One of the ways to customize your Facebook Page is through the use of Static FBML.  Another way is to create a Facebook Application that can be added to Pages.  This post will examine the former method which is simpler (albeit less powerful) than the latter.

The first step is to add the  ‘Static FBML Application’ to your Page.  You can do this by Googling ‘Static FBML Application’ or searching via Facebook Search.  Here is a link to the Application.

Underneath the profile photo, click ‘Add to my Page’.  A dropdown with a list of your Pages will appear. Add FBML all relevant Pages.  You must be logged into Facebook and have the Facebook Page already created to see this link.

Facebook Static FBML Add to my Page

Navigate to the Facebook Page to which you added Static FBML.  Underneath the profile photo of your Page you will see a link to ‘Edit Page’.  Again you must be logged into Facebook to see this and have editing permissions on the Facebook Page.

Among the options for your Page there will be an FBML section.  Click ‘Edit’.

How to edit FBML

An FBML dialog box will pop up where you can enter HTML code (and some FBML commands) to your Facebook Page.  Note that very few FBML commands work on the canvas sections of Pages, you will want to try them out individually to see which work.

Where to Add FBML

Once you are happy with the HTML/FBML that you’ve added to your Page, click ‘Save Changes’ and check out what your Page looks like.  Modify until finished.

While making a Facebook Page use the following anchor tag to get a user to become a fan of the Page with just one click.

<a ajaxify="/ajax/pages/fan_status.php?fbpage_id=[Your_Page_ID]&add=1&reload=1&preserve_tab=1&use_primer=1″ rel=”async-post”>Become a Fan</a>

where,
fbpage_id = [Your Page ID], you can get that from the URL of the Page.
reload=1, set to 0 if you don’t want to refresh the Page, text ‘You are a fan’ will show up.

To pop up a friend invite dialog, use the following,

<a href="#" ajaxify="/ajax/social_graph/invite_dialog.php?class=FanManager&amp;node_id=[Your_page_ID]” rel=”dialog-post”  >Invite Friends</a>

where,

node_id= [Your Page ID]

Update: This code no longer works as of March 2nd, 2010.

Update 2: The code seems to be working again, it’s hit and miss so try it out.

In this post, Webdigi details a way to add Google Analytics to your Facebook Pages. For anyone that has used Facebook Insights, the default Analytics Engine for Page, any type of additional Analytics is welcome.

Facebook Insights is limited on a number of fronts, more specifically Facebook Insights data is unreliable for large and small Pages. For all Pages, new data is delayed at least 48 hours and usually much longer. For smaller Pages Facebook will not show demographic data for privacy reasons. I’m not sure why Facebook cannot show data in real-time for large Pages.

A number of caveats about the workaround is that the Google Analytics only works on canvas Pages containing an image tag, which can only be placed on Pages editable through static FBML. So pageviews on the Wall, Info, Photos, Reviews, Discussion tabs will not be counted.

The workaround however is simple enough that it’s worth giving a try, especially if you already have a Google Analytics account set up and are already familiar with the engine. The post assumes you know how to add Static FBML/HTML into your Facebook Fan Page, which probably isn’t the case for the majority of Page owners.

If you’re an admin for a Facebook Page there are three reasons why Fans may not see your fan Page updates.

#1 They became a fan prior to the homepage redesign of March 2009.

In March 2009 Facebook allowed Pages to posts ‘Twitter-like’ status updates. The problem was what to do with those Pages that had millions of fans prior to the redesign. Would Facebook users suddenly be inundated by Page updates on their homepage? The design decision was to hide Page updates from the homepage if you had already been a fan of the Page.

#2 They have clicked ‘Hide’ on a prior Page update.

Clicking ‘Hide’ on a Page update will hide all subsequent updates.

#3 The user has more than 250 friends and Page connections.

In order to decrease clutter in the homepage stream users with a large number of connections are spared Page updates if their number of friends is more than 250. This setting, along with Reasons #1 and #2 can be changed by editing a user’s homepage settings by clicking ‘Edit Options’ on the Homepage.

