What good is a Facebook Fanpage without fans, right? I’ve had conversations with business owners who simply do not understand the concept of growing their fanbase. So, to enable them to increase their fanbase, by having their fans aid them in their quest, we’ve modified some existing code, based on the work from The Social Consultant. The code that they had posted was a great base, but it didn’t account for a few factors…
The original code works, don’t get me wrong, but there are a few things that people need to be aware of when implimenting. For the novice wanting to install this onto their Facebook Fanpage, you must add an application first. FBML (Facebook Markup Language.) FBML allows you to insert HTML, CSS, and more onto your fanpage. Installing the FBML application is done as so:
Log into Facebook and go here: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=4949752878&ref=search&sid=608937256.3758968852..1
Under the logo, choose “Add to my page”. A display window will show allowing you to add the application to one of the pages you manage.
Once that’s installed, go to your page and click “Edit” under your page picture. Find the FBML application and click Edit there. Name the tab (we suggest “Invite Friends”). Now lets get the code loaded. We’ve provided example code below. Copy and paste the below code into the available field:
<fb:request-form
method=”post”
action=”http://www.facebook.com/YOUR-FAN-PAGE”
type=”Title Goes Here”
invite=”true”
content=”Invite Your Friends To Be Become Fans!
<fb:req-choice url=http://www.facebook.com/YOUR-FAN-PAGE label=’Become A Fan’ /> “>
<fb:multi-friend-selector actiontext=”Invite Your Friends” rows=”4″ showborder=”true” />
</fb:request-form>
Seems simple enough right?
Well, it actually is. But there’s a few catches. First catch (and the most important), it appears that your fanpage must have a vanity URL. If your fanpage does not have one, hop over to http://www.facebook.com/username and follow the prompts for naming your fanpage. After testing this theory, the invitation set up did not work properly unless there was a vanity url.
{source}
<script type=”text/javascript”><!–
google_ad_client = “pub-3693495669624211”;
/* Oddzuki Adsense */
google_ad_slot = “3082466083”;
google_ad_width = 468;
google_ad_height = 60;
//–>
</script>
<script type=”text/javascript”
src=”http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js”>
</script>
{/source}
To claim your Vanity URL, I believe you have to have a fam-page with more than 100 to 150 fans. To create a vanity url, go to http://www.facebook.com/username. You’ll have the option to name your page.
In the above code, be sure to put your business name exactly as it appears in your url (Example: http://www.facebook.com/pages/EvinceUnlimited) in both places. Whats brilliant is that you can actually add your own graphics to the invitation using standard HTML. View http://www.facebook.com/pages/EvinceUnlimited and click the “Invite Your Friends” tab for an example.
Second catch is that this is not a standardized “Suggest” type of requst. The “Invite friends” will not recognize your current friends that are already fans of your business. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but know that you may run into duplicates.
That’s pretty much it. If you have any questions, or need any assistance, post a question in the comments. Also, if you modify the above code with great results, please let me know. Would love to see what you did.
Until next time…
