5 Ways to Better Leverage Your Facebook Fan Page

5 Ways to Better Leverage Your Facebook Fan Page

Let’s talk about your Facebook page design.  No, Facebook doesn’t give you complete freedom to customize – but there are some key opportunities and ideas you can tap into to make your page more strongly branded and a more powerful platform to communicate your message and engage your audience.

Facebook pages have improved over time

Facebook business pages today vs. the Facebook pages of a couple of years ago are really quite different.  In the past, there was really only the “profile picture” (in many cases just a company logo), and tabs where customization could take place.

But today’s Facebook gives about two-thirds of your business’ page real estate over to you:

You can strive for “The Perfect Facebook Business Page” – Focus on these 5 key visual elements

Yes, we will bet there are some ways you can strengthen your Facebook business page.  Look at your page – does it have an integrated look and feel, and is it integrated with your other marketing elements?  Is your page clean and uncluttered?

To fully brand your Facebook page, here are the places you should focus some graphic and visual attention:

• Profile Picture logo
• Photostrip
• Welcome/landing page
• Custom tabs/navigation
• Your page’s likes/favorites

The Profile Picture

Let’s start with your page’s profile picture – this is the image at the top left corner of your page. This functions as your “logo” and as your primary branding element.

The current maximum size allowed for the Profile Picture is 180w x 540h pixels. In most cases, it is best to use the full width, and how tall you make the Profile Picture depends on what you want it to convey.

Here are some examples:

The Photostrip

You know those 5 photos or images that run horizontally across the top of your Facebook page?  These are known as the photostrip, and are a nice component of your page’s branding.

Keep in mind that while you cannot control the order of these 5 images, you can control which 5 images will make up your photostrip.  The randomness is kind of cool, and still allows you to create some compelling visual branding.

To use these images in the best way you can, make sure they are not dependent on the order in which they’re displayed, and also ensure they:

• compliment your page’s profile picture
• work together as a set of 5 images and complement each other
• communicate information about your brand

Here is how we at jamgd use our photostrip:

The Welcome/Landing Page

Another great branding element – and one that helps to communicate the value of your brand and gets to the heart as to why a person should like your business on Facebook and engage with you there – is the “welcome” or landing page.

This is a great way to let people, who have found your page on Facebook but have not yet “liked” you, know:

•  What it is you will be discussing on your wall; what types of info and topics you will talk about
• What types of contests or other fun elements will be a part of the Facebook discussion
• The call to action – the ask for the visitor to “like” your page (should be loud and clear on this page!)
• Basically, why someone should care about your brand and keep in touch via Facebook.

This welcome page is shown only to your non-fans – once a person is a fan, he or she will automatically go to your wall as that is where the conversations are taking place.  But the welcome page is a great way to help you communicate and encourage visitors to “Like” your page, and build up your base fans (if done well!).

Here is an example of a well-done welcome/landing page:

Custom Tabs/Navigation

Over time, Facebook has moved the tab/navigation menu from the top of the page to the left column, right below the profile picture.  Many marketers have found this to be a great improvement in the general structure of the Facebook page.

There are some great features of these navigation tabs:

• You can customize the names of the tabs and pick what works best for your brand
• You can create an icon for each tab to better brand your page, and you can use an icon like the YouTube or Twitter logo if you have those navigation choices

But…..choose the navigation of your page wisely, and order your navigation tabs by order of importance.  Depending on the size of your Facebook profile picture, your navigation might be “below the fold” for the website visitor (i.e. be aware a visitor might have to scroll down the website page to see all the navigation choices, or some of them might be hidden, depending on the height of your profile picture).

This is an example of a custom navigation structure on a Facebook, with branded navigation tabs:

Have you noticed how your page’s favorite (other!) pages appear in the left column just below your Fan Count? Yes, these are important elements of your brand, as these are pages that should compliment and reflect the values and essence of your brand. 

Select these pages with some thought, as they appear in the left column of your Facebook page for all to see.  People will naturally associate these pages with your brand, either directly or indirectly.  You can select more than 5 page favorites, but can choose the 5 to appear on your main page.

[We are happy to walk you through how to do this – just let us know if you need some help!]

So what are the takeaways?

Take advantage of all the parts of Facebook where you can custom your page.  Use your creativity, and ensure that your brand is reflected in the 5 key areas we have discussed.  Remember that each piece fits together to tell the larger story of your brand – and it all boils down to the value you provide.

And if you want to ask questions, or get some additional input into how to better brand your Facebook page, we’d love to offer our insight.