Use facebook tagging to promote your blog
On one of my missions to promote the
Folksy blog and
facebook page I realised that people weren't using the @ symbol enough to promote their online shops with facebook. I posted about it in the Folksy forums but I thought I'd share it here too as it can equally be used for promoting blog posts aswell! If you're already wondering what I'm talking about do read on, this is such a simple tool for spreading the word about your online shops and also your blog!
The update you can see from 'Hilary Haptree' was written on my profile page but by adding an @ tag I was able to post it directly to craft blog uk's facebook fan page wall. Click the image if you want to see it more closely - you will also see a little tag symbol which shows readers you have used a facebook tag to post on this wall.
This is so useful for sharing your blogs and online shops - there are so many places on facebook that welcome links that are relevant to their page.
How to Tag on facebook!
All you do is type the @symbol and wait for a box to appear, type the first few letters of the page you want to tag and then click on it. You now have a hypertext link to the page as well as having automatically posted to the wall of that page, profile or even event. So with one symbol you have reached potentially hundreds of new people!
Try to remember to use the @craftbloguk tag when posting your blog links on facebook, so they automatically zap onto the CBuk facebook wall - I'd love the visitors to CBuk to see all of your brand new blog posts! All updates posted on the CBuk wall are also seen by my blog visitors as I have a large facebook stream below my posts.
If you have found this post useful please share it! Click the twitter bird to send out a tweet now!
Extra pages or welcome pages are a great way of adding more interest to your facebook fan page - it's really simple to do and you can use it to bring more visitors to your blog or online shop.
I'm going to take you through the pages I have added to my
Craft Blog UK fan page and then after that I'll show you how easily you can add your own, step by step!
Welcome Page
This is my 'landing' page - you can change your landing page in 'wall settings'. - just click 'edit page' right beneath the profile picture to find it.
A landing page should tell the viewer everything they need to know very quickly - masses of text is a turn off to most facebook users. Think about what a visitor will want to know when they visit - "what is this site about?" and "where do I click?". Ideally you want the visitor to become a fan before clicking away, you need to give them a great looking landing page full of interest to encourage them to explore and ultimately 'like' your page.
(There was talk of the option of having a landing page for businesses under 10K fans being removed - read this article it appears facebook have changed their mind after an uproar from small businesses)Next I added a page from my blog - for me this was my ''blogging tips' page. Not only will all of the links take readers directly to my blog, but they should feel pleased to have discovered this mine of information and hopefully remember to 'like' my page. Obviously not everyone has tutorials on there craft blog, you could create a page with your top 10 blog posts, a gallery page or a more in depth about me page.
Contact Finally I added a 'contact' page. I have called mine 'your blog' purely becuase the purpose of my facebook page is to encourage bloggers to submit their blogs in order for me to build up this site. But you may want to call it 'contact' or 'get in touch'. You can add your twitter, email address and any other ways that a reader may want to interact with you.
How to add pages to your facebook fan page:
- First you will need to visit the Static FBML application page and click 'add to my page' and follow the instructions they give. You can add pages as boxes or tabs.
"Add advanced functionality to your Page using the Facebook Static FBML application. This application will add a box to your Page in which you can render HTML or FBML (Facebook Markup Language) for enhanced Page customisation."- To actually edit the pages you need to click 'Edit my page' found just beneath your pages profile image. Then scan down the list until you find all of the applications - the new static fbml will be located in there. Open it up by clicking on 'Edit'
- You will see a box at the top where you can change the name of the page and a large blank space to add your code and at the bottom the options for adding more boxes.
- You're probably thinking that's great but I don't know how to write in code! You may not but your blog does. Open up a new post in your blog and write a simple page, click on 'Edit html' and then copy and paste the code into the facebook page.
- Blogger uses slightly different code to facebook pages which are in 'fbml' not 'html' so you may find it's not exactly the same. But for basic text and images it works well. Let me know if you have problems and I'll see if I can help you sort it out.
- Once you have saved your new page you need to add it as a tab - head to your page and click on the plus symbol to add a new tab. When you have clicked on the new page (which should be there now) you can position the tabs by dragging them. Only 5 or so will show up - you can use the arrow keys tab to find the rest which can also be dragged into your required position. Wall and Info tabs are fixed in position.
I hope this post has been useful - if I find any updates, for example FBML 'wysiwyg' editors I'll add an update! (tell me if you find one first!!!) I'd love to know if you have had success with adding pages to your facebook fan page - I think it's a great way of connecting your page with your blog or online craft business!
Don't forget to become a
fan of my page if you have enjoyed my tutorial!
