Improving Your Facebook Page with Customized Tab Applications: 10 Examples

The following is an excerpt of a complete article available in our Facebook Marketing Bible.

A well-managed Facebook Page will rapidly become your brand’s second home on the web, both in how well it ranks on Google and other search engines, but also (vitally) in the amount of time your customers spend reading and interacting with your content.

Indeed, because the average user now spends upwards of 30 minutes each day on Facebook, there is a far greater chance that they will consume your brand’s message on the network than anywhere else, including your main website. This level of engagement can be further improved by adding key resources to your Facebook presence, driving repeat return visits to your Page.

One of the best ways to do this is to build and implement customized functionality right onto your Facebook Page. In this article we will look at the different ways in which this can be done.

What Is A Customized Tab?

Every Facebook Page has a series of tabs that are accessible on the left-hand sidebar. The default options available for all new pages are the Wall, Info and Photos. Facebook allows the administrator of any Page to add extra functionality to their Page, most of which become a new tab in this sidebar. All tabs, apart from the Wall and Info, can also be removed.

Additional tab applications developed by Facebook, third-party developers, or your company can be added to Facebook Pages. Official apps built by Facebook include Video, Links, Events and Notes, each of which will appear automatically in the left sidebar once used and populated with content.

Custom tabs can be developed in-house by brands. In most cases, though, they are licensed from third-party service providers a la carte or as part of a Page management platform. Some developers also offer tab applications that can be used for free.

Prior to March 2011, tabs could be easily customized on Facebook using the popular Static FBML application. This has now been phased out and tabs need to built as an actual application via the Facebook Developer’s site. The content is then embedded into a tab on your page via the use of an iframe.

Many high-profile brands on Facebook have implemented customized tabs on their Pages to raise the level of fan engagement. We’re seeing leading brands employ a variety of techniques that include marketing fundamentals like a strong offer and clear call-to-action, as well as more advanced methods like embedded games and promotions that bridge online and offline.

A step-by-step guide on how to create your own customized landing tab, and further analysis on live implementations from top brands on Facebook, is available to members of the Facebook Marketing Bible, Inside Network’s comprehensive guide to marketing and advertising your brand on Facebook. Learn more about the Facebook Marketing Bible here.

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Dentists: Is Your Dental Marketing Plan Ready for Google Plus?

Google+ is in limited field trial and being tested with a small number of users, but it won’t be long before the Google+ project is the next big trend in dental marketing.

You might be thinking it’s just another Facebook.

Google hopes to convince you otherwise.

Google+ intends to set itself apart from Facebook by limiting the type of sharing that happens in Google+ to small groups — like a local photography group, your immediate family or the people you work with directly — instead of how it is on Facebook where what you share is shared with friends, friends-of-friends and the Internet at large.

Google+ users can be selective with how they share information within their social circles.

Rumor has it that once Google+ has worked out their beta launch tweaks for the user-side of Google+, they’ll be introducing brand pages for businesses. Google is promising that the business pages are going to be worth the wait because they will be integrated with both AdWords and Analytics.

Here’s a video Christian Oestlien, one of Google’s product managers created to help explain what’s going on with business identities on Google+:

Some dental practices may want to rush getting on Google+ by setting up a business profile as a personal profile on the user side of Google+. Don’t be tempted to do this. Google has warned that they will be deleting businesses who set themselves up in personal profiles.

Google already terminated the Google+ accounts of Mashable, Ford and Search Engine Land who attempted to create a business presence on Google+.

It’s not a smart dental marketing plan to risk getting banned by Google.

Instead of tempting your online fate with the Gods of Google by trying to launch a business presence, instead begin to prepare for the coming launch of Google+ business pages by making sure you, your employees and your favorite patients are signed up for user profiles as Google+ expands.

You might even consider holding a contest to see who the first dental patient is who receives a Google+ profile and invites you to join their circle.

The point would be to get on to Google+ as a person and begin building your circles so that when you launch your Google+ business page you can ask those in your circle to promote you to their circles and so on, and so on.

What are you thoughts on Google+?  Are you planning to use it?

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