The greatest features of Facebook's company pages

The last couple of years the company pages on Facebook saw a rise in popularity. With this rise Facebook has added a number of interesting features to its company pages. Among the many features Facebook included there are a couple that are truly great and deserve some highlighting:

The Like Button

This might be an obvious one, but nonetheless an important asset to your company page. The like button enables the users of your page to show their appreciation towards your company or product. Other users can see the number of people that have already liked your page and in turn decide to like it. It is also possible to add a like button to your company website. When people like your page they can receive status updates you post on your wall. This keeps your fans up-to-date and generates more traffic towards your site 

Showcase your latest photos

You can now showcase your latest photos on the top of your wall. It shows the latest photos you have uploaded and you can remove one by rolling over it and clicking the X button. Photos posted by your fans will not be displayed here. Below is an example of the wall of the Coca Cola page.

Use Facebook as your company page

By selecting this option you are logged in on Facebook through your company page instead of your user profile. This effectively means that you get all the updates of content posted on the wall of your company page as well as likes and other notifications. You can also comment on other pages and like them in the name of your company page. This means you reach out to more people and can strengthen the profile of your company.

Add Featured Likes

Use your company page as a personal Facebook profile to show the users of your page what your company finds interesting. You can use this feature to further strengthen your company profile by showing what you like. To enable this feature select it on the feature section of the edit page.

Add Featured Page Owners

If you enable this option your company page will show who is the owner is in the left column. This can be especially handy for small businesses, because customers might want to know more about who is behind the business. To enable this select it on the feature section of the edit page

Facebook Insights

Facebook insights helps you to get a more detailed insight in the traffic your company page generates. Just navigate to http://www.facebook.com/insights to see the specifics of the pages that you administer. Although the information gathered is useful – it is a bit limited. If you want to get the most out of Facebook insights you can get an Facebook analytic tool like social bakers analytics. This tool shows a lot of data about your own company as well as other companies. The downside is that competitors can also see information about your company. 

Default Landing tab

If you don't want everyone to look at your wall when they drop in, here is a solution; Change the default landing tab to one of your own choosing. Now you have much more flexibility in what your visitors see first. This option becomes increasingly handy when you use it in combination with HTML or an Iframe.

HTML and Iframe

In a recent change Facebook has made the use of HTML and iframes possible in Facebook pages. You only get to use it in the main column, but it gives you a lot of possibilities. Compared to FBML (FaceBook Markup Language) the use of HTML and iframes is much more versatile. When you make use of an iframe you can load an other website into your Facebook page. This means you can completely adjust the look and feel of your page and add some neat functionality to it. The one thing you should keep in mind is that you only get to use 520 pixels. Below is an example of the home tab of the Coca Cola page.

Written by J.T. Houtenbos

Further reading:

http://www.simplyzesty.com/facebook/new-facebook-page-designs-what-does-it-mean-for-your-page/ 

http://www.johnhaydon.com/2010/06/facebook-page-features-make-your-day/ 

https://www.facebook.com/business

http://www.facebook.com/insights