A great post from the OPEN forum. I've reposted here as I thought it was that good.

How to Build a Facebook Landing Page for Your Business

Matt Silverman

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Feb 17, 2010 -

Facebook is known for its uniformity. You can post all sorts of content, but the actual design and layout of your profile is the same as everyone else's.

But with Facebook Fan Pages and the array of apps you can plug into them, there are a few ways you can customize what people see when they land on your Page.

You've probably seen custom Fan Pages like those of Best Buy and Victoria's Secret. When you land there, you start on what is essentially a mini website within Facebook, instead of the Page's wall or feed.

These are often used to promote deals, call attention to new products, or simply welcome visitors with an attractive branded splash page. Anyone with a Fan Page can create one, but it takes a little effort. Here's how.

Add the Static FBML App

The tabs at the top of your Facebook Fan Page are apps. Some, like your wall and photos are built into Facebook. Others are essentially plug-ins where fans can view external content, like YouTube videos, Flickr photos, etc.

The app you need for your custom page is called “Static FBML,” located here. If you're logged into Facebook, you can add it to your Page. It is essentially a blank canvas where you can add whatever content you want, including custom graphics and links via standard HTML.

Set Up Your Tab

Once you've added the Static FBML app, click “Edit Page” below your company's profile image. This will bring up all your settings and apps. Look for the FBML app and click the “Application Settings” link.

The app can function in two ways: As a set of boxes, or as one dedicated profile tab. If you're building a splash page, you'll probably want to use it as a tab, so go ahead and make sure that the “Box” setting is removed, and the “Tab” setting is added. You can always experiment with boxes later if you find them more useful.

Add Your Content

Once you're in tab mode, go back to your settings and click the “Edit” link under the Static FBML app. This opens a standard text field where you can add your content.

“Box Title” will be the name of your tab, so you'll want to change it to something appropriate, like “This Week's Deals,” “Special Offers,” or simply “Welcome,” depending on how you plan to use your Page.

The main text field is where your content goes, and you can add standard HTML to the page as you would any website, including images, text, links, and other formatting. No need for HTML, BODY, or HEAD tags.

Note that your images must be hosted elsewhere (on your company's website, for example) and only referenced in your HTML code.

Make It the Default Landing Page

If you want this new tab to be the “face” of your business Fan Page, head back over to your page settings and edit your “Wall Settings.” There is an option for “Default Landing Tab for Everyone Else.” From that menu, select your new tab. From now on, it will be the first thing visitors see when they arrive.

Engage Further With FBML

FBML stands for Facebook Markup Language, and it is the code used in Facebook applications to reference items on the social network, like user profiles, groups, feeds, and other data. If you're really looking to integrate your landing page and get interactive with visitors, it might be worthwhile to learn this language.

A great primer on FBML and a resource for optimizing your Facebook landing page in general can be found in my colleague Tamar Weinberg's Techipedia article on the subject.

I've been reading a book about Barack Obama's presidential election campaign and it struck me again just how important feedback is when communicating, especially online.

Feedback is important in any interchange between two parties. Gauging how a message is being received is not only helpful, it's vital if you want to keep the conversation alive. A conversation will not last long if what one party is saying is offensive to the other party; they are likely to get up and leave the table fast. So why do so many sites not allow users to give feedback? Do they think they have the perfect message? I certainly hope not.

I've been doing some work recently with a site that is setting up an online community. It's going to be a great site and they are keen to do things as best they can. I noticed they didn't have any feedback loop so asked them about it and there reply was rather telling about how they viewed communication at that point. They said "we will ask them a couple of times a year and see what they tell us. We did this last year and we got about half of our emails back with good feedback, so we are happy" I nearly fell off my chair when I heard that! nearly HALF of their whole list had something to say that needed fixing - that's huge in my books. They had no other way for their users to let them know about problems or frustrations and by the time they asked, half of the users had something to say instantly. That's bad news to me.

The idea with getting feedback is encouraging conversation, not limiting or restricting it. Only asking for feedback once or twice a year could hardly be considered encouraging conversation.

The good news is that once the client and I had talked through the point of gathering feedback, we all agreed that users should be able to talk to us as soon and as often as they think of something they want to say.

