How to build and promote a/via a Facebook Fan Page

Why do people use facebook – and why we have to?Here is the Facebook statistics -
a. More than 500 million active users.
b. People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook.
c. Average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events .
d. There are more than 150 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.
So, if you are not focusing your marketing efforts towards Facebook, you need to start doing it right now.

Build a Facebook Fan Page
Here are a few steps for how to kickstart your company Facebook presence.
1. Create a Fan Page by clicking on “Pages >Create a page” in your home page.
2. Once you create a fan page with your website details – post your blog posts/ articles in the “Wall”.
3. Create a “Notes” tab and publish your Featured content/articles in this section.
4. Using FBML (Facebook Markup Language) you can create custom widgets for your fan pages. Now, using the FBML create a new “subscribe” widget where you can display your squeeze page.

Add Subscribe widget with FBML application
Here are the steps involved to set up a FBML application.
1. At the top of the Facebook page, search for ‘Static FBML’ in the search box and go to the application page.
2. Below the FBML picture on the left, click on the link that says ‘Add to my Page’; once you’ve clicked it a box will come up. Next to your page click the button ‘Add to Page’.
3. Go to your page.
4. On the left below your page picture click ‘Edit Page’.
5. Scroll down until you see ‘FBML – FBML’, click the link ‘Edit’ beneath that. Change the Box Title to something like ‘Subscribe’.
6. Use the below code to include your squeeze page.
<fb:fbml version="1.1">
<font size="5">Subscribe to my newsletter!</font>
Your squeeze page code here
</fb:fbml>
7. Click ‘Save Changes’ then go back to your page and click the ‘+’ button next to the ‘Boxes’ tab. And select the name of your FBML in the drop down menu.
8. Now click ‘Edit Page’, click ‘Edit’ under ‘Wall Settings’ and beside ‘Default Landing Tab For Everyone Else’ change it from Wall to the Name of your FBML tab.
You’re done! Now, everyone who visits your page sees your squeeze page in your “subscribe” tab.

Market it:
1. Facebook Ads - To get started quickly, you can go for Facebook ads. You can start with a budget of $5 per day, test the ads for 10 days, analyze the traffic and make changes accordingly.
2. Contest – Encourage people to visit your page and subscribe to it by conducting a contest. Giveaway gifts like ipods, ipads and Amazon gift cards.
3. Create blog posts – about your Fanpage and the Contests. Create a Press Release - to announce your new Fanpage, your contest, or promotional event. A well “SEO” done Press Release can hit Page One of Google!
4. Classified Ads - You can simply put up ads on Craiglist and get a FREE classified ad back to your fanpage.
Finally, keep your Fan page filled with good content, engage and educate your fans and have some fun!

 

Content is key to promoting Facebook pages.....if your content engages the users and gets them to interact you will be in the money!