Small business owners understand that these days you need to have a good Facebook business presence. Currently the best way to do this is to have an official Business page, where friends, family, customers, and potential-customers can publically acknowledge that they support your products or services.
The huge growth in this area, has led to the creation of various applications which can boost your Business page. The current available applications allow you to do the following:
- Link your Business Twitter account to show on your wall
- Arranging for your Blog/ Website RSS feed to show directly on your wall
- Set up a “Contact Form” which can be submitted directly from your Facebook Business page.
Lately, the huge trend to develop a custom visitor “Landing Page”, which is more colourful, dynamic and interactive. For Example: Pizza Hut
You can currently pay a web developer or application developer to create this page for you, with HTML, xHTML or FBML.
But now, there is a new website giving you the ability to create a more tailored Facebook business landing page for your page. The application is called…
Pagemodo:
To begin to create your page, you can simply sign up with your Facebook personal profile, or you can complete a separate form. Then, you are given the choice of 2 different layouts:
Next, you select “Continue”, and you are shown the page you selected, and you can edit each section on the left, and preview it on the right.
You can upload any photos you like, you can change the boxes, the background colour, the text colour to customize it to your business brand. Once you have uploaded your images, and typed in your text, you can either “Save” it at the bottom, or click to “Install” into your Facebook page.
You then need to give the various permissions:
Once all the permissions are allowed, the final step is on this page:
Then you are done, and you add your new page to your Facebook business page:
If you’ve always wanted a custom page on your Facebook business page, this is a great option. To lose the Pagemodo branding at the bottom, you have to pay US$2 per month, but it still might be worth it, to tie you over until you have the spare funds to get your own designed and unique Facebook business page.
The main downside is you cannot customize the links within the page, so every image and all the text on the page can only be clicked through to one link.
Feel free to leave your comments below.
Twitter: SheilaAtwood
July 4, 2010 at 5:58 pm | Permalink
Fiona – I love coming to your site. You have such great resources and this looks like one of them. Oh my gosh! I have to get busy to keep up with you.
This looks so simple and yet the pages are very nice.
Twitter: fionamceachran
July 5, 2010 at 1:10 pm | Permalink
@Sheila Atwood, Hi Sheila, I’m glad you are finding helpful posts and resources on my blog. There’s a lot going on in the marketplace, so it’s tricky to find the good bits and pieces
Twitter: kathygriffiths
July 4, 2010 at 6:03 pm | Permalink
Facebook seems a bit over-whelming… so for this project… a webmaster or VA is best for me. Thanks so much for the information. It looks like another great promotional opportunity.
Twitter: fionamceachran
July 5, 2010 at 1:14 pm | Permalink
@Kathryn Griffiths, Hi Kathy, yes Facebook seems to be changing on a weekly basis, and there are more tools and tricks and applications on a daily basis. But if you have someone to stay on top of this for you, then you’re in a great position.
Twitter: melaniekissell
July 5, 2010 at 2:54 pm | Permalink
Listen, Fiona …
Are you reading my mind? If so, thanks!
Just last evening I bookmarked a site for creating customized, professional-looking Facebook fan/biz pages (Fan Page Engine dot com). The basic package includes two templates and two bonus templates for $37.00.
Even though this is, in my estimation, a great bargain …
“FREE” always wins the vote in my book!
Melanie
Melanie Kissell´s last [type] ..To Blog or Not to Blog – That is the Question-
Twitter: fionamceachran
July 6, 2010 at 3:39 am | Permalink
@Melanie Kissell, Tee hee
) I think you and I are on a similar wave-length 
Thanks for sharing that other alternative. I didn’t know about that one. But you’re right, the free one is better for the time being.
Once you’re famous and raking in the big bucks you can get a posh one like Starbucks, or Pizza Hut
Twitter: erjonmehmeti
July 7, 2010 at 3:29 pm | Permalink
I tried the software, and I believe is a good resource for a quick FB landing page. But still it has many down sides like: a) the landing page is generated as an image, not as html/fbml b) Is not interactive, you can’t put any links or videos in the page c) your image facebook landing page is hosted in their server, that means that if their site goes down, your landing page can go down too. I prefer more the hand coded fb landing pages because of the flexibility.
