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All The Resource You Need To Start A Pimping Business Facebook Page

Recently I was a bit under the weather, I was confined to sitting on the couch flicking through day time television and surfing the web. In my surfing I delved into the depths of Facebook Fan pages as we’re looking to revamp ours soon. Rather than being a greedy information hog I thought I’d share all that I’ve found so that you can start your own pimping Facebook page.

Do You Have A Facebook Page?

If not, here’s a few posts about why you should have one…

• Should your business be on Facebook?
• 10 Ways a Facebook Fan Page Helps Your Business
• Why You Need to Make a Facebook Fan Page for Your Website NOW
• If you don’t have a FaceBook Fan page use this video tutorial to get started

If you do, have you pimped it out yet? The list of resources detailed in this post should help you sexy up that dull lack lustre FB page of yours.

Need inspiration? – The pages below show you what’s possible to do with a FB page

Gary Vaynerchuk’s Page – This is about as pimped out as personal brands come.

The Adidas Page - This page has a is filled with personality not to mention a great FBMLtab (more on FBML further down the page).

The Coke Page – As you’d expect the Coca Cola page is pretty special and well worth a look.

The Starbucks Page - A pretty popular FB page with almost 9million coffee loving fans (likers) who just rant and rave about coffee.

Still not inspired? Try browsing other Facebook pages using the Facebook Page Directory.

Inspired Yet? Good, Now Let’s Get Pimping!

Settings

Getting your settings right is the first place to start. If you want your fans to add images and wall posts to your page you’d better make sure you’ve got your sharing options sorted.

• This PDF from Facebook  is a brief overview of fan page setting and best practice
• In this video tutorial a rather annoying lady describes how to use your page settings to customise the interaction on your page.

Content:

Content will differ from page to page depending on the type of interaction and personality your organisaton is going for. Regardless, here are some general guidelines that are pretty useful:

• Know your audience
• Inject personality into your updates
• Provide quality, regular content
• Encourage discussion and engagement
• Be honest
• Don’t hard sell
• And don’t take yourself too seriously

Stats

If you already have a page the first place to start pimp’n out your FB page is probably your stats. I know stats aren’t sexy but the first thing to do is figure out what’s working and what’s not. If you’re fairly new to FB stats here are a few resources to help you get started.

• Facebook Analytics in Full Detail – See Visitor Amount to Fan Page [YouTube]
• Jan 2010 -Facebook Analytics Feature Rolled Out on Pages & Group [YouTube]
• Checkfacebook.com – this is a great tool for assessing global Facebook audience – could help you target your activities by region.
• 11 stats you need to measure on your Facebook Page

Custom Page URL:

Why do you want a custom URL?

You can either have a url like this: http://www.facebook.com/pages/This-Is-Why-Youre-Fat/115690713670?ref=pdb

or

You can have one like this http://facebook.com/ithnk – I know which on I’d choose to put on a business card.

To get your custom URL go to: http://www.facebook.com/username/ - You can set a custom URL for both your personal profile and your fan pages. You may notice it say “Check availability”, that’s because you can’t have multiple FB pages with the same custom URL – so get in quick before yours is gone.

Applications

Facebook applications add functionality and new features to your page there are a number of great applications that most page admins should get familiar with. I’ve listed 6 of the best below – enjoy!

1. Link FB to Twitter

There’s a great Facebook application that auto updates your Twitter account with anything that you put on your  Facebook page.

Click Here To Get The Twitter-FB App.

One of the best things about this application is that it lets you choose what FB items you want to sync.

When using this application thnk about the nature of conversations that you want to have on Twitter. Is it different to the converstaions you’re having on Facebook ?

2. Networked Blogs

This application allows you to promote your blog on Facebook and helps blog lovers discover new blogs. It allows you to have your RSS feed automatically update your Facebook page.

Tutorial on how to set-up Networked Blog on your fan page.

3. Poll

This application allows you to create polls for your Facebook pages. Ask your fans questions or create contests. It’s very simple and easy to use. You can also add pictures, videos or links into your polls.

4. WildFire Promotions

The WildFire Promotions app is different from many Facebook apps in that the content you create for it lives on the developer’s website. This makes it a versatile tool, but you’ll have to sign up for a free account at wildfireapp.com. I’ll admit I haven’t used this application yet, but from the research I’ve done and the people I’ve talked to who have used it, Wildfire appears to be the only promotional tool that perfectly complies with all of the facebook promotional guidelines (more on this at the bottom of the page).

Once you create an account and connect the registered app to Facebook, the promotions you generate on WildFire will populate the tab on your Fan Page. Promotions are easily built through a step-by-step process. Provide the dates of the contest, the types of prizes, the fields for the entry form, specific parameters about contest entry and rules, and upload any additional artwork you want to include.

Using this app isn’t free, prices range from as low as $5+ 99c per day that you promotion is running or up to $250+

5. Involver

Involver make a whole load of applications that add dynamic tabs to your Facebook page, tabs such as Twitter Feeds and Youtube videos automatically bring your content from Twitter and Youtube to your page.

6. FBML

What the heck is FBML?

It’s Facebook Mark-up Language, using the application Static FBML you can add “application tabs” to your page tabs or box which can incorporate CSS, HTML, Facebook’s flavor of JavaScript, FBJS, and Facebook’s mark-up language FBML. FBML has greatly expanded what is possible on Facebook Pages and, if you’re sufficiently skilled with CSS/HTML and, optionally, FBML, you can make some really fine looking Pages.

Below are some great FBML video tutorials by Hyperactive Arts – check’em out.

Seting Up A FBML Tab

How to embed a YouTube Video into Static FBML

Add Images To Static FBML

You can use the text below:

<a href=”URL that you want to link the image to“><img title=”image name” src=”URL for the loction of your image” alt=”text that is displayed if image fails to load -usually name of image” width=”(adjust accordingly)” height=”(adjust accordingly)” /></a>

Embed Flickr Slideshow in FBML Tab

Facebook Promotions Guidelines

Facebook is actually quite anal about what you can and can’t promote on Facebook. So make sure you read their promotional guideline before you over pimp you page and get your self into trouble.

Facebook Ads

Now that you’ve got a pimping Facebook page you may wish to advertise, here are a few guides on how to set up and track Facebook ads:

Do uThnk I’ve missed anything?

If you have some favourite FB resources that I’ve overlooked please let me know by posting a link in the comments below.

This post was written by Sam Schuurman (aka SocialSammy). You can connect with him on both Twitter and Linkedin.