Add Brand Impact with a Custom Facebook Tab
Building a custom tab for your Facebook Fan Page has many benefits. Unlike a personal page, the Facebook Business page allows you to measure the number of visitors to your site, as well as see the age, location and activity of the people in your community. When someone is not yet a subscriber of your page you can have them to first be “introduced” to your page with a custom tab. This week I created a great custom tab for Dana Mallon, a life coach in the Washington, DC area.
The first benefit is that the custom tab welcomes visitors to your page and invites them to join the community. Facebook is always making changes and it’s important to be active in order to really reap the benefits of marketing on Facebook. Business pages used to have “Fans” and now they have “Likes” or, people that like them. It’s a weird translation, but essentially the same, as long as someone is agreeing to become a part of the community, it doesn’t matter much how they define it.
The second benefit to a custom tab is that you add personality to the page. Facebook really has their branding right. They chose a name that tells you exactly what it is, chose their colors wisely, made the logo simple and visible. Whenever you visit someone’s page you’ll see the same thing so it’s important to inject a bit of personality into it. The only way to do that is through the profile photo and the custom tab. Use it to show your visitors your true colors.
The third benefit is the ability to embed forms, photos and videos. This is perhaps one of the most important features of the custom tab. There are services online that will do this for you, and charge you a monthly fee for the life of that tab, which can become really expensive (such as Splashtabs), as well as services that allow you to build a page for free, but offer very limited templates (which defeat the purpose of branding) so my recommendation is that you have your web designer or brand manager handle this for you.
The forth benefit is that you can update your tab to reflect growing trends, make special announcements and promote events. Another great use of the custom tab is that it doesn’t have to be static. You can use your tab to provide time sensitive information and updates. You can even create several custom tabs and allow new users to land on whichever one you choose.
Highlights:
1) Create a custom graphic that says “Like This Page”
2) Introduce yourself, and let people know who you are and how you serve them
3) Offer them something special for exchanging their time with you
4) Encourage them to engage in the conversation by posting questions and discussions
5) Acknowledge them on a daily basis
