Why a Facebook Landing Page is so Important

First, let’s be clear about one thing…if your company, brand, or product is geared towards consumers, then you absolutely need a social media marketing strategy. A Facebook fan page is a must. (for those of you who may have been in a coma for the past few years, I’ve included a short overview of Facebook at the end of this article).

The main goal of having a Facebook fan page is to get people to ‘Like’ your brand. Let me repeat this: “The main goal of having a Facebook fan page is to get people to ‘Like’ your brand.”

I repeated this because many mistakenly believe that driving traffic to your Facebook page is the main goal…it is NOT. Unless you can get people to click the “Like” button, your Facebook strategy is about as useless sunglasses at night. At the recent Facebook Success Summit, data was presented that showed that a custom landing page/tab on a Facebook page more than doubled the conversion rate of how many people click ‘Like’.

It’s all about the ‘News Feed’

The ‘News Feed’ is the key. Once a person ‘Likes’ your page, they are effectively allowing your page posts to show up on their personal Facebook ‘News Feed’.  This is powerful, since it is basically ‘permission-based’ marketing. The only way this happens, is for the visitor to ‘Like’ your page…therefore, (once again, repeat after me), “The main goal is to get people to ‘Like’ your brand.” There is a common misconception that anything that is posted on your page’s ‘Wall’ will show up on all fans’ News Feeds. Actually, only posts that are ‘liked’ or commented on will end up ‘spreading’ through your fans’ News Feeds, so it is very important that those posts are relevant and ‘comment-worthy’.

So why is a Facebook landing page so important?

Your default landing tab on a Facebook fan page is the ‘Wall’. Let’s examine the ‘Wall’. It contains posts and comments, is extremely generic (all ‘wall’ tabs are set up the same), and not very pleasing aesthetically. This is NO way to start a ‘relationship’. There is nothing clear and obvious about who you are, what you do, or what you offer. The only real branding on the ‘Wall’ is your 200 X 600 pixel profile image…and most brands do not even make use of that very well.

The best way to generate new fans on Facebook is to create a custom landing page/tab. This means when visitors come to your Facebook page for the first time, they see a customized tabbed page, not your Wall. It should contain a distinct ‘call to action’…getting them to ‘Like’ the page.

You need to put your best foot forward! Remember your mother saying, “you do not get a second chance to make a first impression.” This is so true, especially with social media.

As I began writing this article I started doing a little research. I took out the ABC Show Directory from this year, and began visiting the sites of many of the exhibitors. Once on their sites, I clicked on their Facebook links (if they had them). The results are proof positive that most companies do not yet understand how to maximize their ROI (return on investment) of social media. 98% of all the Facebook pages I visited did NOT have a custom landing page.
How to create a Facebook Landing page

At the end of this article is a link to my own Facebook landing page. My company does not deal with consumers, so Facebook is not an integral part of my own social media strategy, but I designed a landing page (and profile photo) that has all the elements consumer brands should include in their page. To build your own page, you can do it one of two ways:
• You can engage a company to do it for you utilizing best practices, or
• Design it yourself
If you would like to choose the first option, click here (http://www.panoscreative.com/cfblp.html) for a link to the service provided by my company. If you are going to DIY, you can go to Facebook Applications, add the ‘FBML’ app to your page, then design a page using the FBML code. Once the page is ready, you can go to your admin section, and ‘Manage Permissions’ to change the default tab to the one containing your newly designed landing page. In my case, I named that page ‘Welcome’.

A custom landing page, although integral to its success, is only one part of a greater whole of any social media marketing strategy. Because it is my business, I have visited and ‘Liked’ a lot of pages of companies in the juvenile/toy and chocolate industries. I cannot tell you how many of these companies post nothing but sales and promotions. This is absolutely the wrong thing to do, as eventually those posts will be regarded as social spam, and result in ‘Unlikes’.
Creating a successful social media strategy is like preparing a gourmet meal…the ingredients are all easily obtainable, and the end result is only successful if put together in a masterful way.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me directly at .

SAMPLE FACEBOOK LANDING PAGE LINK - http://www.facebook.com/panoscreative

Facebook Overview
Facebook is currently the social media heavyweight champion. It has evolved from a college-based social site, to THE definitive leader in social media. The tools and applications that Facebook has integrated within their platform are fairly easy to implement.  As a consumer brand, you must have a Facebook page. Make sure that the page is tied to (associated with) a personal page…if you just set up a business page that is not associated to a personal page, you will not have access to some of the applications that you definitely need to implement…most importantly, adding a custom landing page.