THE Blogger’s Guide to Facebook
Over th
e last month, I’ve been trying to figure out how to best utilize Facebook as a blogger. To be more specific, I wanted to focus on what Facebook could offer me as far as:
- Getting traffic to my blog
- Interacting and building relationships with my target audience
- Helping to establishing myself as an authority
These three things are all important aspects of becoming a successful blogger, as you probably already know.
I tried to look for posts from the big time bloggers specifically about Facebook and how one could utilize it for their blog, and if it was even worth it. Well, I couldn’t find any definite answers, so I figured I’d just do it myself, see what happens, and report my findings back here for you. That’s kind of what I usually do on this blog.
Anyways, the following is a compilation of what I’ve learned, which I hope many of you can use as a guide if you’re at all interested in using Facebook for something useful other than poking your old high school friends, or showing off your latest Bejeweled Blitz scores and Farmville achievements.
Why Facebook?
Before I get into the actionable, how-to type stuff, it’s important to understand why Facebook should be paid attention to in the first place. Here are some astonishing statistics:
- There are over 300 million active users (that’s one for each U.S. citizen!)
- It has an Alexa ranking of 2, just behind Google.
- On average, people spend 20 minutes a day on Facebook. (Average time spent on any given website: 10 seconds)
Additionally, check out the trends below. I have to credit TechCrunch for this eye-opening comparison:
Craziness.
So, what’s in it for us bloggers? Can we benefit from this rapid expansion into the Facebook platform? I say absolutely, and I have some initial data to prove it.
After just one single month, Facebook has proven to be a notable traffic source for The Smart Passive Income Blog (click chart below to enlarge):
Probably the most notable part of this data is that the traffic from Facebook included those with the most pageviews (3.25), the most average time spent on the site (05:14), and the lowest bounce rate (49.55%), and by a significant amount too. As time goes on, I expect my traffic to increase, and I’ll make sure to keep a close eye on what happens and report back to you. So far, I’m fairly convinced. If not for the quantity of traffic, at least for the quality.
Now, realize that in a perfect world, I would have 1000 Facebook accounts and methods in place to control variables that could have an impact on my data (not to mention, more time) but of course that can’t happen. You can interpret these numbers however you wish, but honestly you won’t know what Facebook can do for you unless you give it a shot yourself. Getting on Facebook is NOT a “Magic Button” for your blog. I’d be weary of anything that claims to be just that. It does take time and it’s another platform you’ll have to “deal with”, but Facebook might be one that you don’t want to miss out on.
The rest of this post is dedicated to helping you get the best bang for your buck if you do choose to get into Facebook a bit. If you’re not convinced, please don’t waste your time with the following information. 
Personal Profiles vs. Groups vs. Pages
There are three basic ways to connect and engage with people on Facebook:
- Your Personal Profile
- A Group; or
- A Page
Your personal profile is basically your primary account, where you can interact with friends and family. You may wish to just use your personal profile to advance your blog (which many people do), but knowing that you’re going to have to talk about whatever niche your blog is about from time to time, understand that this may end up annoying your friends and family who really just want to see pictures of you passed out in Vegas. For this reason, you may want to consider creating a Group or a Page for your blog, to keep things quasi-separate.
Mashable has a fantastic post about the differences between a Facebook Group and a Facebook Page, so I won’t repeat what they outline, but their bottom line is:
“Groups are great for organizing on a personal level and for smaller scale interaction around a cause. Pages are better for brands, businesses, bands, movies, or celebrities who want to interact with their fans or customers without having them connected to a personal account, and have a need to exceed Facebook’s 5,000 friend cap.”
Because of this, I created a Page for the SPI Blog. It works JUST like a personal profile, so it was easy for me to get used to, and the interaction with my fans (friends for Pages are called “fans”), has been quite good.
You can’t convert between Pages and Groups once you’ve made your choice, at least not at the moment, so choose wisely. The rest of this post will be primarily geared towards Pages, not Groups.
How to Create a Facebook Fan Page
Here’s a video about how to create a Facebook Fan Page. I apologize for the music and intro in the beginning, this was one of the first videos I did. In my later videos, I skip that and go straight into the content.
