Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Top 16 Characteristics of Effective Facebook Brand Pages



Facebook holds near-limitless potential for marketing. In particular, Facebook offers businesses some of the best branding opportunities around. Companies can get innovative with their approach to branding on the Facebook platform, and often with relatively little effort.

Yet, many Facebook brand pages come out short. They’re visually weak, they don’t take advantage of all of the various tools in the Facebook toolbox, or they just aren’t being used to engage customers.

If you want to have an effective Facebook brand strategy, you need to concentrate on building a useful and high-quality brand page. Here are the top 16 examples of characteristics your page needs to have if it’s going to be effective in your branding efforts:

Competitions. Consider adding a competition or contest of some sort to your page that your fans can enter.
Commerce. You can use F-commerce to allow your Facebook visitors to actually browse through different categories of your products and make online purchases, as well as sharing the content of those pages with others.
A large call to action. Many of the most effective Facebook pages ask for an immediate response of some sort. A large button that asks users to subscribe to a newsletter or visit a website is an example of this.
Offer discounts. Giving out discounts to your Facebook fans is a great way to not only get them to revisit your page on a regular basis but to get them to share your page regularly with others, as well.
5. Many images and videos. Sometimes, the best thing that you can do to draw attention to your Facebook page is to feature content-heavy pages, with lots of videos and images to draw the visitor in and keep her looking around the page.
6. Reflect your products. Having a Facebook landing page that highlights your most popular products creates a sense of familiarity for the visitor who is an existing customer, and can be a lead-in for potential customers.
Games. Consider adding games and other user-focused features in order to get people to return to your page again and again.
Starting an app. One of the possible calls to action that you can use on your Facebook page is for the user to start an app, in addition to liking the page.
Keep it simple. Offering visitors to your Facebook page a concise number of options can help to streamline the process and to direct them in the way you want them to proceed.

10. Showcase product development. Consider showing your Facebook readers how your product is made, or what you’re doing in terms of research and development. This is particularly effective with iconic products that consumers will be curious about.

11. Consider breaking out into product line based pages. If you have a wide product line, consider starting Facebook pages for each line. Then, your primary Facebook page can be used to direct your readers to the specific product line that they’re interested in (and most likely to buy).

12. Advertise affiliations. You might decide that your Facebook page is a great place to tout your environmental initiatives, or you may want to showcase professional credentials and affiliations.

13. Promote new products. You can use Facebook to showcase a new product. This is particularly effective when you make your Facebook page the only source of product information online, as it will help to drive new followers to your page and increase your Likes.

14. Be socially active. Use your Facebook page to get involved in ending world hunger, or to help promote certain charities. You increase your business’ social standing and credibility by doing so, and you provide customers with a sense of warmth and community spirit.

15. Choose a dynamic creative. Having one single video or image for your Facebook page that’s especially compelling can be a great way to promote the page and get plenty of shares, as well.

16. Offer compelling content. Instead of simply offering product information, consider status updates that give real value to the conversation. For example, if you have a plumbing business, describe the best way to clear a kitchen drain without having to call the plumber.

Creating an effective Facebook brand page is as much an art as it is a science. Take a look at some of the most popular pages, and see what they’re doing. Try some of the above techniques on your own page, and then measure the results. See what’s working for you, and do more of it.

Store this valentine's day on facebook

What’s in Store This Valentine’s Day on Facebook?

Facebook is going on a date with Angry Birds: meaning, the game is available to play on the Facebook platform starting Valentine’s Day. Just what is so romantic about Angry Birds? The purpose is its timing: Valentine’s Day has more traffic than usual on social websites. Then again, the game is perhaps a consolation prize for those with the ‘single and looking’ status, to have chosen the ‘most popular game in internet history’, for the most popular social website. The Facebook version allows leadership support gaming on a full screen and contains improved graphics.

Love, like, adore?

This is just the beginning of an eventful day. Other brains are in full swing at how they can go all out and be different. At least, they have succeeded in attracting the attention of the digital world, if not their soul mate! Of these is Aky, who has proposed to Facebook by suggesting they add a ‘love’ button in addition to ‘like.’ That can lead to confusion. Imagine when the boss asks for your opinion on his not so likable update, and you have no choice but to ‘love’ it. Or, as human feelings go, the varying degrees that can change from, love, to like to hate with such speed, that the platform will not be able to keep pace. Limited choices serve well, so let Facebook stick to theirs.

Cupid’s fork, not arrow

This new weapon is another Facebook Apps that calls for romantic violence. The Melting Pot Restaurants, Inc. is for ‘Lovers and lovers of fondue. ’ Users are required to throw their ‘Cupid’s Fondue Fork’ at the object of their desire and win gift vouchers. The marketing representative of the company explained: “We’re taking romance a step further this Valentine’s Day by sharing the love on Facebook through our Cupid’s Fondue Forks Facebook Application that gives fondue fans a chance to win dinner for two at The Melting Pot with their special someone.” If only love could be expressed in real life in the same manner…

However, the traditional cards and gifts are always a safer bet. Easyhi allows templates, a photo or video upload, or the Timeline theme to be embedded and personalized on an electronic card and sent directly or shared via Facebook and other social websites. The Mural offers various gifts such as chocolate-covered strawberries, flowers, diamond jewelry and other romantic virtual gifts purchased through Facebook Credits and offered to the loved one as a plaque.

