Now that so many of you have a lovely Welcome tab thanks to my super-awesome How to create a welcome page and get more fans article, it’s time to start thinking about the next tabs you can add to your Facebook Page to create a holistic digital experience. More and more people are finding your business on Facebook rather than the traditional web (and let’s not even discuss the real world), and there’s no reason to limit yourself to the standard Facebook Wall/Info/Photo tabs plus your welcome tab. There are so many other opportunities to offer your customers/prospects more information about your business in a nice, easy-to-find branded format.
On top of this, just about every business on Facebook wants to run a competition. The problem is that you cannot do so without using an application (ie. tab). If you want to know more about the T+Cs around running a comp through Facebook. If you know all of that and just want to find out how to get the tab to run it, read on.
For a long time, most businesses outside corporations ignored the extra tabs on Facebook. Particularly when it all relied on FBML, but even when Zuckers was kind enough to switch over to iframes and normal HTML, it has taken people a while to catch on and realize it’s not so hard to do. Still, even basic iframes and HTML are above the ability of most of us, so we’re left with either recruiting a techy friend or paying someone to create the tabs for us. OR there’s another way where you can completely control what tabs you have on your Page – you can easily create them, install them and edit them whenever and wherever you like, with no coding required.
To do so, you need to use a Facebook tab designing tool. There are a number of them out there, but my favorite is Shortstack. Why? Because it’s affordable, it’s easy to use, and it has all the features you’re likely to need. I realize this article is at risk of sounding like an advert, but seriously, it is really handy. The best bit is that you can use it completely for free if you have less than 2,000 likes and don’t mind a bit of their branding sitting underneath your tab. The next plan is just $15 a month for pages with less than 25,000 fans. Anyway, you can check their pricing out for yourself, but below is a quick overview of some of the main features.
1. Easy design:
- Create your tab using a Shortstack template – they have all sorts, from contact pages to competition pages to coupons and more.
- Create your tab at the simplest level by using just an image of your choice. You can then create clickable areas of the image – for example, you might want to list the products and/or services your business provides, and each one will direct people to the relevant page on your website when clicked.
- You can create a multi-purpose tab by using Shortstack’s widgets. For example, you might want the top of the tab to be an image, then underneath that a contact form, followed by a YouTube video. All are easily constructed by selecting the relevant widgets within Shortstack and filling out the details.
2. Easy customisation:
- Choose which regions you would like to see your tab – you may want to create one for Australia, one for the UK, etc.
- Choose what timeframe you want your tab to be visible for – if you’re running a competition, it may need to come down at a particular day and time.
- Choose one of the pre-set themes for your tabs if you would like (e.g., color scheme).
- Make any changes to your tab template, design or theme by inputting your own CSS if you know what you’re doing.
- Add social sharing and comments ability at the click of a button.
- Fan-gate your page or just sections of your page if you like.
3. Easy installation
- Install your tab with one click of a button.
- Depending on the package you have, customize the icon and the application name.
Voila. You have a new tab on your page, which probably took you all of half an hour to design, customize and install – with no coding knowledge required. That’s all a pretty top-level view on what shortstack is and how you can use it, but feel free to ask any detailed questions about it below, and I’ll get back to you ASAP
Or you can just check shortstack out for yourself. If you do, I’d love to hear what you think about it.
Naomi