(if you cannot view the video, please click here to view it on youtube)
Here are a few important things to consider when creating your Page.
- Put Some Thought Into the Name Of Your Page: Once it’s created, you can’t change it back. Also, Facebook Pages get picked up by Google, so keep that in mind. My Facebook Page for SPI is ranked #3 in Google for “Smart Passive Income”, for example.
- Are You Going to Upload a Logo, or a Picture of You?: It’s really up to you, but think about this: if you were a fan of a website or a blog, which would you rather interact with? A logo, or the actual person you’re engaging in conversation with?
- Send Out Status Updates Before You Try and Get Fans: Why? Because you won’t get any fans if you have a blank wall. At least mention how stoked you are to finally have your Page setup, or how excited you are to talk to your fans in the near future.
- Change the URL of Your Page So It’s Easier to Work With: It’s a lot easier to say, “check out facebook.com/smartpassiveincome”, instead of “check out facebook.com/awdoihaiwduh82320983o4h3 or whatever the url ends up being. You can customize it by going to http://www.facebook.com/username. Please note that you can only do this once you have at least 25 fans. Again, put some thought into the customized URL. Most likely, the same address as your blog will be your best option.
The Facebook Landing Page
This is THE most important part of this whole guide. If there’s one thing you take away from this post, this is it.
In order to convert people who head over to your Page into fans, you must use a landing page. Without it, new visitors will be taken straight to your wall, which is ugly and doesn’t really tell people exactly what to do. They’ll see all of these conversations going on, links and pictures everywhere and they’ll probably end up leaving because they have no clue what to do, or what’s in it for them to become a fan.
You can create a special area on your Page, a landing page, that only new visitors will see first. You can put whatever you want on this page, including exactly what your blog is about, why they should become a fan, and exactly how to become a fan as well. If you have a newsletter or some type of free gift for an opt-in / email list you’re building, you can easily throw that in there too. You basically have a blank html page (about 760 px wide) to work with, so it’s up to your imagination. To show you the difference…
Before, when new visitors would come to my Facebook Page, they would see this:
Now, they see this:
I could probably do more with the copy and the design, but after 3 versions of the landing page, this one seems to convert the best for me. Besides that, which of the two do you think converted more fans?
The second one, by a landslide.
Here’s a video of the exact process to create a landing page on Facebook, and how to set it up as the default page that new visitors will see first:
(if you cannot view the video, please click here to view it on youtube)
As mentioned in the video, you will need to insert a piece of code in the Static FBML application for your Page. My landing page is basically a large jpg file with all that text included, and only a snippet of html text at the bottom, so there wasn’t much code required. I could probably make the landing page look a lot better, and I may even hire someone on elance.com to do that for me for $50 or less. As you can see, I have not yet included an opt-in form for an email list, which is definitely something you should consider placing in there if you have one. I’m working on it
PLEASE don’t let the design of my particular landing page tell you that this is the only way it should be done. I mean, check out these other awesome landing pages below:
Lastly, if you want to use the “become a fan” button that Facebook uses in your landing page copy, you can just right click and save the .png file below.
Keys to Getting Facebook Fans
Besides the landing page, there are a number of things you can do that will increase the number of fans you get. Here are my top 5 tips in another video I just filmed the other day (he first tip I mention is to create a landing page, which we’ve already discussed):
(if you cannot view the video, please click here to view it on youtube)
Here’s an outline of the other tips mentioned in the video:
- Place a Link to Your Page on Your Blog: You can place a link to your fan page on your blog either in the area where you also have an RSS button, or at the bottom of your posts, where readers are more likely to engage with you after reading your content.
- Place a Link to Your Page in any Forum Signatures You Have: Make sure to take advantage of your presence on forums related to your niche by placing a link to your Page in your signature, so it’s done automatically for you after each of your posts. Take advantage of html to make a nice looking anchor text (preferably with a call to action), back to your Facebook Page.
- Include a Link in Any Videos or Guest Posts You Do
- Advertising Your Page on Faceboook: It does cost money, but you can get highly-targeted followers to your Page and blog by advertising with Facebook.
