The other day I wrote about some Facebook page content strategies to consider based on the goal(s) you are looking to accomplish. Today, I wanted to focus on another issue often encountered when managing a Facebook page – regularly updating your Page content.

Automating Your Facebook Page Content

The simplest way to save yourself countless hours in the admin section of your Facebook page is by automating your updates as often as possible. The easiest way to accomplish this is by adding your RSS feed to your Facebook Page. This will regularly take the new content you create and automatically cross-post to Facebook.

Step 1:

Once you’re logged in to your Facebook Page, click ‘Edit Page’ and then select ‘Apps’ from the left-hand menu:

Step 2:

Make sure the ‘Notes’ app is installed, then click ‘Go to App’ underneath the description of the app. You’ll be met with a customized Page for your notes content. You want to look at the bottom of the left-hand sidebar for a small link that says ‘Edit import settings’.

Step 3:

Once “Edit import settings” is selected, you’ll be brought to a page where you can paste in an RSS feed to import. As soon as that’s done, Facebook will start automatically publishing new content from the feed to your Facebook Page. Additionally, if the content has an accompanying image, it will automatically use that image as a thumbnail for the update, meaning that even auto-generated content looks great and can also impact your EdgeRank.

Facebook Page Content Automation Benefits:

Once your RSS feed is updated, it takes zero time to maintain this content channel. That said, your fans will love being able to keep up with new syndicated content which should increase the engagement through increased comments and ‘Liking’ these automatic updates.

For brands, one of the most frustrating aspects of running a Facebook Page is determining exactly what content to syndicate. The answer can be just as frustrating … it depends.  The trick is to publish great custom content alongside automatic updates with the following goals in mind:

Increasing Website Traffic:

When you want an increase in website traffic consider publishing questions about your content or products. Ask for opinions on your content, or recommend a specific product – and make sure every update has a link back to your site. Not only does this bring traffic to your website, but it also heightens the feeling of community on the Page.

Starting a Conversation:

When you want to start a discussion, the best option is to use Facebook’s Questions feature. Start publishing polls and asking for your community’s opinions. Comments are extremely important for the growth of your Page because when a user posts a comment it also shows up in their News Feed to be seen by all their friends. This can impact EdgeRank and expose a larger group to your message.

Build Community Loyalty:

When looking to build loyalty simply interact with fans in the comments. Thank your fans for their support, run promotions or specials and give fan-only gifts and bonuses.

Increasing Sales:

When an increase in sales is the primary goal, post teaser updates about new products, share images of upcoming products in development, progressively share news about new products, and give fans discount coupons.

Capturing New Clients:

If you are in the business of increasing new clients, post examples of newly completed work, share testimonials from existing clients, post information about your services and talk about some of the cool things you might be currently working on.

What tips do you have for creating and building a community on your Facebook Page?

Thanks to Involver’s new Fan page applications, your Facebook influence (or Klout score), will determine your access level to select brand pages on Facebook — and it could score you perks.

Involver has teamed up with social influence tracking company Klout to release a set of Facebook applications that brands can use to tailor their Page experiences around fans’ Klout scores. The first app is free and is being rolled out to brands as of yesterday.

“We’ve taken Klout’s core business and brought it into our platform,” says Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, Involver senior vice president of marketing and customer success. “The first application is a simple coupon-esque experience. A brand will be able to bring an application out of their Page, configure to deliver content to people above and below certain Klout scores, and then input whatever that content is.”

This content will be ideal for new movie trailers, products, coupons or any other unreleased material that a brand wishes to promote.

The term “fan-gating” is often used interchangeable with “Like-gating,” and simply refer to the common practice of hiding Facebook Page content behind a fan or “like” gate — when a fan “likes” the page, the actual content is revealed. Involver takes this one step further by defining what content a user is shown and what perks, if any, you get based on a Klout score.

Audi USA will be the first brand to test Involver and Klout’s influence gate on its Facebook Page. Fans who click to find out their Klout scores will receive a perk — a custom desktop, ringtone or both — based on their scores. The process happens entirely on Facebook, with Involver pinging Klout and retrieving the user’s score in the background.

This really appears to be the next stage of Facebook marketing where a user’s ‘influence’ defines their reward. We expect to see this starting to drive more and more marketing initiatives across Facebook. What are your thoughts?

Thanks to the App Store Facebook Page, interacting with the iTunes App Store just got a lot easier. The page was developed and is powered by Vitrue, and now puts the App Store inside Facebook — a dream for any iTunes app lover! Now it is easy to search for apps, share them with friends, find out which apps are hot right now and which are deemed “essential” by the iTunes editors.