So here are five keys to gathering feedback:

1. Feedback is the best market research you will ever get
Many organisations spend huge amounts of cash on finding out what people think, like, desire, need etc. Then when they find out, they find a solution, sell it and make heaps. Feedback from existing users gives you all those insights for free. They will tell you all sorts of things from a small glitch that annoys them, to how you could make your product better for them. You don't have to pay a cent to get all this info. All you have to do is make it easy for your users to give it to you.

2. Everyone's opinion is valid (although you don't have to take it)
Don't limit the feedback you get to only registered users. If you are serious about getting insights about your product, service, or site etc. you need to hear from anyone and everyone. You might get feedback from a first time visitor who hasn't read all the information they should have and they tell you to add a feature that already exists. Some might think "silly fool didn't read enough or see the info" but really want you are being told is that this visitor really wants that feature and they didn't see it up front so they moved on. That equals an unnecessary lost sale simply because the feature wasn't promoted high enough or in the right place. By listening to the feedback, you don't have to change much and you will likely make that sale next time. Getting feedback from everyone is key to good feedback.

3. Make it obvious you want feedback
There is an interesting physiological block that people have to clicking on small bland slightly hidden links. People don't like clicking on feedback links when they are made so small and stuffed at the bottom of a page. It makes them feel like the website doesn't actually want to hear what they have to say.

[Example of a hidden feedback loop]

Make your feedback links obvious and inviting. Remember, feedback is all about encouraging a conversation. The feedback link doesn't have to be the biggest on the page, but do try and make it the same size as everything else. Check out the Google example of making the feedback loop the same as everything else on their page.

[Google feedback loop]

4. Use multiple feedback mechanisms and don't discredit any feedback received through a unconventional method
Feedback is precious and valuable. A user has taken some of their precious little time and spoken to you when they didn't have to. Treat them with respect and make it as easy as possible for them to give you that feedback. Give them as many options as you can resource. Give them emails, forms, forums, places to vent etc. Every user is different and will have a different method they would prefer to share their feedback with you through. If you can accommodate them, do. The insights they share are well worth the effort. And on that note, if you get feedback through an unconventional method like your 'contact us' email or form, don't spend them away with a smack on the hand for using the wrong method. Acknowledge them and let them know the feedback as been received just like any other mechanism you use.

5. Acknowledge the feedback has been received and let them know as much as possible about what will happen with it.
This can be as simple as some text on the 'thank you' page or an auto email response. You are just trying to let the user know that you got their message and their time wasn't wasted. All it has to say is something like:

"Thank you for your feedback.

We are Acme Widgets value your insights and we will do our best to get back to you personally. However, we can't reply to everyone so please don't be offend if we don't get back to you personally. Consider this as confirmation your feedback has been received.

Regards,
Acme Widgets"

In the next week we will talk about some different methods for collecting feedback and how you can implement them for cheap or free.

In the previous post we introduced the topic of feedback. We talked about five keys to feedback, now we will look at how you can implement some for cheap or free.

Five key methods to collect feedback and how to implement them

1. Publish your contact details
This is the most basic and fundamental of all feedback methods; it may seem obvious or scary to some.

There are lots of online communications tools, like websites, that don't have any contact details. This seems a little crazy to me given that generally speaking, in most cases you want a transaction to take place with the user. Well how are they meant to make a transaction if you don't give them a variety of ways to get in touch with you.

Make sure that every email, website, Facebook and iPhone application etc. has your contact details. There can be nothing worse than a user who wants to buy but can't contact you.

There will always be a risk of getting spam if you publish your email address but there are ways to minimise this. A good development company should be able to advise on what currently works. Also a good spam filter will help you avoid having to read most of the spam that may arise. Take a look at this as well if you want to hide your email address http://www.auditmypc.com/free-address-finder.asp

When publishing your contact details, make the contacts generic i.e your reception phone rather than your personal phone but DO give a name for them to contact. This goes for all other contact details. If the best person for them to contact is the sales manager, then tell the users who they should be talking to. Also remember that people may try and contact you from overseas so give them all the relevant contact details they will need. Include the country and area code for overseas calls. It's a big world out there, you don't want to miss out on business just because they couldn't call you. Get an answering service set up for those that call outside normal working hours.