Linking Back to Your Blog and Getting Traffic
Your blog is where you eventually want everyone to end up, so you want to make sure you provide enough opportunity for your Facebook fans to click on over.
Static Links
Static links are links to your blog on your Facebook page that are not part of the conversations and interactions going on. There are a few opportunities to place links right on your wall for everyone to see.
1. Inside the “Info” tab there’s a spot for your website address. Links in the “overview” area will not be clickable.
2. On your main page, right underneath your profile picture, there’s a perfect spot for a quick intro and a link back to your blog. Just hover over this spot to edit.
Links Via Conversation
The more exciting way to get traffic to your blog from Facebook is to share a link with your fans via your wall. This way, it will be shown on every one of your fan’s personal news feeds. You can also share videos, pictures and events in the same manner.
Besides a “broadcast” to all of your fans, you can insert links within the conversions that are already going on on your wall.
If you want, you can use your favorite url shortener to make them look nicer if they are too long, and you can track how many clicks you get at the same time. Personally, I like to use bit.ly.
As with anything that involves you wanting to get people to click something, your copy will have a lot to do with how many people actually click on the link. Test out different ways to present information to your Fans, and I’m sure you’ll find a way that works best for you.
Oh, and as always – spamming is bad. Go easy with your links, but don’t feel like you aren’t allowed to post any links at all either.
Other Multi-Media For Your Page
There are many other applications on Facebook that Pages can utilize (Groups cannot utilize applications at the moment). For example, you can setup an RSS feed tab, which immediately pulls the latest blog posts from your blog’s RSS feed and places that into your Page. The same goes with YouTube and Twitter, and I’m sure all of the other social networking and bookmarking websites as well.
Only a limited number of tabs show up on your Page (the rest are hidden, but can still be accessed), so you’ll have to choose your primary tabs carefully, although they can be rearranged later. Personally, I have a Twitter and YouTube Tab on my Page, as you can see below.
Cool Resource
Involver.com is a company that does complete brand marketing for companies on Facebook. They have a number of different applications you can choose from for your Facebook Page, and the first two you use are free. After that, you’ll have to pay. It’s hard to choose because there are so many cool applications you can use for your blog, such as a twitter feed, RSS feed, YouTube channel, Flickr, Slides, PDFs, file sharing, and more. My advice to you: choose wisely.
Facebook On Your Blog
There are a number of things you can do on your blog itself to optimize your Facebook experience.
The Fan Box
You can create what is called a “Fan Box”. A Fan Box is a widget that you can display on your blog that shows either your latest updates, pictures of your fans, or both at the same time. On the right hand side of my blog, you can see my personal fan box.
The Share Button
On your blog posts, you can insert a button that will share your post to the friends on Facebook of whoever clicks on it. It’s sort of like the Tweetmeme / Retweet button, which you can see at the top of this post on the left hand side. I have yet to try this out, but I might incorporate it into my next design. As far as this kind of “push-button sharing” is concerned, more people are using Twitter instead of Facebook, at least for now.
Facebook Connect
Facebook Connect is an advanced feature that I won’t be discussing here. It’s a bit complicated. If you’d like to read more about Facebook Connect, or even implement it on your website, you can click on the links below:
All of these Facebook sharing devices (and more), can be found here on the Facebook Widget Page
Thanks!
Well, that was a super long post, but I think it should give you a good start with getting used to Facebook and how to leverage it specifically for your blog. Until next time!
I wish you nothing less than success! Cheers!
p.s. If you found this post useful, please share it on twitter by clicking the button below, and as always, you can subscribe to the blog by clicking here. Thanks!
Posted on : November 6th, 2009
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104 Comments (Click Here to Leave a Comment Below)
Hey Pat, love your post.. I’m a newbie to all this so your post has
helped me a lot. Really step by step info. your are bookmarked!
Kemi
Thanks Kemi! I’m glad I could help. If you feel like I’m missing anything about how to get started, please let me know. Thanks!
Wow, thanks for such a comprehensive outline of how to set up a Facebook page for a business. Most such articles only espouse how important it is to do it and give a couple of minor points – you actually outlined everything that is needed to really put together a killer business Facebook page.