In addition, now all of the the applications you are used to finding from iTunes or from the App Store application on your iPhone (iPhone) or iPod touch you can now find on Facebook. For example, the featured tab on the App Store’s Facebook (Facebook) page will display top apps and sales charts for paid and free apps across different categories.

Click on the “Get App” button and a browser window for that application opens up (if iTunes is installed, iTunes opens as well), allowing you to download the app with a single click. Underneath each app is a Facebook Share button that allows you to post the app to your wall and share the app with friends. The coolest part of the page is the Search & Share tab. Type in a keyword or a description for instant results, which you can then post to your wall.

Vitrue is planning on adding many more features to the App Store’s page to make sifting through the 170,000+ apps offered a bit easier.

What are your thoughts on the iTunes app and Facebook integration?

Facebook has announced it will soon be changing the “Become a Fan” button that you’re so accustomed to seeing on Fan Pages to a more universal “Like” button. According to Clickz, Facebook has started sending out confidential emails to ad agencies informing them that the “Become a Fan” button which functions as a subscription/membership button  to fan pages will be changed to “Like” button within the next few weeks.

Quite simply, Facebook believes that by changing the “Become a Fan” button to “Like”  will increase engagement between consumers and brands. “Like” offers a simple and consistent way for Facebook users to connect with the things they are interested in most. Facebook did some research and found out that users are more two times more likely to “Like” something instead of becoming a fan.

“‘Like’ offers a simple, consistent way for people to connect with the things they are interested in. These lighter-weight actions mean people will make more connections across the site, including with your branded Facebook Pages. We believe this will result in brands gaining more connections to pages since our research has shown that some users would be more comfortable with the term ‘Like’. The goal is to get the most user connections so that you can have ongoing conversations in the news feeds of as many users as possible.”

What do you think of this change? Are you more likely to “Like” a brand on Facebook vs. become a fan of one?  While you’re at it “Like” Only Facebook!:)

One of my favorite blogs, Freelance Folder, created a Facebook fan page on October 6th, 2009. On November 10th,approximately 35 days later, they reached the one thousand fan milestone. How did they do it? I’ll show you how they accomplished it and how you can to!

First things first, we’ll run through a quick guide to creating fan pages. From there we’ll move into some of the fan growth strategies.

Getting Started With a Facebook Fan Page

To create a Facebook fan page you can simply visit the public page that allows you to create ads and pages. Click on Create a Page. You will be given three options:

1. Local
2. Brand
3. Artist, Band, or Public Figure

Simply choose the category that suits your business the most and follow the instructions. As you can see, creating a fan page on Facebook takes about five minutes max. That said, building it and growing a community within that page can take months.

Now that you’ve created a fan page for your business or site, let’s start growing it.

Get Your Friends Involved

The first thing you want to do to grow your fan page is utilize close friends on Facebook. Let your friends know that you have created a fan page and ask them to be a fan. It’s almost guaranteed that they will become a fan without hesitating.

Save the first few days for the close-knit group and then extend invites to a larger group.

Now it’s Time to Send Some Invitations

Now that you have asked your close friends to become fans, it’s time to send out invites to your acquaintances.

If you have a few hundred friends, do not send out invites all at once. You don’t want a spike of fans one day and be dead in the water the next day. A great ‘rule’ to follow is to send out invites in sets by first letter.

 For example, you can send out invites to those folks with names thta begin with the letters A, B and C on day 1. On the second day, send out invites to people whose name begin with the letters D, E, F and G and so on.

This way you don’t end up getting fifty fans one day and nothing the rest of the days. The Suggest to Friends feature is on the left right under your fan page profile picture as seen in the image above.

Now that you’ve sent out your invites, you need to decide whether to run an ad campaign to promote your fan page.

Run a Facebook Ad Campaign (optional)

Being a freelancer myself I know that budget are extremely tight. That said, if you can spare $5.00 to $20.00 I highly recommend running an ad campaign. Facebook allows you to target your ads and gives you the option to pinpoint who sees the ad. You can target ads based on age, gender, location, profession, etc.

You can either pay for impressions or for clicks. I recommend the impressions model because the main goal is to get the page seen by as many people as possible. Even if they don’t click and sign up when they see the ad, there is a possibility that they might come back later.

To create an ad, go to public page that allows you to create ads and pages.

At this point, you can start promoting your fan page through your website.

Cross-Promote Your Fan Page

Now that you are done asking for help from your close group of friends and sending out invites, it’s time to start promoting on your web properties.

Talk about your fan page on your blog or your site – and don’t forget about Twitter! Grab a fan page box and embed it on your blog.

After you are done implementing the above tips, be sure you are engaging with your fans. Above all, make sure your fans are interacting. There is no point in having a fan page with thousands of fans where no one really interacts. So let’s see some of the ways to pull in people without really having to ask them to become fans.

