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How To Get The Most Out Of Your Facebook Fan Page

How to get the most out of your Facebook fan page

Written by Joe on Monday, August 30, 2010

Facebook and social media sites are great, if used correctly

It all comes down to where your customers are. If your customers don't use Facebook, what's the point of having your business there. However with over 500 million active users spending over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook(http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics) you can assume some of your customers will be there.

The basics of Facebook fan pages

Your Facebook fan page is a place for you to include all of the important information about your business. Facebook fan pages are very easy to update, and free. If your website is not set up with a content management system, your Facebook fan page can be a huge money saver. Your fan page should include:

Company overview
Your website
contact information
Press releases
Videos
Blog RSS
Pictures

Putting effort into scoial media will pay off

Facebook, like all social media needs time and attention. Simply creating a page is not enough. You need to interact with your "fans". Regular posts to your Facebook fan page will show that your company is active and not just another blank page. Have you ever clicked the "like" button on an empty fan page? Your fan page should contain all or most of these:

Links to your blog posts
Links to related articles (yours or not)
Videos
Photos
Discussions

All of these encourage interaction with your fan page, and with social media thats what you want. The more people to comment and like your posts, the more people will be exposed to your brand, and eventually lead to your website to buy your products or services.

Create a plan and stick to it

With anaything, a good plan will get good results. Set goals for what you would like to accomplish with your Facebook fan page. They can include:

Getting 100 "Likes" per month
Update your fan page at least once a day
Make Facebook a top referrer to your website
Get 5 people to interact with your posts per week

No matter what your plan is, stick to it. Persistance pays off and it will take time to gain popularity to your business Facebook page. If you stick to your plan and stay active your page will grow in no time.

Advanced interaction with your Facebook fans

Facebook is contantly changing and adding new features. One of the best features is FBML, Facebook markup language. FBML gives you the ability to add more advanced functionality to your Facebook fan page.

Start by adding the Static FBML application to your page. Go to http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=4949752878&ref=ts and click "Add to my page". Then go to your page and click the plus sign to add a new "box" along the top of the page. After you've added the box, go back to your fan page and click "Edit page" under your picture. A list should come up and your new FBML application should be listed.

From here what you do is only limited by your creativity. You can creat styled landing pages, email list signups, photo galleries and more. The possibilities are endless.

All in all, Facebook is a great place to expand your business. Many people say it's better than a website, but I disagree. Though the advanced functionality allows your page to be more branded towards your products, it will never replace a full website branded to your products. Untill Facebook allows you to completely customize the look and feel of your pages, a website will stay on top, in my opinion.