Thanks again and keep up the great content!
Thanks Digigirl! I love your avatar, by the way. Really cool service you offer for writers too. Keep up the awesome work!
Extensive post and very useful! I didn’t know you could create a landing page for your FB Page, so thanks. I will look into doing that for my own page.
Awesome Sarah, let me know when it’s up. I’d love to become a fan
What a great post, Pat. I was just trying to decide if I should stay with my regular facebook page or do one specifically for my blog. You just made up my mind.
Hey Jen! Good to hear from you!
I’m glad I could help you make a decision on that. Cheers!
This was awesome! You must be the smartest guy in regard to figuring out social media and making it work for business that I have met thus far. I am using Twitter and tracking every post currently. Now that you have shown me this – I feel it’s finally worthwhile for me to invest my time & money in FB. Thanks so much!
Hehe, thanks Syl. I’m not that smart. I guess you could say, I have a lot of time on my hands, so I made sure I use it for productivity purposes, if that makes sense. I’m kind of a “research freak”, so I like to get really detailed with how things could possibly work.
Anyways, thanks for your awesome comment. Have a good one!
I didn’t know you could create a landing page for a Facebook Page. Very informative. Thanks!
Hi Shevonne, thanks for your comment! I love your tagline on your blog. Keep up the great work!
Hey Pat,
I really got a lot of value from this post. Thank you for sharing this information.
One question, what tool are you using to aggregate your traffic stats? Specifically the chart that shows source, visits, and bounce rates.
Thanks!
Brett
Hey Brett. I’m using Google Analytics for all of that stat tracking stuff
Hi Pat, excellent research and valuable advice on how to leverage FB for my blog. The landing page idea is a much better one than having a group, which is what I would have gone for if I hadn’t popped in here
No more Bejeweled Blitz, I’m impressed. First time here; there will be others…Thanks
Sadly, I still play bejeweled every once and a while. It’s a guilty pleasure of mine
Thanks David, all the best to you!
Hi Pat,
Just found your site through Yaro Starak’s interview with you. I am very excited to have found you. There is lot’s and lots of valuable information here for me. My site is very new (hasn’t been launched yet), so I am eager to learn as much as I can. Your site has become one that I know I will get lots of value from. Thanks.
Hi Patrenia,
I’m glad you found your way over here! I hope I can provide you with some valuable info that will help you achieve your online goals. Please let us know when your site is ready and live! Cheers!
Hey Pat! Your post is very helpful because it’s so clear and well organized as to how and why to improve FB. Thanks
Thanks Judy!
Hi Pat Love this info…and although I have not set up my facebook, I did watch your videos, and added this to my fav I would like to know if you have anywhere “info” on html. I am not savy on this subject and I really like your idea on Landing Page. Help if you can.
Thanks.
Hi Cathy,
Like you, I’m not savvy on html. People like you and I basically have two options:
1) Get someone else to do it for us, whether it’s someone we pay that we find on elance, odesk or scriptlance, or a friend who might do it for us as a favor. Or,
2) We can try to figure it out ourselves. I spent WAY too long, in my honest opinion, trying to do this, but it is possible. I made it really simple so I just included a picture and some basic text (the picture has all of that text and the buttons and arrows and stuff included).
If you want, you can look at the video of the landing page on youtube where I drop in the code, and just copy it straight from there, knowing that you’ll have to change the stuff coming from my site to yours
Hope that helps a little! Good luck!
Wow Pat!
This is a beautiful guide! You must have put so much effort and work into it:)
Thanks for sharing.
Bookmarking this under my favourite posts, and going to come back to it when I’m going to set up my Fanpage for Upgradereality.
Have an awesome weekend!
Diggy
Pat!
Great info, and a great success story you have.
Thanks for sharing.
Pat, This is awesome mate… I spend a day on the weekend trying to make this facebook stuff happen, all based on the infor you provided here – Check out my result: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Pro-Designer/165623048098?v=app_7146470109
Thanks for great advice and help!