Here are a list of a few of the best resources in Facebook Marketing:

1) InsideFacebook - Founded by Justin Smith Inside Facebook is very relevant to individuals with a more hands on interest in Facebook marketing. It’s the best, most comprehensive news outlet out there for Facebook and a must in any RSS feed for any marketer or application developer. Check out AppData and PageData as well as the related InsideSocialGames, which are all part of the umbrella network.

2) AllFacebook - The recently acquired AllFacebook founded by Nick O’Neill is more of a layman’s guide to Facebook news and events and has a more of an entertainment feel than InsideFacebook. Where InsideFacebook provides technical and demographic data AllFacebook provides a Top Ten lists and satirical ‘How-to’ manuals.

3) http://www.techcrunch.com/tag/facebook/feed/ - If you don’t have the time or the inclination to read through InsideFacebook or AllFacebook (avg. 4 posts per day each) this specially targeted Techcrunch RSS feed will keep you up to date with relevant Facebook information (avg. 1 tagged ‘Facebook’ post per day).

4) Facebook Forums - If you’re interested in seeing the ‘real’ world behind Facebook the Developer Forums have it all. Advertising, programming, sales information; there’s something for everyone in the forums. The forums to have gotten a lot quieter since the 2007 Facebook Application gold rush.

5) Your news Feed - 50% of the marketing news I get from Facebook comes from my homepage stream. When a friend joins a group, fans a Page or invites me to an event it gives you a first hand look at what it takes to run a successful viral campaign on Facebook. There is no substitute to first hand experience.

Over the past 6 weeks here are some interesting tidbits of information:

Samasource lets you test your Facebook Apps for as little as $1/week.  The outsourcing occurs mostly to countries in Africa.  At such a low price it’s worth everyone looking into.

Facebook has now an automated process to deal with personal accounts that have been compromised. Blog Post.  If someone has stolen your trademark you can also report an infringing username.  Link.

Michael Jackson’s Facebook Page now has over 10 million Facebook fans.  This is up from the 600k or so fans he had prior to his passing.  The only other time a page has come close to this type of growth was during the Beijing Olympics with Michael Phelp’s page.  Making headlines in the media is the most tried and true method of getting fans on Pages.

An estimated 70% of advertising on Facebook is for local businesses.  Incredible.

Roger Federer has a Facebook Page that you might want to check out.  His short videos are endearing.  Celebrities and athletes take note.

SpeedDate is quietly vacuuming up Facebook Applications.  This evening I received the following e-mail from a soon to be defunct My Aquarium application:

We have decided to focus on something more exciting. My Aquarium’s name and functionality will be changed next week to SpeedDate, a fun way to meet new people. Data entered into the original app won’t be used anymore. Feel free to check it out.

Thanks,
My Aquarium

These messages usually go unnoticed except My Aquarium was one of the first apps from the Toronto region to become a big hit and generate a modest income.  The creator, Greg Thomson, hails from nearby London, Ontario and presented at FacebookCamp1 and FacebookCamp2 Toronto.

It might be a sign of the times.  My Aquarium after pushing several hundred thousand monthly active users was only generating around 55,000 monthly active users, undoubtedly affected by the tabbed profile redesign which relegated application profile boxes to Application tabs.

This is by no means SpeedDate’s first acquisition.  In addition to My Aquarium, SpeedDate now operates the Hotness, Send Hotness and SocialMoth Secrets apps to name a few.  It’s unknown whether other apps developed by Greg were part of the acquisition.  Greg created the My Garden, My Solar System, My Grave Yard and My Greeting Cards applications as well as a number of other apps in addition to My Aquarium.

*Update*: A developer whose app was acquired by SpeedDate just gave us a tip that SpeedDate has an intern dedicated solely to e-mailing developers with acquisition offers.  If you’re looking to sell your application, you might want to ping SpeedDate or send us an e-mail and we can forward you some relevant contact information.

