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HOW TO: Build
a Facebook Landing Page for Your Business

February 22, 2010 by Matt
Silverman 595

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This post originally appeared on the American Express
OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging
social media and technology in small business.

Facebook is known for
its uniformity. You can post all sorts of content, but the actual design and
layout of your profile is the same as everyone else’s.

But with Facebook Fan Pages and the array of apps you can plug into them,
there are a few ways you can customize what people see when they land on your
Page.

You’ve probably seen custom Fan Pages like those of Best Buy and Victoria’s
Secret. When you land there, you start on what is essentially a mini website
within Facebook, instead of the Page’s wall or feed.

These are often used to promote deals, call attention to new products, or
simply welcome visitors with an attractive branded splash page. Anyone with a
Fan Page can create one, but it takes a little effort. Here’s how.

1. Add the Static FBML App

The tabs at the top of your Facebook Fan Page are apps. Some, like your wall
and photos are built into Facebook. Others are essentially plug-ins where fans
can view external content, like YouTube videos, Flickr photos, etc.

The app you need for your custom page is called “Static FBML,” located here. If you’re logged into Facebook, you can add it
to your Page. It is essentially a blank canvas where you can add whatever
content you want, including custom graphics and links via standard HTML.

2. Set Up Your Tab

Once you’ve added the Static FBML app, click “Edit Page” below your company’s
profile image. This will bring up all your settings and apps. Look for the FBML
app and click the “Application Settings” link.

The app can function in two ways: As a set of boxes, or as one dedicated
profile tab. If you’re building a splash page, you’ll probably want to use it as
a tab, so go ahead and make sure that the “Box” setting is removed, and the
“Tab” setting is added. You can always experiment with boxes later if you find
them more useful.

3. Add Your Content

Once you’re in tab mode, go back to your settings and click the “Edit” link
under the Static FBML app. This opens a standard text field where you can add
your content.

“Box Title” will be the name of your tab, so you’ll want to change it to
something appropriate, like “This Week’s Deals,” “Special Offers,” or simply
“Welcome,” depending on how you plan to use your Page.

The main text field is where your content goes, and you can add standard HTML
to the page as you would any website, including images, text, links, and other
formatting. No need for HTML, BODY, or HEAD tags.

Note that your images must be hosted elsewhere (on your company’s website,
for example) and only referenced in your HTML code.

4. Make It the Default Landing Page

If you want this new tab to be the “face” of your business Fan Page, head
back over to your page settings and edit your “Wall Settings.” There is an
option for “Default Landing Tab for Everyone Else.” From that menu, select your
new tab.

From now on, it will be the first thing visitors see when they arrive.

5. Engage Further With FBML

FBML stands for Facebook Markup Language, and it is the code used in Facebook
applications to reference items on the social network, like user profiles,
groups, feeds, and other data. If you’re really looking to integrate your
landing page and get interactive with visitors, it might be worthwhile to learn
this language.

A great primer on FBML and a resource for optimizing your Facebook landing
page in general can be found in my colleague Tamar Weinberg’s Techipedia article on the subject.

More business resources from Mashable:

- 5
Ways to Avoid Sabotaging Your Personal Brand Online
- 4 Elements of a
Successful Business Web Presence
- HOW TO:
Implement a Social Media Business Strategy
- HOW TO: Choose a News
Reader for Keeping Tabs on Your Industry
- HOW TO: Measure Social
Media ROI
- HOW
TO: Use Social Media to Connect with Other
Entrepreneurs

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85 Comments

To leave a comment on this story,
please log in with Facebook or Twitter

Jamie
Beckland

These how-tos are helpful, but this assumes you already know why you are
creating a FB Page, and that you have a content strategy mapped out. Make sure
those things come first!

We are asking marketers about exactly this question – how well informed are
the strategies in advance of these tactical implications.

If you’re interested in how your company is faring with social media
adoption, take our survey and get the results FREE: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TZND7J2

February 22, 2010 23:51:00
Reply

@heyart

Good advice.

