I’m assuming you already have an autoresponder system such as aweber or icontact. These email marketing systems manage your list that you send your ezines and offers to by email, Most of the good ones will generate cut and paste HTML code that allows you to put the opt-in box on your website, and in this case your Facebook fan page. Of course you have to give your Fan page visitor a reason to opt-in but for now we are just focusing on the logistics rather than the marketing.

Adding an opt-in box to your Facebook page involves static FBML (Facebook markup language), but don’t let that scare you off, it is still pretty easy.

1. First, you have to install the FBML application into your page. Log into your facebook account and type “FBML” into the search box. Click on “Add to my page” and then select the page you want to add the FBML application to.
2. Now you can go to your Facebook fan page (select “Manage your page” from the Account dropdown from the upper right. Click on “edit your page” on the left. You will see the FBML application in the list (see above).
3. Now that you have the FBML application installed, you need to “edit” it so that you can create “FBML” boxes (boxes on your Facebook page you can customize). In this case we want to add an opt-in box. Most autoresponder and email newsletter systems will generate “copy and paste” code you can use to put on your website. In another browser window, log into your autoresponder system and highlight and copy the opt-in box HTML code. Back in Facebook, paste that copied HTML code into the empty FBML box that shows when you edit the FBML application. Make sure to change its name (eg. “Free Report”) and click on Save.
4. Your new opt-in box will be added to your boxes tab (which will be created if not already there). If you like to have a new tab on your Facebook fan page for your opt-in box, you can click on the “+” (see below) to add it (in this example I’ve called the FBML box “Free Report”).

Now all that is needed here is some content explaining to the user why they should opt in!

Usernames are different from the actual page names in that they are like a vanity URL for your page. The page name is what appears on the page itself.

There is a catch, however, in that at least 25 people must “like” your new fan page before you are allowed to choose a username for it. For my partner Bonnie, social networker that she is, that wasn’t a problem, she achieved that within a day. Note to self, there is a reason you partner ….

Username for Facebook Fan Page

Contrary to what I thought, you don’t create a username for your page by editing the page. No you go to a separate URL to actually create it: facebook.com/username. If you have chosen a username for your personal profile it will show you that, and if you have any fan pages, there will be a second box with a dropdown list. Choose your page from that list and then type in your username. As it warns you, once chosen, you can’t change it, so choose wisely.

Making a Facebook Fan Page is relatively straight forward, there are just a few key decisions you need to make right and you can be done in minutes. Assuming you want to make a page from your personal profile (it is possible to create one from a business account, but that is off topic for this post), you log in facebook, and click on “ads and pages” in the list on the left. Click on pages again, and you will get to the Facebook Create Page Interface.

Create a Facebook Fan Page

Note that you have three choices, confusingly, none that call themselves a “Fan Page”:

• A Facebook Official Page
• A Community Page
• A Facebook Group

If what you want is a SEO friendly page to help market and brand your business, then what you want is the Official Page. However just to be complete, let’s look at the other options. The Official Page and Facebook Groups, when you create them, have one owner, you. However a Facebook Community Page, is intended to have many authors. Use a Community Page when you have a cause or topic that you want to gather a group around and create a discussion, but don’t use it to represent your brand. Facebook Groups can be useful for your business, however they are less useful from the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) perspective. Think of a Facebook Group as if you would a list you email to, and that is an approximate analogy. But you don’t “brand” a group of people you email, that is what the Official Page is for.

Ok now that is out of the way, we have a few more decisions to make.

Your next decision is to decide whether you are a local business, brand/product or a public figure. As far as I know this decision can’t be changed currently, so choose carefully. Once you have clicked on the option, you will get a drop down to define your choice further. In this case we are creating a fan page for a website about Breyer Horse Collectors, so I choose “website”. Finally you want to choose your page name. I went with all lower case no spaces because this is how the website name appears on the actual website: www.breyerhorsecollectors.com. Again this is something that can’t be changed later.

Click on “Create Official Page” and you are done! Now the next step is customizing and getting fans.

Bonnie wants a fan page for her website on collecting Breyer Horse Models. And she did create one … well not exactly. At first I was confused I could only see one page created from her account which had to do with her organic wheat business but nothing about Breyer Models. Then I realized what she had created was a Facebook application rather than an actual page.

In poking around discussions on Facebook pages, I’m picking up a lot of confusion among people creating and trying to use them. When you go to the create page, you have to decide whether you are an “official representative” of a brand, local, or public figure. You have to specify your page name. Turns out these things, once set, can’t be changed. The person that wanted to create a facebook page for their website and used http in the page name. Sorry, he has to start again with a new name. The person who decided their page was more of a brand than local business? Same answer.

A handy tool can be found at www.reclaimprivacy.org. What you do is drag and drop the scanner from the site to your bookmark bar, log into facebook and then click on “Scan for Privacy”. Most of my settings in the scan were tagged as “caution”. Only “friends can accidentally share your personal information” was marked as insecure. However clicking to fix and rescanning didn’t work. So I went and looked at the actual settings. Most of the information listed I really have no problem with people sharing. Many marketers would love to have their website shared .. even accidentally. I have turned off sharing of my religious and political views and relationship status (more because I don’t want to be targeted in any way rather than caring what is shared about me).

Some people really don’t want their information shared at all. Personally I think of facebook of a giant bulletin board. If you use it, you just need to accept that your privacy is limited on it, if you have stuff about you that you don’t want to be shared .. then just don’t post it. As Marty Cooper (father of the cell phone) recently said on a 60 minutes interview: “Sorry. Privacy is a thing of the past”.

Clearly, from the SEO perspective, a fan page is a force to be reckoned with.

