Make Money from Blogs » Fan Page

Differences between Facebook Fan Page and Groups ? Which is better (contd..)

ashish — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 19:36:52 +0000

The previous post (link) had started out with an analysis of the differences between a Facebook Fan Page and a Facebook Group, and based on that analysis, and comparing with your need, you would need to figure out which one is more suitable for your needs. Here is the concluding part of that article:
1. Groups can send messages to their members as long as members are less than 5,000, while Page Admins can send updates to any number of fans
2. You can directly update content from your blogs and other areas such as Twitter by using applications such as RSS, Networked Blogs, etc, while Groups need manual updates – this if you want your blog posts to automatically appear on Facebook, then a Fan Page is the way to go
3. You can promote your Fan Pages through the use of targeted ads, something not possible with Facebook Groups. Through ads, you can get a large number of fans
4. Groups allow a far higher degree of control over who all can join the group or not, including ensuring that members need to be approved before being allowed inside, while the level of control in a Page is far lower

In short, it seems more like that Groups was something that Facebook was supporting earlier, but the focus is now moving over to a Facebook Fan Page being the area that will have a higher focus.

Differences between Facebook Fan Page and Groups ? Which is better ?

ashish — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:16:03 +0000

Well, there is no easy way to determine the right answer for the last question above – “Which is better”. I know that most people detest an answer which starts with “It depends”, but it is true in this case. It depends on what you are trying to promote, what is the level of response and involvement you are looking at, and so on. So, let’s do some evaluation of the differences between a Facebook Fan Page and a Facebook Group.
1. The way that Fan Pages and Groups are setup (including their privacy settings) are different. Fan Pages, when they started out, were modeled after the concept of they being the representation of the fans of a artist, a musician, a rock band, and so on. A group allowed the administrator to set higher levels of privacy, including this being secret, and was more like a club.
2. Groups are meant for a more closer or intimate level of interaction, such as being able to see who the administrator of the Group is, being able to view the profiles of the group members, and so on. On the other hand, you can hide the name of the administrator of the Fan Page, and the profile information of members is also hidden. As a result, a Fan Page allows a viewer to maintain privacy while reading the information on the Fan Page.
3. Groups cannot have additional information added to the pages through applications, while Fan Pages allow you to extent the functionality through the use of external third party applications. As the number of such applications increases, this becomes more important.
4. Groups are not available to non-Facebook users, while Fan Pages are visible to non-Facebook users, letting a greater number of people get access to these posts and find these results through searches.
5. However, since the apparent involvement of users with Facebook Groups is greater, any update sent to the group is displayed more prominently on the user’s profile in the case of a Group rather than in a Fan Page
6. The level of statistics provided in a Fan Page is far greater than that in a Group, and if you are interested in doing a number of statistical analysis of your readers, then a Fan Page will be more useful.
(to be contd..)

How to promote your Blog on Facebook – Some tips (contd..)

ashish — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 07:07:47 +0000

In an earlier post (link), I had outlined some steps to promote your blog using the Social Networking Tool, Facebook, specifically, using the Fan Page tool. Here are some more tips on the same subject, with the hope that you do your best to ensure that you use this tool to its optimum. With Facebook having an increasing number of users, and who are more sticky than other tools, you need to ensure that you do your optimum on this tool. Here are more tips and techniques:
1. If you have friends who are interested in the same area, then send them a link to the Page and invite them to become a Fan(for example, it would make a lot of sense to send a link to a travel Fan Page for somebody who likes to travel, or who has expressed an interest in knowing about different tourist locations)
2. When you enter a post directly to your wall, then a brief excerpt and thumbnail from the post appear next to the post link. At that time, Facebook gives an option to select the thumbnail that appears by giving a small selector. Select the best photo that you can find from the thumbnails that appears.
3. In order to get an initial set of fans, you can ‘encourage’ friends and relatives to become fans. People tend to become fans when they see other people have become fans; and if you get your friends and relatives to become fans, then it becomes easier for you to get more fans. It is only celebrities and important people who automatically have become people becoming fans, others have to struggle.
4. Add some personal touch to your blogs, such as your photo, a note to your readers, and information about the topics. This helps your readers feel more connected to your Fan Page (and to you), and also helps promote your Page by adding to keyword intensity.
5. It would seem like Facebook does not allow you any sort of customization, but that is not true. Facebook Pages now allow you to add customization through the use of 3rd party apps, and for adding Text / HTML, you can use an application such as Static FBML
6. I earlier mentioned using your Fan Page as a part of your signature, in addition, use an invitation to join as part of your status messages on various IM’s (such as setting this as part of your GTalk signature).
7. Claim a short name for your Facebook Fan Page (right now, the page can be a bit long). However, you need to ensure that you have atleast 25 Fans for this to happen (learn more).
Let me know if there are other tips that have helped you in the past. Thanks for reading.

