Well, my social adventures are underway and from a company stand point I guess one message stands out from the offset. Don’t expect to get the world talking about you overnight! – I think this social and blog development is going to take a far bit of work from a personal point of view. That said my first couple of weeks have provided me with some really interesting knowledge and in this post I will focus on Facebook business pages. I have been a personal user of Facebook for over 4 years now but until this social push began I have not experienced using it’s business pages.
Facebook Pages
Most companies have them now, but few it seems still haven’t grasped the potential that I think Facebook can hold. Facebook has at the start of 2011 made some really big developments and changes towards the business development within the application. My cynical head says no doubt they earn fair revenue from their pay-per-click style adverts and seek to attract more businesses into the fold, however from a usability point of view the advances are great.
Switch to pages mode
Before the recent changes getting to change your FB page was a bit of a task, it was kind of hidden away under your profile settings somewhere, now you can simply got to your account and click ‘use Facebook as page’ and instantly you are now commenting, liking and using Facebook as a business rather than an individual. The other advantage of this is that you can set multiple admins, so teams can all post as your company if you want to spread the social workload.
Get a Facebook friendly URL
Many companies don’t realise that if your business has over 25 fans then you can get yourself a Facebook friendly URL or web link. For example, if currently to get visitors to view your Facebook page you need to direct them to a link such as this www.facebook.com/pages/”yourcompanyname”/123456789101112. You can rename your account and get a name like www.facebook.com/”yourcompanyname” now thats a lot easier to remember and better, share!
To do this:
- switch to “use as page mode”
- click “edit your page”
- click “basic information”
- select your username.
- save changes.
Then your done, much easier to share, promote in advertising and your website!
Facebook Landing Pages
For new fans visiting your page why not develop a Facebook landing page. It does exactly what it says on the tin, new visitors looking at your Facebook page for the first time will not be presented with your wall but a web style page or advert. In this instant you can advertise your offering, present your branding to the viewer and provide a call to action to like your page, some good example of companies doing this are shown here.
To view your wall or other information people will have to fan your page to move on. Consider rewarding your new fan for doing so though, perhaps a promotional code or freebie – for example we provide a free Cornwall desktop scene to download as thanks.
Facebook Apps
Facebook pages was originally developed on there own adaption of standard HTML web language called FBML, although the markup was basically the same a few variances in tags etc was some what of a turn off to many developers who didn’t want to get to grips with a new language. Now Facebook has scrapped that globally in favour of standard HTML and more importantly iframes integration. Geek bit over with, and for those of our friends reading this who haven’t got a clue what I’m talking about, an iFrame is basically a website window in which you can pull content from any other web source. For example you can “iFrame” your own website so that visitors landing on your facebook page can view your website direct from within the Facebook environment, powerful huh!
Companies such as ASOS have created online shops directly within Facebook itself
The obvious advantages of this is that you can really enforce your brand into Facebook, create sign-up forms and promotions with ease, integrate your Facebook page with Google analytics and allow people to book or shop directly from within the application. Some important things to remember is that most websites are built to various widths typically between 800 – 1000 pixels wide whereas Facebook only allows a 520px visible width so you will need to speak to your website developer about creating and hosting a more Facebook friendly version of the website or application in question.
Delivering your company where people want it most.
I think the main reason fans will appreciate all your efforts is because they don’t need to leave Facebook to explore your brand – People want to be amongst their friends, their wall and their communication and if they don’t have to leave that environment to get the information they want all the better. Also they can instantly share their discoveries with other friends online. The average person has 130 friends* on Facebook so help them to easily spread your word, make sure you provide Facebook like tags or Facebook share tags at the bottom of your posts or info.
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*Info provided from Hubspot “Facebook Pages 2011 Ebook”