Dude! This is awesome! Congrats on setting it up. Just a few more fans, and you’ll be able to make your nice looking url. I’ll help you out a little
Cheers! Make sure to let others know about these tips if you have a chance
No worries at all… thanks, again great post…
Awesome post, as always, Pat!
wow…I’m surprised that “Shoemoney” only has about 2,800 some “fans”….
lol…and, it’s an honor to show up in one of your screenshots, Pat! “Howie LIKES this!”
lol
Great post! Just getting started with FB really, so this was a big help.
Hey Pat,
thanks for this great blog post! I am going to implement quite a few ideas on my own pages! Are you based in the San Diego area? I saw the Charger’s Fan Page up there! If so, lets connect!!!
Hi Maria.Yep! I am in San Diego. It’s starting to become the mecca for internet marketers for some reason. Big guys like Frank Kern and others are here in the area too. I go to a meetup everyonce and a while from meetup.com here in the SD area for internet marketers. You may be able to find me there. If not, send me a message. Cheers!
Thanks for the step by step video on using FBML. We know we want to upgrade our Facebook fan page but the official help instructions for FBML are not nearly as clear and directed. Now we have a process to follow.
Hi Pat,
THanks for the tutorial on FBML.
I’ve thought about a Facebook Fan page, but I’ve been told that my blog is “too personal” for a page like this, even though I approach my topic from a specific angle–an college teacher’s view on pop culture.
I think I might try to set one up soon, though, just to see how it goes and if it affects my traffic like it seems to have done for many other people. What have I got to lose?
For “super personal” brands, you may just benefit from using your profile, especially if it’s already up and running quite well, however like you said, what have you got to lose? And, it’s free
Thanks Pat
Valuable information. I spent quite a while here which doesn’t happen often. Well done!
Hi Sue, thanks! That’s a great compliment
All the best to you!
Hey Pat. How much traffic does your blog generate on a daily basis? New vs Returning that sort of thing…Thanks. Love the blog.
Hey Jacob. For this blog, which is connected to the Facebook Fan Page, I’ve been averaging between 700-800 visits a day, half being from new users. Recently, however, I’ve had a large spike from some interviews and links to my page from blogs that have a ton of traffic, so my numbers now will be skewed, and I’ll probably have a lot more daily traffic as well. Let me know if you need clarification on anything. Thanks!
Hey Pat – so happy to have found you, thank you for all the fantastic information!
I managed to customize my landing page – just one thing, i can’t understand why it doesn’t show the fan box up on top (even on a computer of a non-fan it doesn’t). Any thoughts?
http://www.facebook.com/ChampagnePromises?v=app_4949752878
Hi Astrid,
First of all, your landing page looks super awesome
Secondly, to answer your question, it doesn’t show up either because you are signed in on an account that is already a fan, it’s your own fanpage, OR, you are not signed into an account at all.
It shows up for me. One thing, you may want to move the arrow so it’s pointing further to the right. it always shows up after the name of the page.
Hope that helps. Thanks!
Hey Pat thank you so much for re-confirming this! Your site is awesome and your tips are fantastic!
Thanks again for your help,
PS – would you be able to share what presentation software you use to generate your training videos? I would love to use it to show how I create my illustrations. Thanks!
Astrid
Awesome this is one of those blog posts that lets your readers know you are really in this to help and not solely out to make money.
I have two separate FB accounts because I didn’t want to bother my family and friends. But now the blog FB page is so impersonal which is soooo not me. So, now I have something else to work on -on my day off. Thanks…:)
Excellent post. Thanks! Do you have data for the best times of the day to post updates to a page? What tool would track that? Google Analytics?
Thanks Daniel. I don’t really have enough data as far as what times of the day are best to update a page. That would be a great thing to know though. I would expect it would be similar to Twitter, because that’s when people are “not doing work”, and are checking their updates and stuff. So, probably right before noon.
I think analytics could track that. Actually, even a URL shortener like budurl and bit.ly could track that too.
[...] In our research we discovered a great article by professional blogger, Pat Flynn. This article offers a step-by-step video on how to set up a Fan Page. As it can not be said any better, please visit this link: http://www.smartpassiveincome.com/the-bloggers-guide-to-facebook [...]
