How To Improve Your Facebook Fan Page

I’ve never been a huge user of social media services. I much prefer engaging and networking with people directly through email or through discussion forums.

In the blogging world today, social media interaction with your readers is vital, so I have made the effort to connect using social media services. I tried my utmost to use Twitter but found using is very distracting and the limit of 140 characters very restrictive. I also tried Digg like sites Sphinn but found that a few power users had too much control over which articles made the front page. I only lasted a few weeks on Google+ too.

The one social media service I do like using is Facebook. I use it frequently already to stay in touch with friends so it’s less of an inconvenience. Over the last few weeks I have been looking at ways in which I can increase traffic to my blogs Facebook page. I realised it is such a priority after noticing that Facebook is now the number 1 referring website to my blog (after search engine traffic). It is currently bringing in more visitors than the incoming links of all my guest posts combined and this traffic is very targeted because my fans have chosen to stay updated about all of my latest blog posts.

One of the most important aspects of promoting your blog through Facebook is the design of your fan page. It can make the difference between a visitor liking your page or clicking the back button and never viewing your website again.

Today I’d like to show you 3 simple steps you can take to enhance your Facebook fan page. ๐Ÿ™‚

1. Increase profile image size

The profile picture is one of the most important areas of a Fan Page as it’s how many people will remember your brand. What many people don’t realise is that you can use an image up to 180 pixels in width and 540 pixels in height for your fan page profile picture.

The Subway Facebook Fan Page
Subway Facebook Page

The additional space that Facebook can be used to promote your social media websites, discounts and promotions.

2. Add profile images at top

What many people don’t realise is that you can control the 5 images that appears at the top of every Facebook page. This is an additional way of promoting your brand on your page.

If you already have images at the top of page, don’t worry; you simply need to click on the x over the image to hide them. You can then add additional images to this area. This technique is being used by many companies such as Likable Media.

Likeable Media

3. Add welcome page using static HTML

Most of the largest companies in the world send new visitors to a welcome page in order to encourage them to like their page or to promote their latest promotion or competition.

The easiest way to do this is to add the Static FBML (click the add to page link) to your page though FBML is being faded out in 2012. Facebook wants you to instead use iframe tabs. This is a little more technical though there are apps available such as TabPress Custom iFrame Tabs which make this process very easy.

Below is an example of the Redbull Facebook fan page. It’s a great example of how companies are using the landing page to encourage visitors to like their page.

Redbull on Facebook

The First Bite Is With The Eye

The 3 steps I mentioned above are free and easy to set up. If you’re not a designer, you may want to hire someone to design your page for you or use a service that helps you create a better page. Unfortunately, most fan page creation services such as Fan Page Engine, TabSite and FaceItPages charge a monthly fee and the price increases depending on how many pages and features you want to add to your website. I’m thinking of trying out a few creation services to see if it makes a big difference to my sign up rates.

There is no disputing that the design of your Facebook fan page is a huge factor into whether get the most out of Facebook or not. I’ll be looking into more ways of getting fans to your Facebook page over the next few weeks.

I’ll let you know how I get on ๐Ÿ™‚

Good luck,
Kevin

Kevin Muldoon is a webmaster and blogger from Scotland who currently lives in South America. His current project is WordPress Mods; a blog which focuses on WordPress Themes, Plugins, Tutorials, News and Modifications.