Facebook for Websites

Getting Started › Facebook for Websites

Facebook Platform enables you to make your website more social. You can use our Social Plugins, such as the Like Button to drive user engagement with a single line of HTML. Our Login Button and Registration Plugin let you simplify or eliminate your own user registration and sign-in. Lastly, the Graph API lets you access the full social graph of a given user, allowing you to create a truly deep personal experience.

This guide will walk you through the basics of creating a web app that leverages these features. The examples in this guide use PHP for server-side programming and HTML/JavaScript for client-side code. These examples are very straightforward and easily translatable to other languages.

            My Great Web page                          
There are a number of options for the Like Button, including the option to include the names and profile pictures of the user's friends who have also liked the page. Here is a Like Button for the Facebook Developers site:

Once you have included the Like Button into your site, you can use other Social Plugins to turn those user interactions into more engaging experiences throughout your site. You can use the Activity Feed Plugin to show users a stream of the recent likes and comments from their friends on your site. You can use the Recommendations Plugin to show personalized page recommendations to your users based on the likes and comments across your entire site. Here are the activity and recommendations plugins for the Facebook Developers site:


Getting Started
Websites
Apps on Facebook
Mobile
Samples & How-Tos
Videos
Core Concepts
Advanced Topics
SDKs & Tools

Facebook for Websites
Getting Started › Facebook for Websites

Facebook Platform enables you to make your website more social. You can use our Social Plugins, such as the Like Button to drive user engagement with a single line of HTML. Our Login Button and Registration Plugin let you simplify or eliminate your own user registration and sign-in. Lastly, the Graph API lets you access the full social graph of a given user, allowing you to create a truly deep personal experience.

This guide will walk you through the basics of creating a web app that leverages these features. The examples in this guide use PHP for server-side programming and HTML/JavaScript for client-side code. These examples are very straightforward and easily translatable to other languages.

In this document:

Social Plugins
Authentication
Personalization
Analytics

Social Plugins

Social Plugins are the easiest way to get started with Facebook Platform. The plugins are embeddable social features that can be integrated in your site with a line of HTML. Because they are hosted by Facebook, the plugins are personalized for all users who are currently logged into Facebook, even if they are visiting your site for the first time.

The most important Social Plugin is the Like Button, which enables users to share your page with their friends with one click. You can add a Like button to any page with an iframe tag:



My Great Web page






There are a number of options for the Like Button, including the option to include the names and profile pictures of the user's friends who have also liked the page. Here is a Like Button for the Facebook Developers site:

Once you have included the Like Button into your site, you can use other Social Plugins to turn those user interactions into more engaging experiences throughout your site. You can use the Activity Feed Plugin to show users a stream of the recent likes and comments from their friends on your site. You can use the Recommendations Plugin to show personalized page recommendations to your users based on the likes and comments across your entire site. Here are the activity and recommendations plugins for the Facebook Developers site:


Most Social Plugins can be integrated with your site by simply including the iframe tag for the plugin within your page. There are several Social Plugins, such as Comments and Live Stream, that require the use of XFBML (eXtended Facebook Markup Language). XFBML is a set of XML elements that can be included in your HTML pages to display Social Plugins. When your page is loaded, any XFBML elements found in the document are processed by the JavaScript SDK, resulting in the appropriate plugin being rendered on your page.

We provide XFBML elements for all of our Social Plugins. For example, the Like Button can also be placed on your page by using the XFBML equivalent:



My Great Web page








The iframe versions of our plugins are the most widely used, as they require a minimal understanding of Facebook Platform. The XFBML versions are typically used by more sophisticated developers looking for more control and consistency in their codebase.

Getting started could not be simpler. Just select the plugin from our Social Plugin page and follow the steps in the provided configurator. These configurators, like the below, help you setup your plugin and generate all the code you need to add it to your site.

.

Like Config


Authentication

Facebook helps you simplify and enhance user registration and sign-in by using Facebook as your login system. Users no longer need to fill in yet another registration form or remember another username and password to use your site. As long as the user is signed into Facebook, they are automatically signed into your site as well. Using Facebook for login provides you with all the information you need to create a social, personalized experience from the moment the user visits your site in their browser.

Facebook Platform uses OAuth 2.0 for authentication and authorization. While you can add login to your site using OAuth 2.0 directly (see ourAuthentication Overview), the open source JavaScript SDK is the simplest way to use Facebook for login.

The JavaScript SDK requires that you Register Your Website with Facebook to get an App ID (or appId). The appId is a unique identifier for your site that ensures that we have the right level of security in place between the user and your website. The following example shows how to load the JavaScript SDK once you have your appId:

             My Facebook Login Page                 

Once you have loaded the JavaScript SDK into your page and initialized it with your appId, you simply add theLogin Button to your page using the

Friday, December 23, 2011

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