Pat-
What a great researched post (and great vids!). Haven’t been to your blog in a bit, and just realized how much I was missing out on. This post is officially bookmarked and Stumbled and soon to be Tweeted.
What a great tutorial! I just set up my page and am now trying to figure out how to get my blog posts to show up automatically on the wall. You mention it briefly in this article, but could you help me find instructions on how to do this? The only instructions I find are for doing it on your personal profile (which works differently than these “pages” or the instructions tell how to make the full posts show up in the notes section of your page. I’m not really wanting either of those. I’d like just a snippet of each post to show up, with it linked to the blog so fans can click to go view the actual post on the blog.
I’d love any help you might have!
Thanks so much for posting this!
Hi Michelle, the RSS Feed application on this page should work: http://www.involver.com/pages/gallery.html#__, as well as the facebook application “Social RSS”, I think. If you look at the first one, on the preview, it shows snippets of the blog posts with a “read more” button, which is what I think you were looking for. Let me know if that’s not what you were looking for, and I’ll see if I can do some further research for you. Cheers!
Michelle – have you tried this yet? I would like to do the same thing, so would appreciate any advice you have to offer about which way you decided to do it?
Suzi
[...] Passive Income: The Blogger’s Guide to Facebook — an interesting personal case study that’s worth a read. This isn’t the only [...]
Great summary of alot of information you’ve been posting over the past few weeks. Excellent resource!!
I found the statistics from your site about the increase visit length and page views per visit, as well as decreased bounce rate, from the Facebook referrals.
Do you think this has anything to do with the concept that when people are on Facebook, idly clicking around on things like links to people’s blogs, they are in a sort of surfing mode already? As in, that Facebook is a setting in which users are already very ready to click and read whatever information they come across, as opposed to someone coming from Google who is searching for something specific?
Hi Gabi,
That’s an interesting question. I don’t really think you can compare Google traffic vs. Facebook users because it’s a totally different ballgame / mindset for the user.
In Google, people are looking for something specific, and find it right away. If they don’t like what they see in a website they click to, they leave right away.
In Facebook, people because your fan or your friend, and that initial interaction proves a certain trust, that anything you say or any links you provide will be useful information that people will find interesting. They will have already said to be interested in what you have to say just because they have become your fan. That’s why, I think, there is a lower bounce rate, because facebook fans are highly targeted fans.
Oh this was so easy peasy lemon squeezy, wow! Ha, im not feeling so technophobic anymore. First a mind map now a face book landing page, tomorrow, the worlllddd (insert evil laugh)
[...] invite fans to discuss their company or blog, and have a reason for them to visit regularly. This Blogger’s Guide to Facebook explains fan pages in more [...]
[...] invite fans to discuss their company or blog, and have a reason for them to visit regularly. This Blogger’s Guide to Facebook explains fan pages in more [...]
[...] invite fans to discuss their company or blog, and have a reason for them to visit regularly. This Blogger’s Guide to Facebook explains fan pages in more [...]
[...] invite fans to discuss their company or blog, and have a reason for them to visit regularly. This Blogger’s Guide to Facebook explains fan pages in more [...]
Hi Pat – I can’t tell you how hugely useful this is.
I have now put a very basic landing page up at http://www.facebook.com/packabook. I did this just by copying over the html from my blog’s about page (I am html illiterate).
I found I had to add some paragraph tags though.
I have one problem which is that the text is justified to the very left and it could do with a bit of a margin – I don’t suppose you have any idea how to do that? I tried some html code that I looked up on the internet, but it just made all of the text disappear….help!
Suzi
Hi Suzi! I’m glad you find this tutorial useful!
I saw your landing page, and if you wanted to keep the basic text look, I honestly don’t think you need to change the margin, because it lines up nicely right now, IMO.
However, you can hugely benefit from putting some graphics or pictures in there. My landing page (http://bit.ly/1ffGsS) is simply just a picture that is 760px wide. It would of taken me years to do html to make it look like it does (well, I would of hired someone), but having an arrow point to the become a fan button totally increases conversion rates because it’s a clear call to action.