InsideFacebook has developed a network of sites that are very useful to the Facebook marketer.  In fact, if you are serious about Facebook marketing you should have the following sites bookmarked.  I know I do.

AppData - Provides metrics for Facebook Apps. This data is not easily obtainable and InsideFacebook does a great job obtaining up to date data via scripting.   The trickiest part about scraping data from Facebook is putting up with inconsistency on Facebook’s end.  At various points in time apps were measured by total installs, % daily active users, total daily active users, and total monthly active users.  AppData does a great job of aggregating and displaying the data.

PageData - PageData examines Facebook Page trends.  Marketers take note as Facebook Pages have really been growing since the homepage redesign in March of 2009.  PageData can point out key trends in Facebook Page growth and has quickly become a favourite resource of mine.  Every facebook marketer should be interested in page growth data.

Inside Social Games - ISG is a great resource for every social games developer.  There is a lot of money to be made in social games right now and ISG provides a wealth of insight on the topic.

What’s most impressive though is the method by which Justin gets his most recent data for number of active Facebook users in the US.  The blog states the data was obtained using Facebook’s own advertising tools.

“All of these numbers are estimates provided by Facebook through its advertiser tools.”

Justin from InsideFacebook shares some interesting statistics about Facebook users, such as a decreasing trend in number of active Facebook users over age 55.  While interesting, I wouldn’t posit too much into this decrease.  Facebook itself responds to the post by saying the numbers are ‘estimations’ and not real-time stats.  I have my own personal theory that a small single digit percentage of users over age 55 in fact are just young adults that have purposely entered incorrect birth date information on Facebook.  Perhaps Facebook is now adjusting for this estimate.

It is interesting however to look at the age distribution of Facebook users.  Courtesy Insidefacebook we can see that the predominant demographic is users aged 18-25 on facebook.  A marketer’s dream.

This evening I noticed Facebook adding an iFrame to links shared in the homepage stream.  The iFrame allow users to comment on a shared item without having to go directly back to Facebook.  The iFrame also has an option to further ‘Share’ the item and add it to your homepage stream.  All commenting and posting is done via the typical Facebook pop-up, aka leightbox.

Attached is a screenshot of what the iFrame looks like:

My friends profile picture has been blurred out but her comment on the posted item can be read.

The intention of the iFrame undoubtedly is to increase the amount of interaction on Facebook over  shared items.  The iFrame certainly makes it easier to comment on the story and re-post the content. What’s interesting is that if you continue navigating throughout the shared site Facebook doesn’t remove the iFrame, instead the iFrame just asks me if I want to return to the original link:

The iFrame is however removed completely if I click on the link or if I navigate to another site from within the iFrame.

By including the Share button Facebook makes it a lot easier to automatically repost stories that appear in my stream.  Prior to this change reposting the story would have involved an individual copying the URL, returning to Facebook and posting in the stream, assuming the thought of reposting the story ocurred to the user.  Facebook has reduced the number of clicks and pageviews needed to perform this action by more than half and has artfully ‘nudged’ the person into re-sharing the item.

Site owners might object to this change due to the reduction of their screen real estate.  But any shortcomings in screen real estate reduction should be offset by the increased exposure that comes from individuals reposting the stories and inreased interaction on the stories.  However, the iFrame does steal potential interactions on the site such as commenting with commenting on the Facebook stream. However, I do believe that it’s a net win-win for Facebook and the site owners here.

If there’s any objection to this it might come from Facebook users themselves who may feel inconvenienced by the perceived loss of browser real estate.  Remember, there was a backlash along similar lines over the digg bar recently introduced by digg.com.  In general, iFrames aren’t very popular and still hold a negative value proposition for many Internet users.

Conclusion:  The new Facebook share iFrame is innovative and not too obtrusive.  After some initial unfamiliarity I expect that this will indeed increase interaction on shared links and the total amount of link sharing on Facebook.