Chelsea Hejny is a social media writer at ShortStack, a tab-designing tool that creates custom Facebook Pages. Hejny also works as a president of the American Marketing Association in Nevada.
Great Facebook Pages are easy to spot; however, the reasons for their greatness might not be so obvious. Visually appealing and well-designed tabs are good, but there are five traits that make a Facebook tab great.
- Purpose. With every Facebook tab, there needs to be an easily understood purpose of its existence. For example, a page’s landing tab, sometimes know as the welcome tab, should clearly and briefly introduce Facebook users to your brand. For created tabs that serve as host to a contest, a promotion, a subscription form or other content, make certain their purpose is real and measurable. Creating a Facebook-only promo code or listing a unique telephone number on your tab are two methods of tracking its metrics.
- Viewpoint. Great tabs make a statement. Tab elements that support a worthy statement usually include nice graphics, meaningful text and components such as video, a Twitter stream or even SoundCloud. Integrating features into your Facebook tabs not only allows for a statement to be made but also creates allure and can complement the intended purpose for a specific tab.
- Branding. Whether it be incorporating brand colors or integrating your business’ overarching message, great tabs always support their brand. Incorporating business logos, using consistent text styles and choosing graphics that support the brand imagery of your business are ways to ensure your custom-created tab stands out to Facebook users.
- Incentives. What most separates a good tab from a great tab is its “like” ratio: the number of tab views to the number of “likes” a page receives. The best Facebook tabs capture users’ interest and often allude to special offerings. “Fan-gating,” which gives page administrators the ability to create content that is viewable only to users who have “liked” their page, does exactly that.
- Timeliness. It’s often overlooked or forgotten that Facebook tabs can and do expire. Out-of-date content, seasonable graphics and limited-time promotion codes expire a tab. To avoid making a great Facebook tab a poor one, stay aware of the time sensitivity of the tab’s content and, when needed, update or delete the tab.
Not every Facebook tab embodies all of these five traits, but all of the great ones do. When creating a Facebook tab for your business’ page, keep in mind more than design. As much as aesthetics play a large role in whether a tab is great, the thought, meaning behind a design and content can prove more important.
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[...] Read this article: 5 traits of a great custom-built Facebook tab [...]
Really great recommendations. I would also add a little one: "don't use too much tabs". Due we have to track all users destinations, I think it's great to know if our tabs are working or not. If we use too much tabs, the message or different messages are fighting for attention.
thanks Chelsea!
cheeers,
@RolandoPeralta
@Rolando I agree with you completely. Great additional recommendation.
My recent post The Breakdown of Google’s 2011 Revenues [Infographic]
This is really helpful to me, as I'm currently working on a Facebook brand page, and it's true – that it's not always easy to immediately identify what makes a page great, but it's a combination of a number of factors.
@ericastacey I'm glad you found this article useful. Best of luck with designing your brand page!
Outstanding!
Sadly to say, I never understood to do great facebook pages. Your list about what to focus on is very helpful. I always have one or two tabs and I will not do more as I don't think too many people would use them. Of course this depends on the company, if it is a big one of general interest or not.
Can you provide Facebook pages that we can look at as examples – good and not so good?
Great info Chelsea – I am just getting our FB fan page up and running and your 5 traits are helping me to clearly define what is going to work best for us.
[...] 5 traits of a great custom-built Facebook tab [...]
I have a facebook page for our business but I think people are having a hard time finding us. I tried to put the URL on my Linkedin profile and it brought you to a page with my personal name on (http://facebook.com/MJConstruction). It should take you to our company: M & J Construction of Moorhead, Inc. facebook page. Why is this and does anyone know how I can correct this? Please Help!!
Can you recommend a free site that helps with the landing page?
[...] for a tacky clip art tab. It needs to be done well or not done at all. SmartBlogs breaks down a great Facebook tab into five key components: purpose, viewpoint, branding, incentives, and timeliness. These elements [...]
Design and content is more important
Cheryl, ShortStack is a great tool for building a custom landing page. We have our Surprisingly Free plan that allows up to 2,000 page Likes. Feel free to check us out and let us know if you have any questions!
-Chelsea H. http://www.shortstack.com/