HOW TO BUILD AND CUSTOMIZE YOUR FACEBOOK FAN PAGE (ON THE CHEAP)

How to Build and Customize Your Facebook Fan Page

In this tutorial I’m going to show you how to build and customize your own

Facebook Fan Pages – FOR FREE! This will save you hundreds of dollars with a

developer.

The tutorial is free. All I ask is that if you like what you read then please connect with

me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/smmcamp - and write something nice on

the page

One of the best features of Facebook is that it opened up its technology to allow third

party developers to develop applications (apps) that work with Facebook.

Personally I’m not into gaming, sending virtual hugs or counting sheep so most

Facebook apps have very little use to me. However, I am into building my business so

I’m very interested in business tools and utilities.

I want to cover a number of business applications that you add to your Fan Page that

will help you build your business.

A quick note – you can’t add applications to Groups. This is one huge advantage that

Fan Pages have over Groups.

Going back to our social media marketing strategy you’ll remember that one of our

great challenges is to get the contact details of our online friends. It will come as little

surprise that my favorite apps focus on getting contact details.

Static FBML

One of the great weaknesses of Facebook is that you’re forced to use their template

profile page. The profile page doesn’t allow you to add html and has no function that

allows you to capture a visitors contact details.

The solution to this is an app called Static FBML.

Static FBML allows you to add html to your Facebook profile. It’s far from perfect

and requires that you know how to add html but it’s an extremely useful tool. Plus

there’s a relatively simple work around for those of you who don’t know html.

The work around for adding html is to either use a free html editor like Sea Monkey

or simply use your WordPress blog. Sea Monkey can be downloaded at

http://www.seamonkey-project.org/.

Personally I just use one of my WordPress blogs.

All you need to do is log in to your WordPress blog, start a new post and write out

what you want to publish. WordPress has a WYSIWYG editor that allows you to add

information just like a Word document and it then automatically converts it to html.

Then simply click on the html view and copy and paste the html directly into the

FBML application.

Basically you build your page in WordPress and then copy and paste the html into

Facebook.

Let me show you how to use WordPress as a makeshift html editor.

Log in to one of your WordPress blogs and click Posts and then click on the Add

Add your content to your post in exactly the same way that you would add content to

your blog. Use the add an image feature and align and format the content.

The next step is the trick to getting the html you need for your Fan Page.

On the right hand side of the post you can change the way you view the post from

Visual to HTML.

Then just copy and paste the code into your Facebook Fan Page.

Adding the Static FBML Application

To find and download a new application you can go to your home page and click on

the Applications link or go to www.facebook.com/applications.

This will take you to the applications home page. At the top of the page is a Search

Applications box.

Search for “Static HTML”.

This will take you to the Static FBML application. Click on the icon.

You can also find the Static FBML application at this address -

http://www.facebook.com/apps/directory.php#!/apps/application.php?id=4949752

878&ref=appd

The next step is to add Static FBML to your Page by clicking on the Add to my Page

link.

You can add Static FBML to all your pages as you’ll see a list of all the pages

connected to your account.

You should add the application to all your pages even if you’re not sure you’ll use the

application with an every page. I’ve already added Static FBML to all but one of my

pages so you won’t see my full list.

All you need to do is click on the Add to Page button and Static FBML will be added

That’s all you need to do to add the application to your Fan Page.

Create a Specific Landing Page for Your Fan Page

One of the cool features about Fan Pages is that you can set up a specific landing

page for people not logged into Facebook to view your page. In particular you can

create a page for the public to see when they first visit your Fan Page. Usually your

Fan Page is defaulted to the Wall so this is a nice tool to improve conversion of

visitors into contacts.

This is important because you can customize the page and encourage people to

become a fan of your Fan Page.

I’m going to use my Real Estate Referrals Fan Page as an example. You can view the

page at www.facebook.com/realestatereferrals.

Your default landing page is set to your Wall. To change the default landing page you

need to click on Settings.

The next step is to change the Default Landing Tab for Everyone Else to the

preferred tab.

Copyright - Ross Hair – The Baldest Man in Real Estate-

Let’s connect on Facebook – http://facebook.com/smmcamp

ross@rosshair.com www.rosshair.com

My target audience is Realtors so I want new people to first see the referral agreement

and hopefully simply fill in their contact details and electronically sign and join the

referral program.

