The Best Facebook Fan Page Designs

Every Facebook Fan page gives you an option to create custom tabs. The most common tab that almost all professional fan pages have, is a “Welcome” tab that non-fans will see before they “become a fan”. To create a welcome tab (which can have any name you like), you need to install the Static FBML application, which allows you unlimited custom tabs that support FBML (and basic HTML). It’s through this application that you can let your creative wildness run free, and create awesome welcome tabs for your clients. From Mailing list forms, to awesome graphic pages, and interactive polls, quizzes, contests, and videos. See the other lesson called “Setting up Facebook Fan Page for Client – First Steps to Setup” to find out how to install Static FBML, and how to get it working as a tab on the fan page.

You need to know that the “purpose” of a Facebook Fan page is to engage and interact with customers. Once you make this realization, you need to come up with ideas on how to engage with them. So the first goal of every Fan page – is to get Fans, but the initial goal for getting the fans is to interact – both are needed and both are just as important as each other. We need Fans, and we need to interact with fans. When creating any welcome page, have this in the forefront of your mind, so that you can create highly effective Welcome pages for your clients.

Every Welcome tab that you create for your client should contain the following:

1.) The most important thing – “Something” that encourages the visitor to become a fan.. remind them.. point it out to them, help them find that little button on top of the page. The key purpose for creating a welcome page is to get fans. You’ve heard “The money is in the list?” – well treat facebook fans as gold for your client. Encourage all visitors to the page to become a fan. I’ll show you some great design examples below on how other companies achieve this.

2.) Some kind of clue as to what the company is :) and at the same time, giving visitors a ‘reason’ to become a fan.

3.) Great Graphics. If the page is appealing to look at it, people have a sense of ‘liking you’ straight away and are more likely to do step 1.) Become a Fan.

The above should be applied to every welcome tab, and the rest of these ideas are optional and depend on the client’s budget, your technical know-how, and what your client wants:

* Mailing List signup

* Twitter graphic

* Videos

* Photos

* Poll

* Quiz

* Contest/Competition

* Link to homepage

* Custom Facebook Application

* Discount Offer / Coupon

* Special Something they can only get by becoming a fan

Now browse the following designs to get a feel how other successful fan pages are creating their welcome pages.. to start getting your creative juices flowing:

Victoria’s Secret is one of the most famous Fan Pages on Facebook. This is an example of their welcome page at the moment.

Jeff Dunham’s fan page gives you a welcome with a full-page graphic.. it’s much larger than the above, and you should check it out, very nicely done!

The first thing I want to point out about John Assaraf’s page is something that should be on “EVERYONE’s” Welcome page, and that is a “Call to Action” towards the “Become a Fan” button. Every Welcome page that you create for a client, should have something calling the visitor towards clicking on that button.

The second thing about John Assaraf’s Welcome page is that 1.) it has a nice introductory video from John, and a “Free Gift”, allowing all visitors to immediately signup to his mailing list. Now that’s excellent marketing that you will want to take note of.

Just like John Assaraf, 1-800-Flowers.com’s Fan Page encourages visitors to become a fan – but they do it in an even better way – they will give you 20% discount off your next order (Incentive), and only by “becoming a fan” will the discount code be displayed. This is a neat little feature that sometimes is used incorrectly by marketers, but the way that 1800 Flowers use it, is genious. Take note! And in a later lesson, I’ll show you how they achieved this.

The next great thing about their welcome page, is “interactive” stuff. Allowing visitors to “vote”, Send a gift via their own custom-made Facebook Application, they are encouraging people to follow them immediately on Twitter, allowing people to immediately signup to their mailing list, and.. down the very bottom there – is a Daily Giveaway, a little competition they hold every day. In addition, they also have a few links down the bottom (which you can’t see on the screenshot) which allows people to go directly to 1.) their latest contest, 2.) their online shopping portal, and 3.) a link to “Join the conversation” – which only works, if you are a facebook fan.

New York City Condom Fan Page has a great design, a few images, a video, and the links to their company pages.

The first part of Stride Rite’s welcome page is designed to “educate” people on “how” to become a fan, take note of them using the same “Become a Fan” graphic, and if you head there, you’ll see that clicking on that graphic, will actually “popup” a box that will enable the user to become a fan. The second point is that they give reasons for why people should become a fan (access to our amazing mom community, valuable tips and resources, special offers, awesome new products”, etc. The next part is user-interaction.. the poll.

Next, they too, have their own Facebook “go Viral” application. They also have their mailing list signup and Twitter link.

Scrolling down some more, they have a way to show their latest products, and browse them while staying on the welcome page, and a Video.

And finally, they have a link to their 50% off sale (links directly to their website) and their Store-Locator.

The SixFlags Facebook Welcome page directs visitors straight away to their Video Contest, which uses a Video Contest application to achieve. It then has a YouTube video where the contest is explained. And the awesome part of their page, is that underneath those, you can browse through the latest user-submitted contest submissions, and when you click on any of the user submissions, the video above, is reloaded with the user’s submission. Very impressive.

Mashable just wants Facebook Fans! So their Welcome tab is obviously designed for one thing.. to get Fans.

Coca-Cola’s Fan page has a “become a fan” and you can download wallpaper’s, screensavers and emoticons. The “page” will reveal itself once you become a fan. (This isn’t their welcome page, it’s a custom-tab).

Carnival Cruise Lines Welcome page is a very clean, nice-looking design, that first encourages people to become a fan, then directs people to their mailing list, then has a promotional video, and encourages people to follow them on Twitter.

The next thing they have is a interactive Photo album (can browse like ‘ajax style’ – instantly to each of the photos), and an interactive poll for guests.

The next is quite virally ingenious, it’s not an application per-say, there is a few photos, and a few messages that kinda ‘match’ the photos, and when you “Submit”, it allows you to post the image & message as a ‘story’ to your newsfeed, which all your friends will see. Whoever thought of this idea was very smart to not make it an application that you have to signup for, quite easily generating new traffic to their fan page.

Finally, two extra things in their favour.. 1.) The Fun Feed – encouraging people to either share the messages already there, or click on More Stories – which leads directly to their “Fun” webpage, and 2.) Their gift application, the application is quite fitting in with their company and theme and is another ‘viral’ idea that is probably working very well for them.