While a personal profile can only get so much attention, a Facebook Fanpage allows you to expand your reach and your profile’s capabilities. While a business profile is ok, a fanpage for your company, business, service or product is the best approach on Facebook since a fanpage has significantly more options and is more flexible than a simple profile.

For this tutorial we’ll assume that you have a freelance service (and a product) which you want to advertise on Facebook. We won’t cover Facebook ads here, only the design and structure of a fanpage which will get people interested in your product and services.

If you already have a Fanpage, you can probably skip this first step.

1) Properly Naming Your Fanpage

Proper naming is important as it’s what attracts fans in the first place. It should be highly descriptive of what your fanpage is about. It doesn’t have to be witty, snarky nor down right silly, though it can be IF that is the point of your fanpage. Since in this example we are working on a business service and product fanpage, we need the title to be descriptive of what our business is about.

Let’s say that our example business is a freelance graphic designer. So you’ll probably want your name in there (or nick-name) since it’ll help identify you. If you happen to have a catchy unique nick-name that’s also a plus. For example if you nick-name is Chykalophia, a good choice for a fanpage name could be: Chykalophia Graphic Design

Here are some top tips when picking a name:

• If you’re a local business or service, include your area/town name. For example: If you own a car body shop in the Glenview, IL try a name like: Bob’s Car Body & Repair Shop In Glenview, IL.
• Use your name, or nickname, in the title to differentiate yourself. This will also help you build a name for yourself and get your name out … literally.
• Include what your business or service does. From the graphic design example, the fan page is clearly about graphic design and nothing else.
• Length of the name doesn’t matter. Long or short are good both. Though longer might actually be better since you can put more keywords into it.
• Put your primary business keywords (for seo) into the name … or the keywords you want to rank for.

2) Include A Larger Fanpage Profile Picture

Did you know you can easily have a portrait sized profile picture? You can! It can be at most 200px wide and 600px high! Since there is that much real-estate available, why not use it to grab attention? Do you need to use all of it? No. It depends on your design, logo and what you want to do with it.

The Chykalophia Graphic Design fanpage used the 200px wide space, but not all the 600px height because everything was able to fit into a smaller size.  There is also a small downsize of a taller profile picture, it pushes down all other boxes and information in the left column. So if you have some contact info in those boxes, they will go below the fold. Sometimes it’s not what you want, so make sure you know your large vs small benefits.

You can style these 200×600px picture any way you like. Though for maximum impact here some some top tips:

• Create a profile photo which is ‘catchy’. Catchy is very relative to your niche.
• Use a stock image, or clipart, related to your service. IE: Graphic design: make a pretty design. Automotive: use a picture of a car … ect
• Be sure your image is 200px wide exactly. No LESS and no more. It it’s less there is a good chance Facebook will automatically resize your graphic and it will look bad and distorted.
• Add your Name and business name/service into the graphic so it’s easy to see.
• Try to include contact info (not pictured in the sample).
• If your using the fanpage to drive traffic to your website, include the web address in the graphic.
• Create a ‘bottom’ of the logo which stands out and it different. Maybe something like in the example picture. Why? This added effect can help draw in attention and fans! Because in facebook people do “judge a book by it’s cover”.

3) Add The Static FBML App

Static FBML is the defacto standard when it comes to creating custom tabs (with html) for your fanpages. What the Static-FBML application offers is a very simple way for you to add (almost) any HTML/CSS code you would want and stick it into a tab on your fanpage.

Better yet, is that you can make that tab the default landing page for new visitors and non-fans!

4) Create an opt-in landing page Or a ‘Next Step’ page

Now that you have added Static FBML to your page it’s time to customize it.

One great way is to add a opt-in page. This is a page which asks (or tells) people to opt-in! This isn’t a course on opt-in pages, so I’ll only go over this briefly. There are several important elements:

• Header
• Message <<== very important
• Opt-in gift/bonus/bribe (optional but recommended)
• Opt-in Box (you can setup an auto-responder from many companies on the internet)
• No-spam guarantee footer message

You use the header to get your readers attention. This could be a header image, like a banner, or just some text that speaks out to the reader. Your message is crucial as this gives them a reason why they should sign up and what they’ll get once they do. The opt-in gift is just a nice little incentive for them to do so!

You of course need your input opt-in box which is where the reader will enter their name and e-mail address. Right below that should be your no-spam guarantee as it’s a proven fact that ‘that’ single line can improve the conversion rate.

The other type of quality landing page is a informative page. Or a ‘next step’ page. This type informs the viewer of something important going on with your product or service. It could also be, and is also largely used, as a ‘featured article’ area.

On Chykalophia Graphic Design Fanpage the landing page is a ‘next step’ page which encourages the viewer to go to the main website. Here the fanpage is used and a traffic source and is part of the sales funnel which ultimately leads to the main contact/sales page.

This is also a good place to showcase your current and best quality work.

Be sure to also give you tab an appropriate title. Such as “Weclome!”

5) Enable The New Tab As The Landing Page For Non-Fans

Open the main page of the fanpage. Click on Edit Page. Then click on Edit Wall Settings. Change the Default Landing Page For Everyone Else to be the name of your new awesome tab.

6) Add Your Contact Info And/Or Links Everywhere You Can

On the left side bar you have a ‘note’ box, you can use it to include links and contact info. There is also a ‘Information’ box on Fanpages, so use that specifically for contact details like work phone number, main website and contact e-mail.

Be sure to also fill in all the relevant information in the default ‘Info’ tab. Many people will go there first to find where to contact you.

Last but not least: CONTENT & Interaction!

7) Interacting With Fans And Providing QUALITY Content

One of the reasons people use Facebook is for interactions. Thus use your fanpage NOT just to post your stuff, but talk to your fans. Encourage interactive in many ways, such as:

• Hold small contests.
• ASK for comments
• Contact people directly and ask for input and responses. It’s also probably a good idea to give them some special deal, discount or bonus for doing so.
• Things that get people thinking.

Though it may not seem like it, but people respect quality information. Thus after a little while you’ll see people joining your fanpage because they find it useless and great.

But how to get people to say ‘yes’ on your site?

The first step is this:

• You need to answer their question or need and solve their problem.

If you are a graphic designer, you need to interact with people and show them that YES! You can create awesome designs for them which work and make money for them.

While posting content on the wall is a great way to get people to connect with you, they won’t convert unless several factors are fulfilled:

• You solve a problem for them.
• They know you can solve it for them.
• They know you will do it for the ‘right price’.
• They don’t feel as if they are being sold on anything.

You cannot go around screaming “Buy my product.” It is an advertising fact the people do not like to be “sold.” For online business ventures such as fanpages, the best way is to show them your quality work.

Here are some top tips to get people to say YES on your fanpage:

• Post testimonials.
• Post past work, ie: have a portfolio.
• Have a sales letter and/or a opt-in page so you can get them on your newsletter and mail them about “special deals”.
• Post content regularly to your fanpage. This means AT LEAST once or twice a week of articles and posts. And even more frequently just ‘talk’.
• Be informative

If you do run out of content ideas or are really swamped by other things, you can set a slow drip feed through RSS feeds that will post content regularly for you to your fanpage wall.

This should be a great starting point for your new fanpage. Those tips and a bit of creativity can make a successful fanpage in no time!