FEBRUARY 2012 UPDATE: Facebook made changes and so we have posted the new way using Classic ASP.
Click here to see the most recent “how-to” guide!
Have you seen those Fancy Fan pages usually from big corporations or hip design companies on Facebook? Have you noticed how most of them have content that as a visitor you can’t access until you become a Fan? Well if you are like me you probably think this is something that a regular person trying to attract more Fans on his Fan Page won’t be able to do and will require the assistance of some expensive developer…
Well good thing I was wrong (this is rarely the case) because with the help of Facebook FBML it is really simple to create a teaser landing page for those unlucky few who have not yet experienced the pleasures of becoming your Fans.
This page can show special promotions, videos, detailed information, and all that fun stuff. The catch? Only Fans can access this. For example the Levi’s Jeans Fan page (Yup, I love my Levi’s) offers a Music tab with extra content only Fans can interact with such as music, news, polls, Twitter feed, videos, etc (Levi’s if you are reading this, a coupon for a discount on jeans or a free pair would be greatly appreciated for the free promotion).
The catch is that if you are not a Fan you will only be teased with a screenshot of this and a huge header telling you to become a Fan in order to interact with the content. And you know what we will do when we see this? Yup, we will hit become a Fan. Why? Because we are human; we are naturally curious and want to find everything that is hidden behind the curtain, and we are greedy – if they have free stuff we can play with, we want it. Now to be honest, there are many extremely successful Fan pages that use a wall page and an info page and that is it. If you go the boring route and don’t stand out, you will never reach your full potential; don’t you want your work to be the best it can be?
So how can you take advantage of this?
Facebook made this ridiculously simple by creating their Static FBML, all that you need is some basic knowledge of html and some creativity. Here is how you do it*:
1. Log in to your Facebook Fan page.
2. Click on Edit Page underneath the main picture
3. Scroll down the page to where it says Welcome to (You Fan Page Name) – FBML
4. Click where is says edit
5. You will get a screen where you can edit the name of your box and input your code.
6. Input the following code**:
This is what Fans see, i.e. Thank you for being a Fan, here is a coupon for a free pair of Jeans, you Rock!Non-Fans will see this content, i.e. Don't you wish you were a Fan and could get free jeans?7. Wrap the entire content in this tags
8. Wrap the content your Fans will be able to access in these tags:
9. Wrap the content visitors will see in this tags:
10. Click on save and you will return to your Fan Page, once again go under Edit Page click on wall settings
11. On wall settings look for the dropdown that says “Default Landing Tab for Everyone Else:”
12. Select the page you have created
13. This will now be the page visitors (non Fans) will see when they visit your Fan page
14. Go crazy and enjoy your new Fan page!
15. Remember who taught you this, you are welcome
*Note that this will help you only if you already have the Static FBML installed in your Fan page, you can get it here just click the button that says “add to my page”.
** Please note, I used just text for this example in order to keep it simple, you can put here as many things as you want.
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