Erjon Mehmeti´s last [type] ..Why use WordPress Theme Frameworks
Twitter: fionamceachran
July 8, 2010 at 12:41 am | Permalink
@Erjon Mehmeti, Hi Erjon, Thank you for your feedback. Of course, there are many limitations with this application, and it’s nothing like getting a proper designer to create you a proper page. BUT, for a freebie, that can be customised to your colours and logo, it’s pretty cool
Twitter: kulwindersing
July 12, 2010 at 2:46 am | Permalink
Wonderful note on redoing the facebook page. I liked what I read and I am planning to implement the same.
Twitter: fionamceachran
July 12, 2010 at 5:03 am | Permalink
@Kulwinder, Hi Kulwinder, Glad you liked the note
Please share your custom page if you decide to create one. I would love to see it!
Fiona Bosticky´s last [type] ..5 Audio Options to Engage your Blog Readers
Twitter: RozPearcy
July 28, 2010 at 9:29 pm | Permalink
Wow…every time I come back to your blog there’s one more great thing to learn! I do need to do this until I can get one professionally done! Thanks for finding the free stuff for us newbies
Twitter: fionamceachran
July 29, 2010 at 11:06 am | Permalink
@Roz Pearcy, Hi Roz, Thank you so much for your kind compliment. I try and keep this blog as interesting and entertaining as possible
Let me know the link when you’ve created your free custom page.
Fiona Bosticky´s last [type] ..10 Inspirations for your Business Success
That tool looks really useful in spite of some of the drawbacks. If you want to create something that stands out and don’t have the time or knowledge to make your own then it is a good short term solution.
Somehow with the new facebook wiki pages and the ability to customise layout I think facebook is hoping that none of us look outside its walled garden
Suzy´s last [type] ..How to back up your blog and everything else
Twitter: fionamceachran
August 7, 2010 at 10:33 pm | Permalink
@Suzy, Hi Suzy, Yes, I agree, it’s a great short term solution. I’m not surprised that Facebook are trying to keep everyone “in-house”… It will be interesting to watch
Fiona Bosticky´s last [type] ..10 More Foursquare Apps for Check In Maniacs
Twitter: mathesonsystem
August 6, 2010 at 5:03 pm | Permalink
Thanks so much, this is great!
Do you have any suggestions on what link we should use to link the image?? Do we link it to the FB wall so they can see all the action? Or do we link it to our website? Seems like if we link to our website then they will get distracted from ever “Liking” our FB page.
I might not link our at all… or link internally to a page within our Facebook page…
Thanks again!
Twitter: fionamceachran
August 7, 2010 at 10:10 pm | Permalink
@Jenn, Hi Jenn, I think the link depends on what you are trying to achieve. If you decide that your “Welcome” page or “About Us” page is only to create “new fans” or “likes”, then the text and images on that page should be directing people to that purpose. Then I think a link to the wall is really not necessary. You may be better linking to your website, or blog, or even a landing page especially for people who have found you via Facebook. That would be great for tracking…
But definitely, with this application, you should take advantage of the free external link
Fiona Bosticky´s last [type] ..How to Transfer your Website to a New Host
Twitter: mathesonsystem
August 8, 2010 at 2:59 am | Permalink
@Fiona Bosticky, Thanks! Great advice. I’m going to change it to a landing page so that I can track it.. good thinking
Twitter: Ileane
October 4, 2010 at 10:30 am | Permalink
Hi Fiona, I saw this when I visited your Fan Page and I figured that you might have a blog post about it. I’m using this for a page I’m building at work and it’s pretty cool. The interface was a little confusing at first but your post explains it very well.
Thanks!
Ileane´s last [type] ..How-to Customize Your Amplify Page
Twitter: fionamceachran
October 4, 2010 at 6:55 pm | Permalink
@Ileane, Hi Ieane, Yes we were using this tool as a temporary measure. Being “free” meant very limited usefulness. We have just designed our own custom page, and now we can have multiple links built in, and text which can actually be found by the search engines. To get the organic SEO is worth so much more.
But for attracting fans, before you get your custom page, this is a great filler. Thanks for commenting.
This is amazing.I was using “landing tabs” to cuztomize my fb fan page and now ‘m jumping to this immediately.
Naren @ Free jar games´s last [type] ..Blade Trinity