBML is similar to HTML and can be used to enhance a user’s Facebook experience on your Page. Then edit the Wall settings for your page and select that tab as the landing page for “everyone else”.

Include your Facebook Page URL in your marketing materials

Once you reach 25 people who have liked your Page, create your vanity URL that makes it easy for you to promote the Page and for people to recognize your brand.

Now it will be easier to promote your Facebook Page by including your vanity URL in all your sales tools, such as business cards, brochures, email signature or other marketing and promotion tools you use to help you drive more visitors to your Business Page and connect with them. All of these tools can be used to cross connect you with your communities and make you more visible to those who are interested in what you have to say.

Place a Facebook Like Box Widget on your Website / Blog

The Facebook Like Box is a social plugin that helps you promote your Page to your website visitors. To create your Like Box, fill in the Facebook Page ID for your Page, the height and width of the box, whether you want your stream included and the number of fans to show.

Facebook Like Box Generator (Click to enlarge)

To get your Facebook Page ID, hover over the picture on your Page and the link contains the number. It should look like: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?profile=1&id=12345678912 (the 11 digit number is the id). When you are done, the form will generate the code you need to paste into your Website.

Use Facebook Social Ads

Depending on your business, Facebook Advertising can be beneficial to building your base of prospects because it enables you to tightly target your best prospect based on a number of variables, including geography, age, gender, education, relationship status, workplace and keywords. With this type of pinpoint targeting, you can create and deliver advertising to only those who you feel would benefit from what you have to offer.

• A local retail business like a spa, hairdresser or restaurant could run an ad that has an incentive for fans to come in to your store and try your services or purchase your products.
• A local service business like a plumber, landscaper or electrician could run an ad that contained an incentive only for new fans (and customers) such as a discount on a maintenance agreement.

Rather than placing ads in the local papers, Facebook advertising can be much more cost-effective in generating leads and growing your business.

Promote your Page on other Social Sites

Most social sites give you the opportunity to promote multiple websites. LinkedIn allows three links and Google profiles are unlimited. Use these opportunities to promote your Facebook Page as one of your key web properties. Don’t forget to use the “Other” feature when editing your additional information in LinkedIn to name the link appropriately.

In addition, integrate Twitter with your Facebook Page to communicate what you have posted to your Twitter followers.

So how will you promote your Facebook Business Page? Let us know what you have tried and how it works for you.

©2012 Masterful Marketing. All Rights Reserved.

6 Ways to Promote Your Facebook Page is an original post from Debra Murphy, Small Business Marketing Coach: Masterful Marketing - Marketing in the New Media World. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Debra on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

Recently, a lot of people have asked me about using a Facebook Business Account rather than a Facebook Personal Account to create a Facebook Page for their business. Please note that a Business Account is not the same as a Business Page. People are totally confusing the two and generating a LOT of misinformation about this topic.

Business accounts are designed for individuals who only want to use the site to administer Facebook Pages and their ad campaigns. They have limited access to information on the site and they cannot be found in search, cannot send or receive friend requests.

Having read this information, I had assumed a business account would enable businesses to create Pages that were disassociated from current employees. Once the Page was created, they could then get employees to become fans, which would make them eligible to be Page administrators. This would be logical as employees come and go and using a business account to be the creator of the Page would provide a way for the Facebook Page to remain associated with the business and not some former employee.

So, although it sounds like a logical alternative for larger businesses and organizations with employees, I don’t think this is the case.

Why would having a Facebook Business Account that did what logic would imply be so important?

• At this time there is no way to transfer or remove the creator of the Facebook Page. Whoever creates the page remains the owner. Kimberly Yow wrote a very complete post on Unlinking A Facebook Fan Page From Your Personal Account, so I won’t go into gory detail here.
• In the Facebook Help discussion forums, there is a thread titled “Transferring a page to new ownership?” that was posted at the beginning of April. Since then, a total of 166 people have requested a solution to this challenge. And so far, no one has an answer.

I do understand the rationale for making the creator a permanent administrator from a security perspective. A business with a disgruntled employee who was a Page admin could delete the originator and other admins and take over the Page. But businesses need a way to create a Page that is autonomous from any employees’ personal profiles.

According to Facebook’s policy, if you already have an indvidual account, you are not allowed to set up a business account. In addition, a business account does have all the features of a personal profile account in Facebook.

From Facebook help:

Business accounts are designed for individuals who only want to use the site to administer Pages and their ad campaigns. For this reason, business accounts do not have the same functionality as personal accounts. Business accounts have limited access to information on the site. An individual with a business account can view all the Pages and Social Ads that they have created, however they will not be able to view the profiles of users on the site or other content on the site that does not live on the Pages they administer.

You will not be able add any other applications to your business account. Your account will not be visible in search and other users on the site will not be able to find you and add you as a friend.

You may create a business account if you don’t already have a standard Facebook account. To get started, you will need to first create a Facebook Ad or Facebook Page. Once you’ve entered in the required information, you will be taken to the “Facebook Login” page and asked if you have a Facebook account. If you do not currently have a Facebook account, then at this point, please select “I do not have a Facebook account.” You will then need to enter your email address and date of birth.

Please be aware that managing multiple accounts is a serious violation of Facebook’s Terms of Use. If we determine that an individual has more than one account, we reserve the right to terminate all of their accounts.

So although logically a Business Account looks to be the proper mechanism for creating a Business Page that is associated with the business and not a personal profile, I can’t find any place that discusses its use in this way.

So, the major question that needs to be answered really soon by Facebook themselves is:

How does a business create a Facebook Business Page so it is NOT associated with someone’s personal profile who may someday leave the company but can be easily administered by current employees?

But until we have the answer to that question, proceed with caution if you do decide to use a Facebook Business Account.

If anyone has actually used a Business Account to create a Facebook Business Page successfully and can share their knowledge, please begin a discussion here in the comments or on the Masterful Marketing Business Page in the discussion tab so we can all benefit from your experiences!

©2012 Masterful Marketing. All Rights Reserved.

Facebook Business Accounts is an original post from Debra Murphy, Small Business Marketing Coach: Masterful Marketing - Marketing in the New Media World. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Debra on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.