You already know that having a good Facebook Fan Page can be an important way of connecting with your visitors. Becoming a fan is less intense than signing up for your newsletter; it’s a low-key commitment. And one of the biggest benefits to you is that if a fan shares something you put out on your fan page, all their friends will see it. This can bring big benefits.
So what’s the right way to get people to sign up as fans on your page?
There are three typical ways people invite visitors to become friends.
1. They just use a little fb graphic like this one:
Simple Facebook graphic
2. They use any one of a number of fb graphics and also include the call to action, “Become a Fan.” Sometimes this is graphical, sometimes text.
3. They use a Facebook Fan Box.
The Facebook Fan Box for the Seadoc Society
What’s a fan box?
It’s a live feed of the most recent activity on your fan page, plus a selection of your fans, with pictures…
And as you can see, it comes with a “become a fan” button.
Note: The image on the right is shrunk down from the real size.
So what’s so great about using a Fan Box?
- It looks like Facebook.
- The button is just like buttons they’ve clicked before.
- They get to see your most recent post. This proves there really is content there and they’ll see a benefit from signing up.
- Social proof of the number of fans, with pictures. Again, it’s just like fb, but the fan box is on your website.
Of course, when you’re showing off your content in your fan box, you’ll want to make sure it’s actually good. And you might not want to show your fan count if you’ve only got three fans.
Here’s how to get a fan box:
Just go the the Widgets page at http://www.facebook.com/facebook-widgets/index.php
The fan box on the widgets page
If you’re logged in, you’ll see a list of pages you administer. Choose whether you want to show your stream, fans and Facebook logo, then click the button that says “Other”
Add your facebook fan box
Then just copy the code Facebook gives you and paste it into your web page.
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{ 8 comments }
I am not really using Facebook at this moment, but I will definitely look into it.
Thanks for sharing this Joe!
Good info. Opinion question for you on this, Joe: I’m not using a FB fan page yet because I dread the thought of how it looks when a page has almost no fans! Do you think this fan box makes it even more obvious that your fan group hasn’t got much of anyone in it yet? Does this matter?
You don’t have to show how many fans you’ve got on the fan box. But you can tempt people with a nice bit of content showing. I’d recommend trying to get at least a few friends to be fans before you open it up to the wider world, though. (Notice I don’t have a facebook fan page I’m promoting…)
You know I have signed up for my facebook fan page i just need to do something with it. then i’ll add a fan box. I think facebook is pretty important. PLus i never thought of it as less intense than email but you are right.
Vona: Even if you just add a couple of status updates on your fan page, you’ll be on your way. (And then make sure you come back at least once a week to post another.)
I’ve seen this fan box around the web but I never knew how it gets added to a site. Thanks for the tip.
I’d like to include within the footer of my website a “facebook fan count”. I believe this will add an incentive to users considering clicking our facebook icon. “join XXXX fans on our facebook page” for example. I want the XXXX to be automatically populated with our facebook fan count. I want to do the same with twitter. Any insight you can provide would be helpful.
Thanks
@magicmule. Try including the facebook fan box in the footer. You can display it without the photo or stream of comments. The basic customization screen is at http://www.facebook.com/facebook-widgets/fanbox.php. Detailed customization options are on http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Fan_Box. You might also look into a “Facebook Badge” (also available from that first link). Not sure how it’s done with Twitter, but I see plenty of sites with Twitter follower counts, so it can’t be that hard.
As to putting it in the footer, that’ll certainly work, but there could be a more visible spot on the page. Just something to consider.
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