But, it’s up to you. If you want to stick with the basic text look for now, you can probably benefit from bolding the first line.
As far as html…here’s my guess, lol:
In your fbml application field, type in:
at the very top. Then, put in the following tags before and after the text you want moved over:
Text You Want Moved Over
I’m hoping when I submit this comment, it doesn’t render the html I just wrote…
and of course..it did. LOL
I’ll try on the SSWT forum.
Thanks Pat. Just wanted to say ‘thank you’ over here as well as over there…
Suzi
Just simply amazing, and useful! I was convinced from the very first paragraphs of the need to get a Fan page in preparation of my website/blog upcoming launch. And here I got all the information I need to do that, so you saved me a lot of time and trouble.. and that was seriously much appreciated because of all the social networks craze, one hardly finds time to actually accomplish anything!
Thanks a lot.. I’m sharing and retweeting that.
Hey Pat, great stuff as usual.
I’ve been considering a fan page for awhile now and decided to create one to start the new year off. This post and the vids are of great value and will help me big time.
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Pat!! You do awesome work! Thanks for all the articles and videos to help us newbies out!!
I finally put together my landing page on Facebook, and your tips made it pretty easy! I used Powerpoint to build my image, saved that as a PDF and saved that as an image.
You can check it out at http://www.Facebook.com/EngagedMarriage
I’d love to hear suggestions for improvements.
Dude, it looks great! The resolution on the button in your landing page image isn’t the highest quality, but I think that might be a good thing actually. Keep up the good work!
that is a great looking fanpage!! Nice job.
Thanks, guys! I would say the number of new fans has increased quite a bit since adding the welcome page. I don’t do advertising to drive people there, so I don’t know about conversion rates. However, I am sure it is higher since adding a pithy summary of why folks should become a fan.
Thanks for the great tips, Pat!
I forgot to leave comment here. so i am doing it now.
This is the first post i read at your blog. So basically this is the post that make me follow you. Yes this post help me to create my own facebook fan landing page.
here it is:
http://www.facebook.com/InternetGeeks
have you notice it. yes Internet Geeks got 25 fans today. Thanks for your guidance.
Azad Shaikh
http://www.internetgeeks.org
[...] THE Blogger’s Guide to Facebook: The ultimate resource for anyone who wants to utilize a Facebook Page for their blog or online business, hands down. [...]
I have set up my fanpage ~ I’m going to have someone do the landing page for me. I am wondering if you have an app pulling your blog posts into your wall ~ or are you putting something up on your fan page each time you post to the blog?
[...] THE Blogger’s Guide to Facebook: The ultimate resource for anyone who wants to utilize a Facebook Page for their blog or online business, hands down. [...]
Hi Pat, thank you for the info on how to set up fan page. I didn’t know you could do this. Do you think you could do a video on how to add a domain to wordpress?
[...] Want to know how to start a facebook fan page with little to no experience check out this post by a fellow internet businessperson Pat [...]
Pat, I got the landing page graphic done and when I put it in the fbml box it shows “boxes” in the tab and you can see the square that says welcome behind my image. Any suggestions. You can see my landing page image over the top of it but it looks crazy.
Hey Jackie. Hopefully I can help. You’re using the FBML application, right? When you go into your “edit page” area (underneath your pic on your wall), and then scroll down to FBML, click on “edit”.
The Box Title is where you enter “Welcome”.
If that’s NOT what you did, go back to where you placed “welcome” before, and delete it. That should get rid of the box behind your graphic. Let me know how that works out. Thanks!
I did that ~ but what I didn’t do was go into the settings and move it to wall. Once I did that it worked perfectly.
http://www.facebook.com/internetmarketingstrategyforbeginners
thanks for this post Pat, I never would have gotten motivated and done this without it!!
Hi Pat. I finally got my welcome page done. I have a question about the size of image. I notice mine is about 250k. Should I have it made smaller for faster download?
http://www.facebook.com/electricbikebuilding?v=app_4949752878
Daniel, your landing page rocks! I think 250k is perfect. With everyone on DSL and cable today, that’s less than a second to download. Well done!