February 22, 2010 23:52:00
Reply

Anonymous

We just customized our company’s facebook fan page, however, they no longer
allow custom tabs which is a bummer :(

February 23, 2010 00:16:00
Reply

Tim
Nicholson

sgearing, Facebook does support custom tabs on Fan pages. Their apps do
as well as my app called My Info. In fact, most of my users are adding
custom tabs to their fan pages. http://facebook.com/xsmyinfo

February 23, 2010 03:20:00
Reply

peterscotts

Yes thats right Tim and once you have created it, you can drag and drop
it into the top of your page as mine is under IMPORTANT…See my page at http://peterscottfacebook.com/ for what I mean. I see you
have not done that as yet. Just in case you didn’t know. Small tip for
ya!

March 21, 2010 04:38:00

Anonymous

Hey,

Very interesting article …

We built a light weight app specifically for the purpose of enabling
‘Welcome Tab’.

Check it out here – http://apps.facebook.com/welcometab

I will really appreciate if you include a mention to it in your
article.

We are going to add some serious level of analytic to this app + other
planned apps so that owners can see how much traffic they are getting.

Thx
Rajat Garg

March 13, 2010 18:45:00
Reply

Ann
Glenn

You forgot the most important part – establishing your facebook url for
your business after 25 fans go to http://www.facebook.com/username/ and set up your facebook
name to make it easier for people to find you on facebook.

February 23, 2010 00:21:00
Reply

Anonymous

What about the fact there is no notification if someone writes on the Fan
page wall? Do you happen to know if they plan on adding this
feature?

February 23, 2010 00:47:00
Reply

Tim
Nicholson

This is one of my biggest complaints as well. Even as a Facebook app
developer, I get no notifications of posts in my app’s discussion forum. Its
really annoying to me and hurts everyone’s ability to promptly respond to
our users.

February 23, 2010 03:25:00
Reply

Julieanne van Zyl

These instructions for creating Facebook page are very detailed, and easy
to follow. Adding HTML to a Facebook page has become a lot easier than it was
6 months ago.

February 23, 2010 00:57:00
Reply

Coupons

This is what I need! Thanks a million!

February 23, 2010 01:18:00
Reply

Tim
Nicholson

Hi, I write Facebook applications and one of my apps is called My Info and
it lets you do what this app does on Fan Pages as well as personal profiles.
The personal profile support is a great way to show off your fan page and link
over to it to drive traffic. My Info also let’s you preview your updates
before publishing, which the Static FBML app does not do.

However, the Static FBML app is written by Facebook themselves and is a
classic example of how they limit 3rd-party developers. Facebook won’t allow
3rd-party apps to change the name of the custom profile box or custom tab.
They are also removing all personal profile boxes sometime in “early 2010″. My
Info also lets you add custom fields, icons, links, etc. to your main Facebook
“Info” tab, but they never allowed support for Fan Pages and have dropped
official support for this functionality even on personal pages.

Its becomming harder and harder for small-time developers to write truly
useful Facebook apps. All the focus and press seems to be on the big-time
apps, like Farmville and Mafia Wars, but with those apps spamming the system
and Facebook constantly further limiting the API’s to prevent it. So they both
cater to those apps in a way, but also limit every developer on the Facebook
platform as a result.

I’d love for Mashable readers to check out http://xtremelysocial.com/
and the various Facebook apps that I’ve written. None of my apps use any of
the typical “viral” (spam) techniques and rely solely on dedicated users
sharing the word.

February 23, 2010 03:17:00
Reply

Social Tips Site

This is great, just what I needed…nice tips here.

February 23, 2010 03:25:00
Reply

Ana |
Traffic Generation Cafe

I love this post; it will be of tremendous help when I finally get around
to building my FB fan page. No excuses now!

Thanks,
Ana/YourNetBiz

February 23, 2010 03:41:00
Reply

Greg
Fleischaker

what a great help, very easy to follow along, but now I’m afraid that my
friends and co-workers will be asking for my help, maybe I shouldn’t have read
it after all!

February 23, 2010 03:56:00
Reply

Guest

If you have a Flickr account, checkout this pretty cool app that brings all
your Flickr content to your facebook profile or fan pages automatically.

http://www.facebook.com/

February 23, 2010 04:14:00
Reply

Gudipudi

better late than never, finally this topic has been discussed over mashable
after it has been discussed over multiple websites

February 23, 2010 04:34:00
Reply

calebgalaraga

Hi, Ben. This is perfect. I’ll say that these applies to everyone,
including non-profits and related organizations who has a fan page.