How to promote your Blog on Facebook – Some tips

ashish — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:38:51 +0000

Facebook is turning out to be a great tool for promoting your blog. Well, you might consider as to why Facebook ?
- Facebook has a growing number of users who spend a huge amount of time on the application
- If you create a Facebook Fan Page for your blog (click to learn how), your posts are also searchable
- Typically, the structure of a Facebook Fan Page is that your users can start to generate content on their own and post that on the Facebook Fan Page, increasing the amount of content you have (but this takes time, and needs a number of users)
- When combined with other blog promotion strategies such as using Twitter, allowing your users to easily subscribe, and many others, using Facebook increases the potential of your blog finding more users

Now that you are convinced (hopefully) about using a Facebook Fan Page, how can you increase the promotions you do via your Facebook Fan Page:
1. Mention your Facebook Fan Page in your posts at the end, and as your signature on emails
2. Use a Facebook Fan Box to send your blog viewers to your Facebook Fan Page (click to learn)
3. Ensure that your blog is automatically posted to your Fan Page (click to learn)
4. Don’t only depend on your own blog posts. Post other articles from other sites that are relevant (don’t steal – link to the actual article and put a small teaser on top). If the site owner sees you doing this, they will appreciate your not stealing, and in fact, promoting their content.
5. Post a link to your Fan Page in your Profile, so that your friends get a chance to find your Fan Page
6. Automatically link your Fan Page to your Twitter account so that any update on your Fan Page gets published to your Twitter account (click to learn)
7. Run an Ad campaign on Facebook, it is not very expensive and can get you a large number of Fans who would not have otherwise found your Blog
8. Add a logo. A logo, if interesting, gives a brand value to your Fan Page, and can differentiate your page from other pages
9. Add detailed information to the info tab. Many people go to the info tab, and if they find some interesting information, it can enhance their opinion of the Fan Page and give a higher chance of becoming loyal readers.
10. Write a blog post about your new Facebook Fan Page. This gives your readers the knowledge that they can also connect to you on Facebook.

(contd..)

How to add a Facebook Fan Page Box onto your blog (WordPress, Blogger, others)

ashish — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 17:32:50 +0000

Facebook is now proving to be a big social networking tool, with a huge number of people spending time on Facebook. It should form an important part of your strategy to get more Facebook users to visit your Facebook Fan Page, and to interact over there. The ideal case is when people are really interested in the topics at hand and do a lot of interaction on the Facebook Fan Page. A link back to your page means that you get a lot more traffic from a new source. However, you need to ensure that your users have enough techniques and tools to easily sign up for your Fan Book. If you have a blog, you should invite your Blog readers to sign up for your Facebook Fan Page. I will give an example of how to setup your Facebook Fan Page on a blog called 5 Photo Tips (link).
Facebook provides many tools for people to enhance the value of their Fan Pages, with one way being through the use of their tools listed at the following page – Facebook Connect (link). This page gives you ways to extend the use of Facebook. At some later posts, we will explore what all we can do, today we are just interested in the use of this tool called Facebook Widgets (link) which are some existing tools to extent the Facebook Fan Box onto your Blogger account.
Once you see the “Fan Box” option on the following page, click on the option.

Once you click on the Fan Box option, then you reach a page where you can select the required Fan Page (you should be logged in to your Facebook Profile for this to happen). If you have more than 1 Fan Page, then you can select the desired Fan Page through a combo box.

In case you have a Blogger account or a TypePad account, then there are already default buttons to select, but if you have a WordPress Account, then you need to select the third option “Other”. This provides the code in a small text box below the buttons that you can copy and paste into your WordPress account.

You can customize the options present on this page by referring the instructions at these page (link). You need to take this code and insert it into your site. The minimum width required for the Fan Box is 200px, and you should change the number of connections that can be viewed to 100 (the maximum; the default is 10).

Now you can log into your WordPress account, and add the copied code into the Widgets section. Once you log into your WordPress Account, go to the Appearance -> Widgets and then add a new “Text” widget and add the code, and you are done. You have the Facebook Fan Box in your own WordPress blog.

You want to see the end result ? Go to http://5phototips.com/ and see the Fan Box at the right side of the page.