Pat, this is great! Thank you for sharing your story and all your tips with us via this website. You’re the reason why I registered a few domains, started writing an eBook and became determined to make myself self-employed this year. The technical aspects of running a blog are causing me fits (finding and customizing the right Wordpress theme, Photoshopping images, etc) but it’s an exciting journey and I look forward to the results.
Chris, thanks for the comment, and I’m glad I could inspire you to get some great work done online this year. Indeed, the technical stuff can be a nuisance at times, but its a learning experience and it can be fun if you want it to be! Good luck, and please let me know if you need any help with anything. Cheers!
Loved this post Pat, hits the spot and so thorough. I’ve used Facebook pre Fan Pages for marketing in other niches and am now taking the plunge with a Page. Thanks for all your efforts on this, very useful.
Hey Robert – glad you found this post useful. It was my pleasure to put all the detail into it for you. Thanks!
Hi Pat, I feel a bit silly but I’ve spent hours on this… I want to use the full picture space in the profile picture…and I cannot figure out how to do this! I have actually already done it on two of my pages! Can you believe it? Please help!
Hey Kath, I checked out your page. The landing is page is setup, but I’m not sure exactly what you’re asking about. It seems like you’re making good use of your profile picture space. Can you clarify?
Amazing guide. I’m launching a Facebook page soon for my site and I’m taking all of this into account. I love the landing page idea.
Brilliant. Thanks a ton, Pat.
- Austin @ Foreigner’s Finances
Thanks Austin! Let us know when you finish the page! I’d love to check it out!
-Pat
[...] THE Blogger’s Guide to Facebook [...]
What software do you use to make screencasts and to write on the video? Looks awesome. Thanks.
You know why this post is rated higher than other Page Guide. Because of the landing page trick. I had not yet seen this on any other blog. I am using https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9095 for comments and it is really cool. You must try it, a time saver.
Warm Regards,
Azad Shaikh (The Internet Geek)
Which other Page guide are you talking about?
Thanks for the firefox addon – that’s really cool! Cheers Azad!
Wow, great info – so glad I found your site!!!
Thanks for stopping by Jennie! Glad you liked the tutorial. Cheers!
Hi Pat ~ my new fanpage is gathering fans and that’s exciting. I’d like to know what you’re using or how you are getting your blog posts posted to your wall.
I didn’t really want them to come through the notes because then it’s the full blog post and it’s harder to funnel people to my site ~ your posts show up on the wall and with only a snippet of the post. I’d like to do that.
If you can point me in the right direction I’d appreciate it.
Jackie
Hey Jackie – I insert the link to my blog posts manually, because I like to add a little something extra (i.e. “Just finished my new blog post, check it out!). When you insert the URL, it automatically generates a snippet of the post for you.
Cheers!
Ok Pat ~ that’s what I’ve been doing but thought there had to be a more automated way to get it done. thanks.
Jackie – I use networked blogs which I’m pretty happy with to automate the posting to my wall. Have a look at facebook.com/packabook if you want to see how it looks.
Suzi
Hey Suzi,
That looks good ~ what is networked blogs and can you give me a link? oh btw ~ I love your site, was glad to see it again.
Thanks Jackie.
As I am always forgetting how to do anything once I have set up, I tend to try and keep a log of what I do.
Delving back a couple of months, I find this is what I wrote about networked blogs!
Went to NetworkedBlogs on facebook
http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=9953271133
Go to application (under logo on left)
Pages
Add your blog
Add in feed URL from feedburner
Verify you are the owner by adding some html to a widget in your right column
Once verified you can remove the widget
Go back to http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=9953271133
Add to your page
Networked Blogs should be there as an application
Click on the pencil and fill stuff in
http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/userpage.php
Also added to my profile and info page (click on profile up the top)
Edited my privacy settings:
Hide me from all widgets.Checked. (Don’t really know what this means!)
Show a link to my Facebook profile (makes it easier for others to message you and send friend requests) Unchecked.
Can’t be sure if this is still the way to do it, as I think they may have updated it. But hopefully it helps!
Suzi
I’m the same way ~ especially with facebook. I googled it and got it all set up this morning. Thanks for the tip. I appreciate it!