February 23, 2010 04:41:00
Reply

http://thesocialmediaguide.com.au/

This post may also help –> Setup a Custom Landing Page for Your Facebook
Page http://thesocialmediaguide.com.au/2009/11/01/setup-custom-landing-page-facebook-page/

February 23, 2010 05:29:00
Reply

ghdfgdfg

Welcome to—————– http://www.9elife.com/ ———————————-

All kinds of world brand shoes,jeans,t-shirts,bikini,beach
pants,handbags,wallets,sunglasses,belt,caps,watches etc..Nike
shox(R4,NZ,OZ,TL1,TL2,TL3) $35,Sunglasses(Oakey,coach,gucci,Armaini)
$16,Sunglasses(Oakey,coach,gucci,Armaini) $16
New era cap $15

————— have some cheap things …———————

————— have some good gift …———————

————————— free shipping!

—————– http://www.9elife.com/ ———————————-

February 23, 2010 01:42:01
Reply

manny

basically, applied correctly this is FREE advertising, to promote your
business

February 23, 2010 06:52:00
Reply

Anonymous

This is good news for us.
http://www.fpolitics.com/

February 23, 2010 07:25:00
Reply

Blogging
Tips

Thanks for sharing this tips to create a facebook landing page

February 23, 2010 09:25:00
Reply

MMA
clothing

no way, this is fantastic!
Going to try this now

February 23, 2010 09:32:00
Reply

Anonymous

cool… great idea. I’ll try it for my web product

February 23, 2010 11:15:00
Reply

DawnTrenee

Thanks for the pointers. A welcome page is a great tool for your Facebook
Fan page.

February 23, 2010 15:22:00
Reply

Brosix

This is a great guide! I’ve been using FBML to create customized tabs for
clients for a while– it definitely customizes Facebook and makes it a better
experience for the user.

February 23, 2010 16:44:00
Reply

Werkadoo

We’ve found our FB page to be extremely useful in staying connected to our
fanbase & users. Great read!

February 23, 2010 16:59:00
Reply

Brad
Tidwell

I’m having trouble here- I can’t import or tags- is there a way to do this,
or is this just a limitation of facebook?

February 23, 2010 17:18:00
Reply

Brad Friedman

This is a very helpful post. Unfortunately, I’m someone with very limited
html knowledge. After a bit of work, I figured out how to ad the image I
wanted to ad to the tab. Now there is a box next to the image with a red X in
it that I can’t make go away. Additionally I want to make the image larger and
add text. Working on figuring out how to do that in html. Love the idea behind
the post and appreciate the knowledge. Thanks!

February 23, 2010 17:20:00
Reply

Anonymous

Im quite new to this but very interested. But heres an amateur question for
ya……Is this even applicable to my facebook profile page other than a ‘dan’
page??

February 23, 2010 17:34:00
Reply

Anonymous

Im very new to this but very keen on knowing more about this. SO heres an
amateur question for you.

Does this application even work on your personal facebook profile page or
is it only applicable to a facebook ‘fan’ page??

February 23, 2010 17:36:00
Reply

victoriagino

Apart from what Mark Zuckerberg said, I guess individual facebook users
should practice security measures on their own in order to avoid attacks and
other privacy issues. Hackers will always be around and it would be an
enormous undertaking for facebook to manage 350 million subscribers 24/7.

http://bit.ly/avoid-facebook-hacking

February 23, 2010 12:43:35
Reply

Anonymous

Tim! Thanks so much for the info, I’m passing it along to our developers
today!

February 23, 2010 17:52:00
Reply

Anonymous

Just set mine up, thanks for the tutorial!
http://facebook.com/justcreativedesign

February 23, 2010 18:44:00
Reply

Anonymous

Hi, am i being really stupid??? I want to create a welcome page as my
landing page and i have added the tab however I dont know how to create the
content with the images etc?? I tried to copy and paste but this didnt work.
please help!

K x

February 23, 2010 20:15:00
Reply

Eric

This is very helpful. I’ll be working on my Facebook fan page for my blog
tonight!

February 23, 2010 21:03:00
Reply

Amanda Marie

Thanks for this information. I did a preliminary page on my Facebook
fanpage using this application. Check it out: http://www.facebook.com/JoinAmandaMarie?v=app_4949752878 Much
appreciation!

