Creating An Optimized Facebook Fan Page Strategy

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Creating An Optimized Facebook Fan Page Strategy

By Lisa Braziel
Expert Author
Article Date: 2010-04-23

Last week I talked about how important a content strategy is for your fan page. This week I'm going to take that one step further by taking a look at your current tab structure, and how to best optimize and organize the tabs that exist on your Facebook fan page.

In this stage of your Facebook strategy development you should already have your content strategy and value proposition together, and these two should also drive the rationale for what tabs are created and how fans are going to interact with them.

Even though the Wall and Info tabs are mandatory, there are 4 visible tabs to utilize and, these should be utilized to provide additional value and areas of engagement. Let's take a look at how to make sure that your Facebook fan page tabs don't end up being glorified microsites:

Step 2: Develop the Tab Structure

In order to develop Facebook tabs that are on strategy, you should start by outlining the types of content that you'd like fans to interact with and how these may work with the major goals you'd like to achieve within a tab. These groupings will begin to bubble up the potential tabs you may wish to create. Within this step you should consider the following questions:

What are your overall objectives for your Facebook presence?

What is your primary objective for each tab?

How will you measure success?

How often will you be able to refresh these tabs?

How can you balance the value proposition of the page with your objectives?

What tab will you send non-fans to?

What utility could these tabs provide fans?

The fan page for Threadless is an excellent example of a brand that has balanced its objectives to sell product with its understanding that engagement is just as crucial. Knowing that their customers always want to see and provide feedback around the latest t-shirt designs, they have built a fun and engaging Facebook tab that showcases the new shirts and allows fans to purchase and comment on shirts from within a tab on their fan page.

As you can see from the screenshot above, this tab not only encourages non-fans to become fans, but it provides a reason for current fans to come back and regularly engage with a consistent tab on the Facebook page. Allowing fans to also comment on the shirts helps fans feel engaged with the products without feeling like the tab is only concerned with selling.

Also, this is the best time to start thinking of where you want to send new audiences to your page and how you will convert those audiences once they land there. You can see RedBull sends its non fans to a special landing tab with a large "Become a Fan" call to action (which is now slightly awkward due to the Facebook "Like" transition). This said, even though the call to action is strong, the exclusive content for fans is pushed down at the very bottom of the tab. As a non-fan I was left considering whether or not downloads were worth joining the page.

Another example of a company utilizing a fan landing tab to convert fans is Walgreens. By "Liking" or "Becoming a Fan," fans will receive access to a recent offer, and if one doesn't exist, fans are prompted to share an offer on the wall.

These are just a few examples of how brands are utilizing the real estate on their tabs to provide additional value to fans, convert visitors to join the page, and accomplish business objectives. Do you know of other brands that are optimizing their tabs well? Those that are optimizing them poorly? Please share in the comments below, I'd love to check them out.

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About the Author:
As a Social Media Strategist for Ignite Social Media, Lisa Braziel outlines social media tactics and develops social media campaigns to help companies reach customers and build brand advocates. Her expertise in project management and marketing additionally guides the execution of these campaigns.

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