Create a Custom Tab

To create a custom tab you need to click on the Edit Page tab

You will notice that I changed the default landing page to the Referral Agreement. I

uploaded the referral agreement to the www.facebook.com/realestatereferrals page

and included an electronic signature box at the bottom of the referral agreement. The

electronic signature box is a web form from my email management software and

automatically adds all new referral members to my email list.

Here’s how I created the page and added the content, including the email capture

form.

The first step is to create a custom tab and add it to the list of tabs in the Fan Page

navigation toolbar.

Open the Fan Page wall and click on Edit Page.

Now scroll down your page until you see the FBML application.

This creates the Static FBML tab that by default has a header called FBML.

The next step is to change the name of the tab header.

Go back to the FMBL application and click on the Edit tab.

Delete the word FBML from the header box and add the new header name. You can

use a header like Welcome or Listings.

Finally go back to your Fan Page home page and take a look at the tab toolbar at the

top of the page. There’s limited space for tabs so you may need to move your tabs

around and make your new custom page feature more prominently on the toolbar.

You can do this by clicking on the plus sign of dragging the FBML tab into the

toolbar.

In the image above you can see that I’ve called my FBML page Referral Agreement

and I’ve featured it as one of the six visible tabs on the toolbar.

Adding Custom Content to Your Fan Page

Now is the time that you will actually build your custom Fan Page. The page is built

using FBML which is Facebook’s version of HTML. The problem is that you need to

know how to write HTML code to really build a professional looking site. However,

earlier I did show you how to use WordPress as a simple work-around to create

HTML on the fly without having any coding skills.

There’s two ways to do it:

1. Hire a web developer. A US based developer will charge as much as $500 to

custom your Fan Page. You can find much cheaper options offshore by using a

service like www.odesk.com and www.elance.com.

2. Do it yourself. I’m 100% sure that anyone can build their own Fan Page with

just a few coaching tips.

Tips to Building Your Own Fan Page with no HTML Skills

Here’re a number of tips that you can use:

 Mimic and copy your competitors

Search for other real estate sites to see how they have set up their Fan Pages. If

you like what you see then simply copy their format. When I say copy I mean

model your page on their page – don’t literally copy it.

Take a look below at a squeeze page that you can copy from an investor or

Realtor looking for investors to buy rehab properties. This is a squeeze page

that I can simply copy and paste into my Fan Page. I would use a page like this

as a landing page for a real estate investment fan page.

 “Borrow” Generic Graphics

If you see a generic graphic that you like simply right click on the image and

add it to your image file. The internet is built on borrowed generic graphics that

are royalty free and available to be used by anyone.

Note that I’m referring to generic graphics that are now in the public domain.

Please don’t go out and copy graphics that are clearly copyrighted or custom

built. That’s simply not cool.

This technique works very well if you belong to a large real estate company

with a strong online presence. Go to the main corporate site and download the

company logo and other graphics.

In the example above if you’re a Re/Max agent you could simply copy the

Re/Max toolbar and added it to your site. The only drawback is that the

individual links don’t work but you can hyper link the entire banner back to

your blog or website.

You can do exactly the same thing with a search box or a great image of a

house. Here’s the Re/Max property search box. You can’t fill in the fields but

you can link the entire image back to your IDX site.

Now when you add the two graphics together you end up with a custom Search

Listings tab on your Fan Page that looks like this:

Your new “custom” page looks really nice, clean and professional.

It’s also really easy to add a few text links in a top or bottom tool bar, like

Contact Us or About Re/Max North East and hyper link them back to your

website.

Another tip is that when you add a title to the image you should write the title

as an instruction to click on the image. Using the Re/Max example below you

would add a title that says Click now to Search for Listings. When your

visitor hovers over the image the heading will pop up.

You can’t see the instructions on this screenshot but all you need to do is add

the instructions to the title and description of the image.

 Take image snapshots of your other websites using Snagit or Jing (free).

This is a very powerful technique as it allows you to quickly, easily and very

professionally set up your Fan Page. You can create an image of your blog or

website and simply copy and paste it to your Fan Page.

Your page will be a single image but you can link your image back to the

original website that you copied.

This technique is not as good as the original content but it looks very

professional and doesn’t cost a cent.

Let me show you an example. This is a screen shot of the Nest Realty Group

homepage. You can see the original home page at www.nestrealtygroup.com.