February 24, 2010 02:35:00
Reply

Ashish
Kulkarni

Hello, very thank you for this information, i have went through many
articles but this was the most useful for me, i must admire and appreciate
your efforts and writting style with proper screenshots.

One more point, creatin our own FB application, how can we create our own
FB application which will show the latest updates from my website to users (i
am sure, users would like to have the updates)

If you have already writen article on this please let me know the link.

Thank you
Ashish

February 24, 2010 10:41:00
Reply

Anonymous

This looks very interesting. Our business is struggling with reasons for
having a facebook page and how to approach this whole new opportunity. We are
trying out various social media ideas, including keeping a blog. It’s exciting
and a good way to reach a very different audience.

http://graciouslivingdaybyday.com/

February 24, 2010 13:11:00
Reply

Anonymous

Great thanks for posting sometimes is good to look around I a Fb page but
is ard kiping up wiht all lol

February 24, 2010 18:06:00
Reply

DawnSTephens

does it let you add a video from youtube? I can do that on my web page but
not on this. I pasted the embedded code and it didn’t work.

February 25, 2010 02:06:00
Reply

brianvandeputte

When I clicked the link in Step 1, I clicked “Add to my Page’s Favorites”,
I don’t remember seeing a “Add to Page”

Regardless, when I checked back to the Static FBML fan page, the only link
it had was “Remove from my Fan Pages” under their profile picture.

I searched under my applications, and I found it at the bottom under “More
Applications” I clicked the Static FBML and it just takes me back to their fan
page. There isn’t an “Applications Settings” link.

Is there something I’m doing wrong? Could someone help me on this
issue?

Thanks in advance!

February 25, 2010 17:06:00
Reply

SEO Training

Where has the tweet this button gone!!! I don’t like buzz there are just
too many words

Heather

February 25, 2010 17:07:00
Reply

Anonymous

Wow this is what i waiting for Thank for great help

February 26, 2010 03:40:00
Reply

Mandy
Maldonado

Thanks for a great article. I have added a few fan pages before, so these
little tips will make it helpful for the future when I create more. I had no
idea that there was so much you can do with a fan page. I will definately add
a post to this on my website http://www.freesiteinfo.info/ Free Information For All, All
in One Place

March 1, 2010 16:06:00
Reply

Tim
Ware

Great and informative post. We’ve noticed that the market for developing
business fan pages has really exploded. My posted tutorial on Static FBML is getting lots of traffic and user
interaction. In fact, being a Web development company, we’re seeing almost all
the action focused on our
own Business Page and on our Blog. Our main website has become the poor
stepchild! Very exciting….

March 1, 2010 19:14:00
Reply

Tim
Ware

Great and informative post. We’ve noticed that the market for developing
business fan pages has really exploded. My posted tutorial on Static FBML is getting lots of traffic and user
interaction. In fact, being a Web development company, we’re seeing almost all
the action focused on our
own Business Page and on our Blog. Our main website has become the poor
stepchild! Very exciting….

March 1, 2010 19:17:00
Reply

Anonymous

How come it wont let me default to the welcome page I created. I followed
the exact steps as shown above?

March 2, 2010 21:45:00
Reply

web_design_seo

To get a great custom design for your FB fan pages, the easiest way is to
make one graphic. If you are looking for help with this, we are available. http://www.flightpathmultimedia.com/internet-marketing.html

March 3, 2010 07:27:00
Reply

SteveOramA

Thanks for this post! I have just implemented the application on my
Facebook artist fan page as seen here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/SteveOramA/326248815191?v=app_4949752878#!/pages/SteveOramA/326248815191?v=app_4949752878

March 3, 2010 23:24:00
Reply

Anonymous

Thanks for this info. Can anyone help with adding a YouTube tab after I’ve
loaded the FBML? I’ve seen this YouTube tab on many Pages and it looks great.
We’re constantly uploading to YouTube and if it could feed into Facebook,
that’d be great! Please, anyone help me out!! :)

March 4, 2010 16:47:00
Reply

Anonymous

The new tab created no longer shows up in the Default Landing Tab for
Everyone Else Menu or at least not for me…

March 5, 2010 14:59:00
Reply

Jason
Wheeler

Love this article. It makes it so simple. Nice step by step
directions!

March 12, 2010 06:11:00
Reply

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