I would be reamiss if I didn’t point out you don’t get this same SEO bang for your buck (well your labor buck) with facebook groups. If you want an alternative to an ESP (email service provider), maybe a facebook group is something for you to consider. But if you want your business to be found, do a fan page.

Being in the business of giving out web advice, I should do a fan page, right? And yes I’ve been meaning to for a while. But I haven’t quite aligned my internal thinking about facebook quite right yet. I mainly use facebook to catch up with friends, past colleagues. I get annoyed with the few marketers I am connected to that woodenly spit out their messaging out in posts day after day. Only a select few do it right by making it personal and inviting conversation.

So I haven’t quite come around to expanding my use of a tool I solely use on a personal basis to a blatant business use. And “fan” page? What an affront to my inner lone wolf. I have to ask people to become a fan? Ick. Not too mention that I have to deal with this needy wall thing that wants constant feeding. Did I mention I’m not a natural extrovert?

Facebook itself isn’t helping. There is that whole convoluted privacy thing that has everyone up in arms. Did you know that May 31st is Quit Facebook Day? And I quote “Quitting Facebook is like quitting smoking..”. Maybe I should sit back and see how this turns out.

However that would be just too easy. I’m in the business of giving web advice remember? Especially SEO advice. So I will create a fan page. Hold me to it and don’t let me waffle anymore.

Last week Facebook introduced a new feature that “allowed non Facebook partner sites to personalize your experience using your public Facebook data”. The partner sites listed are Microsoft Docs, Pandora, Yelp.

The fact that the default setting was “Allow” immediately touched off a furry of posts that urged friends to: “Go to Account > Privacy Settings > Applications and Websites and uncheck “Allow”. Please copy & repost.” I got at least 4 of them in one day. I did wonder whether most actually read through the feature, or just participated in the knee jerk reaction “there goes Facebook trampling on my privacy again”.

It’s easier to opt out than to think through the ramifications, which are pretty broad. First of all you have to think through what about you is public, not just public public, but to your network. Someone who is not my facebook friend can see quite bit about me because he is in my “network” (depending on how your privacy settings are set). And if my facebook friends don’t opt out, they can still share my public info with these sites, even if I opt out, to prevent that I have to explicitly block the actual applications. So perhaps it is time to review those settings again to more tightly control what is public.

Do I really want the guy in accounting to know I listen to speed death metal? That I gave a poor review to a steak house because I’m a militant vegetarian (for the record I like trip hop, electronica, folk and do eat meat). Do I really want my facebook identity linked with my yelp persona? A site that that tinkers with review placement?

I’ve done all of one (yes just one) yelp review, and I use last.fm more than pandora, so it’s not likely not that big of an issue for me, but sharing data like this is huge and will have unanticipated rippling effects. In the end it’s a control issue. Better make sure those electronic footprints show up where I want, so let’s opt out in a futile but proud gesture.

BTW, anyone see the South Park Facebook episode? Great episode, unfortunately overshadowed by the episode 201 controversy.

It seems for some of us, that twitter and facebook is the new virtual watercooler. For me at least it’s a handy way to track the goings on of my mostly past colleagues (and a few that are still present).

I know that one of my overseas colleagues is mad for cricket and tweets on the fortunes of his home team. I wasn’t surprised when one of my past colleagues was quoted in the Economist on his views on Cloud Computing, because I have followed his writing efforts on twitter. A past member of a team I managed has turned into quite the wine connoisseur. This is all courtesy of social media.

While not a substitute for real world interactions, Twitter and Facebook are not a bad placeholder for the social discourse I miss by not getting out of the house.

• Free Twitter Buttons
• Follow me Twitter Wordpress plugin
• Unique Twitter buttons from sociableblog
• Pointers to other sites that have twitter graphics
• Lots of twitter buttons to choose from
• Twitter (mostly blue on black) & Social Buttons, and Twitter Backgrounds

It’s no wonder that Facebook attracted 25 million new users in the last month alone.

Facebook, a phenomenon that started with the under 35 set, is maturing in both demographics and uses. Facebook was born in a Harvard dorm room in 2004 and originally only for college students. A year later, high school students were allowed in. In 2006, Facebook got rid of its gatekeepers and began letting anyone in.

Over the next year, it grew from 12 million to 50 million users. Then it launched versions in Spanish, French and German. Today about 175 million people are on Facebook.

While most Facebook users are younger than 35, so many older people are now using it that the portion of the college-age users has dropped to 41 percent. Robert Scoble, a blogging and social media technology expert, says eventually Facebook’s popularity will slow — but not any time soon. And it remains hip with the college crowd.

“Having older people there doesn’t affect your experience,” Scoble said. “It’s segregated. You have your friends and your whole experience there is based on who your friends are.”

Of course some overlap occurs. Parents are finding that Facebook is a good way to keep in touch with their college age children who previously forgot to email or call. Of course some young people in college may be a little wary of their parents keeping tabs on them that way, however most just remove a few pictures that the parents might not appreciate.

The older crowd is here to stay on Facebook, in fact UC Davis is examining the “effectiveness of social media used by the higher education sector to communicate philanthropic news”. In other words, UC Davis thinks there might be enough people on Facebook with enough cash to help fund higher education. Since Barack Obama’s successful presidential campaign, which heavily leveraged social media, it has become acceptable to run social media fundraising campaigns. Entrepreneurs are following suit and are using it to reinforce and create new business connections.

Think about the essence of a marketing campaign. You decide on your messaging and branding and with certain key activities you build momentum and buzz towards your event. This translates well to Facebook. Your Info tab .. or even better your business page, informs everyone about and even brands you and your business and your Facebook activity builds momentum towards the event you are marketing. It’s a natural fit.

Whether you plan to use the internet purely for personal reasons or you are looking for professional networking, Facebook will open doors you didn’t even know were there.