Heres an example:
Contact:

Hayden Sanders - Account Manger
+64 (04) 831 1289

+64 (027) 3164 809

A final note: People hate contacting organisations when they don't have a name to put in the salutation line. Give them a real name to address the email to "Hi Hayden, I would like to know..." is so much easier for someone to right than "Hi whoever gets this, I would like to know..."

2. Contact form with categories
The next best thing is to allow them to contact you right then and there with a form. There is debate about whether contact forms work for the user or not. I personally have had good results with them and think that if you offer a contact form and other relevant contact details like phone and email with names, you can't go to wrong - you could do better though and we'll get to that.

If you are likely to have multiple types of contacts, then let the user select who they want to contact, and again try give them a name to contact. A list like this will help to personalise and categorize the types of contact:

Sales - Hayden Sanders - Sales Manager
Technical support - Jeff Smith - Technical team leader
Billing and invoices - John Smith - Financial Controller

[Koders has a great feedback form that allows feedback to be sent to the right place with catogories]

Obviously it will depend on how large you are and how many staff you have working in each area. You will need to make this work for you obviously. Apple may have got a little over excited with their feedback form [below] for OS X but then I'm sure the form works just as they need.

[Apple has a heap of categories and classifications for their OS X feedback form]

A contact form doesn't need to be complicated. In fact the simpler you can make it the better. All you should need at the most basic level is:
    •    email address
    •    category for contact (sales, technical, accounts etc)
    •    body of your message

You can throw in there a few extras like name, phone, location if you really want but it's not critical and might just annoy the user if they don't see the point is providing it.

Wufoo provides an excellent free form building service and will collect all the results for you - http://wufoo.com/

[Stats NZ feedback form]

Stats NZ also has a good form that uses categories. Perhaps they are trying a little to hard to get all the info they want in one form. I personally think asking about the site and how it functions should be seperate from unsolicitated feedback. The risk is distracting the site visitor from the feedback they actually wanted to give you.

3. Content feedback loop on every page
My personal favorite way of getting feedback from users. Provide a method for the user to tell you what they think of each and every piece of content.

Did that page answer their questions?

Was the content complete?
What else could be added?
How would they make this content better? maybe the middle part didn't make sense?

Ask your users for thier personal feedback and see what you get.

There are a million and one ways to get this feedback. You could:
    •    put a link 'feedback' at the top and bottom of every page that opens a form the user fills in.
    •    A box could be placed on the bottom of every page asking for feedback once the user has read to the bottom.
    •    A pop-up could ask the user to provide feedback once they have left the site.
    •    A forum would allow of an active discussion about your product or service.
    •    An online chat could engage users at tricky points on your site; this would help you figure out how to make it easier to use.
This is can be either passive or active by providing a link or having a pop up requesting feedback.

Good examples

[Google works hard to gather feedback. They place their feedback loop high on every page, just under the content you've just read]

[Wet Paint go to the lenghts of providing different streams for the feedback and making it a stand out object on their pages]

Poor example

[This site doesn't seem to want feedback. They've hidden their link so far down it's nearly impossible to find]

What tools to use:
http://www.kampyle.com/ - This is a great tool if you can't afford the upfront development cost.
http://getsatisfaction.com/ - Another awesome tool but it does cost

4. Allow comments on content like blogs and media releases
If you are serious about engaging users online, then allow them to have their say on your content. This might mean allowing them to comment on media releases, latest news, blog posts, public forums etc. You users will provide you with the best and most honest feedback you will get. Combine this with other research and development you do and your services and products will be the best in the market.

Many organisations find the idea of allowing users to comment on their site and content a scary idea because it means letting go of control. The truth is that users will value your willingness to hear from them and will value your brand if not a specific product.

I know that recently I was looking to purchase a product from Apple. I found the product on their online store and read the client reviews. From the reviews I concluded the certain product wasn't right for me and I didn't purchase but I did find the experience valuable and pleasant. Next time I was thinking about buying something, I went back to the Apply site, found the product, read the honest reviews, and bought the product because the reviews told me it was a great product and would do what I wanted it to.

Life isn't all about the dollar. There is more to business than making money. Engaging users by letting them have their say is a valuable way to find out what they are thinking. You may not like what they think, but in the end they are the ones who will pay your or someone else.

