At Tivix we get asked a few common questions about Facebook Pages. So we thought we’d put out a blog post answering some of the top queries we receive.
- Default Tab – This is the tab of your facebook page that new users (users who are not your page’s fan … yet!). Once you become a fan, Facebook forces you to see the “Wall” tab by default. This is the biggest reason for an organization to make sure that their default tab should be as attractive, engaging and to the point. It should give the user an idea about what this page is all about and give them a reason to become a fan.
To choose which tab should be your default go to your page, click on “Edit Page” and choose from the dropdown options under “Wall Settings”
Here’s an example where the San Francisco Theater Festival is using our “Support Us” applcation to create an attractive experience for new fans. See how users are given a “Welcome back…” message (new users would be asked to become a fan instead). A live twitter feed also shows, along with calls to donate / visit their website. An invite box is also presented to the user to enable them to spread the work with minimal friction.
Page owners conversant in HTML / FBML / CSS can also build their own custom tabs using the static FBML application. See #3 below for disadvantage of going down this route.
- Applications – Many Facebook applications can be added to a page. That said some of them probably don’t make sense to be on most facebook pages. Reason being, they were written to go onto user profiles (imagine quiz results etc.). There are however a lot of other applications that are probably ripe to be used by a non-profit for example. These applications (for example the Tivix Shop4Good application) enables your fans / supporters to take action, connect with you and become more aware / engaged with your organization.
The way you add an application to your Facebook Page may vary. From the applications page you may click “Add to my page” or in some cases through the app providers website. For example in the Tivix Dashboard you get the option to publish every campaign to a microsite or to Facebook.
- Upcoming changes to Facebook Pages – Facebook is about to make some important changes to Facebook Pages late 2009 or early 2010. The biggest change is changing the width available for application tabs to 520px only, from the current 760px.
If any organization is using custom FBML application to build Facebook tabs they will have to go redo each of them manually to make sure they work properly with upcoming (and all future) Facebook user interface / platform changes. This can be a cumbersome task and require additional resources to do so.
One of the benefits of going with a platform like Tivix is that you as an organization wouldn’t need to worry about policy/platform changes that Facebook is going to make in the future. Since we’ll make sure all our applications change along with it. We’ll also make sure that any customizations we’ve made to our applications for any client will migrate appropriately.
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