Neworld, Great relationships build great brands

I spend a good portion of my week looking at different aspects to Facebook. Coming up with new ideas on how Facebook (and other social media channels) can be better utilised for marketing. While I’m seeking new ways to use Facebook, I’m often surprised at how some companies fail to cover even the basics of Facebook Pages. So here’s what I think are the basics;

1. Wall Logo

The maximum size of the wall logo is 200px width and 600px long. In real life not many companies have logos that are more vertical than horizontal, so a lot of the time companies don’t utilise the full space. But with a little creativity its possible to fill out that space and in doing so make the page more attractive to the eye. For example how about including product shots, company contact details, an advert for your business or a specific promotion – just don’t let the space go to waste. The wall logo will become more important in the coming week as Facebook resize custom tabs. As I mentioned last week custom tabs were previously 760px in width, but from next Monday (Aug23rd) they will be reduced to 520px to allow the inclusion of the wall logo on these tabs. The Wall logo will be carried over onto almost every tab giving you a great opportunity to increase awareness of an aspect of your business to fans.

2. Page Icon or Thumbnail

This little icon appears beside every post you make on the wall. The icon content comes from the Wall Logo. You can select the content  by clicking on the wall logo and selecting ‘edit thumbnail’ from the drop down menu. Make sure the thumbnail fits an entire image from the wall logo. By entire image I mean the entire company name and not half it, or a full product/character picture and not half it – that looks bad. If there’s nothing suitable to fit in the thumbnail then I’d suggest re-editing the wall logo image to include a section that can be used for the thumbnail.

3. Multiple Admins

When you set up a Facebook page it will automatically be linked with your personal page. You are the admin. Multiple admins can be handy if you are on holidays or have to give page access to someone (a designer, marketer, colleague, etc.). Instead of giving them your log in details and access to your personal account add them as an admin instead. Get the person to ‘like’ your page, go to your list of fans and click ‘see all’. Find them in the list of fans and click ‘make admin’.

4. The Landing Tab

First impressions last, or so the Head and Shoulders advert told me. Same on Facebook. Do you want people to arrive on your wall first? If you do then thats fine, if you dont then go to – edit page, wall settings, default landing tab for everyone else. Select what tab you want them to land on. This tab will be the first tab that non-fans will see, fans will still ‘land’ at the wall but at that stage they should be a converted customer so understand what it is your business does.

5. The Tabs You Have

Critically evaluate the tabs you have on your page. Do you need them all? because if you don’t go and delete them from the profile. Would you leave a blank or unused page o your website? (I hope not) so why do that on Facebook? If people aren’t using discussions, or reviews then get rid of them. Keeping all activity to the wall is a good way to make a page look busy rather than having interactions spread out over multiple tabs.

6. The Tabs You Want

What would you like to do on Facebook that will help to promote your business? Maybe integrate your Youtube Channel or Twitter stream or set up a shop? All of that is possibble by installing an application which will reside on a custom tab.

7. Custom Tabs

If you can’t find the app you want then its possible to build one. These can be useful to promote an aspect of your business to potential fans. They can also be set to the landing tab as outlined in point 4 and provide a more dramatic call to action than landing on the wall tab. Custom tabs will need to be built by a developer (or someone with at least some HTML and FBML knowledge).

8. Facebook.com/YourBusinessName

You can get this once you hit 25 fans. Just log into Facebook and go to facebook.com/username and choose a name that is closest to your business name. It cannot be changed so choose wisely.

9. Offline Promotion

A Facebook study from last May highlighted that businesses who promote their pages off Facebook grow 20% faster than those who don’t. It makes common sense, but many businesses expect their customers to think about looking for them. As I mentioned last week its your current customers who want to become fans, so why keep it a secret from them?

They are my basics for setting up a Facebook page, if you have any more to add feel free to do so below.