5. Online chat
There are times when a user gets so stuck, confused, or tired that they just wish they could ask a real person and get a straight answer. They get sick of reading through the perfect vague wording and they just want to know. Maybe it's on the pricing page, or maybe it's the invoice and they don't understand a line item. Maybe its trying to find the shopping cart again. What ever it is, they can't do it alone and would like some help. This is where you need to be ready to answer their questions on the spot of lose that user to another site.

[Example of on-site chat feature]

An online chat feature doesn't have to cost a lot and doesn't mean you have to site there waiting for someone to contact you. It can be a tool that sits ready and waiting in the background while you do other work, or you can sign our while you take a lunch break or are in a meeting. It is as available as you are, just it's an online chat box rather than the phone.

There are a number of options. Your technical person or developer should be able to help you set this up quickly. if not drop us a line and we can help you out. Check some of these out

What tools to use:
• Google talk Chatback http://googletalk.blogspot.com/2008/02/google-talk-chatback.html
• Userplane Webchat 2 http://www.userplane.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=apps.webchat

Can you think of any other great ways to gather feedback? or other tools you have found useful?

How does your online communication stand out in the crowd?

I’m in China at the moment, I got here on Saturday 14 March. We are traveling around meeting a few development companies who Leftfield Interactive has used in the past and a few we are hoping to meet and work with in the futre.

One of the first things that I noticed when I got here was the advertising. There is a huge contrast in the quality and condition of external promotion work over here.

Generally I find it to be either really good, or very poor. There is no middle ground. The good stuff is right alongside the poor and it stands out all the more. Putting great advertising next to poor has a double advantage because firstly, it stands out so well next to the poor quality work; secondly, it gives off an added air of quality that draws me in. I know which places I would rather go based on the advertising. I would rather vist the places that actually spent some time on their image. I would rather vist them because I fugure that if they spent time and resources making their external image look good, then chances are they spent time making their premises look good, and probably spent time making their product displays look good and work well.

The difference in quality of promotional work is pronounced here in China but the principle can still be seen in any competitive market around the world. The difference can be seen when flyers and mailers come through your letter box e.g that crappy black and white photocopied flyer or that full colour glossy. Which one gives you confidence of a quality product? What level or trust and service quality does the unevenly photocopied flyer give you?

Your website gets compared online all the time

I find that often businesses don’t think their websites really matter. They know they have to have one but they don’t really know why or what the point of having a website is. They think they can just put a website up, some people might find it but really no one cares. Oh how wrong those businesses are. Oh oh oh how very wrong.

In 2007 a benchmark survey was conducted of New Zealanders who use the internet and it showed that of the people surveyed, the most IMPORTANT source of information for people was not from radio, print, or TV. It wasn’t even from word of mouth. The most important source of information for the aveage person in New Zealand was the interent. You can see the full report for yourself on the AUT website. Or you can see the World Internet Project site for other contries

I hope you read this report and maybe even reconsider where online communication sits in the priority level for your organisation.

Google certainly is leading the way in so many areas of the web at the moment. I've just watched the Google Wave preview and I'm really impressed with their ability to get their heads out from the mindset of email and to think about how to do and email-type communication better.

There isn't a lot I can say better than the preview does so I won't. I recommend you watch it, even just the first part. The video is long at 1 hour 20mins but I thought worthwhile.

I'm traveling in China at the moment and have noticed something about customer service I thought I would share with you.

Like any industry or sector, Communications people have their own language of lingo and jargon. It's hard for anyone working in an industry to not pick up and use the jargon, and I expect that Communications people would be more aware of the issue than the average person. Still, everyone makes mistakes now and again.

I noticed this blooper on New Zealand Prime Minister John Keys' Facebook page "Presser on infrastructure investments".

Writing, like many things, can be approached as art. This isn't a new revelation but I wonder sometimes if industries like journalism, PR, Marketing, and advertising approach their work as if it's art, and treat it with the sacredness that paintings by old masters are.

Contact us

Ph 0800 125 338 or

+64 (04) 831 1289

You can also email Hayden from the Contact us page or at:

We love to hear from people, even just for a chat about what we do.

Blog

How To Build A Customized Facebook Page For Your Business

Feedback is the key to a great reputation - part 1

Feedback is the key to a great reputation - part 2

How does your online communication stand out in the crowd?

Google Wave - the next generation of online personal communication tools

Approaching your target audience and customers right

Blooper on NZ Prime Ministers Facebook

Writing as an artform

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