You should follow the tips outlined below as soon as you get your fan page up and running.

Your Updates Should “Call For Action”

One of the best ways to “call for action” through your updates is by asking a question – something that Freelance Folder does extremely well. People love to voice their opinion and share their expertise. Make sure your updates ask them to do that. Simply linking to each article you publish on your blog won’t help you much as far as growing your fan page goes.

Two of the best ways for your fans to interact are through the Like and Comment features.

Like and Comment Are Your Best Friends

These Like and Comment features are extremely important to growing your fan page. Every time someone comments on your update or clicks the like button it shows on their feeds. Your fans’ friends see their profile or feed on the main page. They also see that one of your fans have been commenting on or using the like feature on your fan page. This can creates a viral effect.

If the update is good enough and really thought-provoking, those users who didn’t know about your fan page might join because they saw someone they knew on Facebook actively using it.

The key is to make sure your fans are participating and using those Like and Comment features so that it shows on their feeds. This is one of the best ways to get your fan page exposed to as many people as possible.

Now onto third party apps…

Utilize Third Party Apps

One of the reason Facebook is so popular is because of all the third party Facebook apps that are out there. I am talking about the apps that actually add value to your fan page.

If you look at Freelance Folder’s fan page, you will notice two tabs at the top that are not default tabs for fan pages — News and Twitter. If you click on the News tab you will see our recent posts. If you click on the Twitter tab you will see our Twitter updates.

These apps allow for a single stop information source for their fan base. (you can find these apps at involver.com for free). Now fans can quickly check Facebook updates, see what’s new on the blog, and even see what is being tweeted.

I personally think one of the best Facebook apps is the FBML application, also known as FaceBook Markup Language. You can use this app to create customized tabs, etc.

Here is a good example of a custom welcome page created by AllFacebook for their fan page using FBML.

We’d love to hear your experience growing your Facebook fan page! Do you have any additional tips to share?

Facebook Fan Pages are gaining popularity due to their high adoption rates among Facebook’s 300+ million users. Currently more than 10 million users become fans of Pages each day. However, the basic fan page layout is quite, well, basic. Adding some simple modifications can really make a Fan Page standout and  attract those valuable fans. By doing so, you’ll benefit not only improved appearance, but it is easy and cost effective as well.

The average Facebook Page lacks the ability to modify a page so that the visual appearance can match that of your website, promotional material or landing page. One simple application can add this functionality to your pages and pull in Facebook statistics as well.

The application Static FBML will allow you to create a new tab on your Facebook Page that can be completely customized to mimic your web presence and branding by displaying HTML and FBML so that you can render a truly customized section for your fans. Here is a step-by-step look at how you can implement this tactic.

First, you must have an active Facebook Page that you have admin access to. Then, head over to the Static FMBL Page and choose the “Add To My Page” link:

Once clicked, you will have the ability to choose a page (or pages) that you can add this application to. The application will then be added to the chosen Page(s) and will be labeled “FBML.”

Next, you will want to click “edit your page” then choose to edit the “FBML – FBML” application.

This is where the magic happens and the customization occurs. You can use simple HTML to fill this page and really have it stand out from your competition. Important: javascript is not supported, so stick with plain old HTML for best results.

There is also a good deal of helpful conversations which can enhance your troubleshooting within the “Discussions”  box of the FBML Page if you get stuck.  Coca-Cola and Gap both offer a great example of a customized FBML Page if you are looking for a few creative ideas.

Now, you should have your customized look in the newly named box … but you are not done yet! If your newly created page is really important for your brand (timely promotion, special savings or just an all around improvement from your wall) set this new box as your default location that users will arrive on when they visit your site. You can accomplish this by simply editing your “Wall Settings”. Select your new box in the “Default Landing Tab for Everyone Else:” drop down tab.

So there you go! With these simple steps, hopefully you can step up the presence of your Facebook Page and differentiate yourself from your competitors!

Over the weekend Facebook removed the sidebar action link that sends Fan page updates to your Facebook fans directly. You will now need to go through an extra click to get your updates sent. According to All Facebook, since the new Facebook inbox launched the click through rates on Fan page updates has increased significantly! We highly recommend Page administrators take advantage of this increased visibility.
So how do you send the updates? Simply click on the “Edit Page” link on the sidebar. On the right hand side under “Promote Your Page” you will see a link which says “Send an Update to Fans”. Despite the decreased visibility page updates are extremely useful for reaching those Fans who’s feeds your stories may not be displayed in.

As Fan Page updates continue to be implemented we’ll be sure to keep you up to date!