Getting your updates to appear in the coveted news feed is more challenging than ever.

I don’t have answers as to how the elusive Facebook algorithm works.

What I do have are some suggestions on how to ensure that your page posts are being seen by your fans to give your page the maximum visibility.

#1: Train Your Audience to Watch for Your Content

You want to make sure you are delivering good content so that your audience won’t want to miss a thing. The best way to do this is to work toward building super fans. Use these Facebook marketing strategies.

When you are delivering good content, interacting and building a community, your fans will come to your page on their own when they haven’t seen your posts. Be consistent with your posts (i.e., posting every day at 10 am, for example). Then your fans will know when they are missing something and come seek you out.

Your fans will come find you if you are delivering good content.

But then what? You can’t expect your audience always to come to you. That’s why you must take the next step.

#2: Educate Your Audience to Highlight Your Stories in Their News Feed

The good news is that Facebook pages are showing up in the news feed. People have a choice when viewing posts to highlight the story. When someone highlights a story, it indicates to Facebook that the person wants to see more stories like that one.

When a story has been highlighted, there is a little blue triangle in the upper-left corner of the story. Facebook typically chooses which stories to highlight based on past interactions, so getting more engagement (post likes, comments and shares) can also help indicate to Facebook that your page posts are important to a user.

The blue triangle in the upper-left corner indicates a highlighted story.

You can encourage highlighting by telling your audience to highlight your post so that they continue to see your posts. You won’t get any statistics about how many people actually do highlight your post, but you may get instant feedback and a better chance of showing up in the news feed!

Educate your fans on how they can keep getting your posts.

Notice how you can highlight a story by clicking on the blue arrow in the upper-right corner of a post that has not been highlighted.

To highlight a story, click the blue arrow in the upper-right corner.

Highlighting a story may be a good start to increasing your visibility, but there are other steps you can take to ensure it.

#3: Tell Your Audience to Create a Favorite Pages List

Again, make sure your audience knows that pages aren’t showing up in the news feed as often. If you are delivering good content and building relationships, your audience will want to stay in contact with you.

A way to ensure that people always see your posts is to have your fans put your page on a special “favorite pages” list. You will have to educate your audience how to create this list (sharing this post with them would be an easy way to accomplish this goal!).

The easiest way to create the favorite pages list is to follow these steps:

1. Go to your Lists on the left sidebar of your home page and click More.
2. Click Create a List in the upper-right corner.
   

   Create your new list.

3. Enter the name of your list in the pop-up box (you can call it “Favorite Pages” or “Tech Pages” or whatever makes sense for the pages that you will be adding to this list). Click Create.
4. On the right side, you can type in the names of the pages you want to add in the search box. But the easiest way is to click the drop-down menu Manage List and select Add/Remove Friends.
   

   Select Add/Remove Friends.

5. All of your friends are now showing in the pop-up box, but in order to see pages as well, you need to select Pages from the drop-down menu in the upper-left corner of the pop-up box. Now you can easily select the pages you wantto be on this list.
   

   Find the pages you want to add to the list by selecting Pages.

After you have created your list, all you have to do to see all of your favorite page updates is to click on the Favorite Page list (or whatever you titled your list) on the left sidebar under the Lists heading. You can also make this a Favorite item so it’s always showing at the top of your left sidebar as shown in this screenshot.

Add your list to your favorites so you can access it with just one click.

To add a list to your favorites, navigate to your lists by clicking More next to the lists on the left sidebar and navigating to the list name. Click on the pencil icon and then select Add to Favorites.

Select Add to Favorites.

#4: Leverage the Facebook Subscribe Button

Because personal profile posts are being shown more in the news feed, you may want to start using your personal profile more for business. Facebook terms state that you aren’t supposed to “use your personal profile for commercial gain” as shown under their Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, point #4.  But you can talk about your business! Direct people to your blog posts, give helpful tips and talk about what events you are participating in.

If you are worried about privacy, the Facebook privacy settings have gotten better so you can control who sees each update. Your customers want to connect with you personally on Facebook (not just via your Facebook page) and the Subscribe button will give them that personal connection.

If you are the face of your company, or are networking and connecting with people, leverage the Subscribe button by enabling it. Find out more about the Subscribe button in our post here.

Mari Smith recently included similar posts on her Facebook page and her Facebook timeline. Her post to her personal profile got almost 4 times as much engagement (comments, shares and likes). To be fair, she does have almost twice as many subscribers (113,000) as fans (60,628) but that in itself is amazing as she has had her Facebook page up for years but her Subscribe button open for less than a year.

Mari's post on her fan page.

Mari's similar post on her personal profile got almost 4 times as much interaction.

One other powerful part of the Subscribe button is that Facebook is giving suggestions of whom to subscribe to within Facebook. Navigate around and you will see these suggestions in the upper-left corner of certain pages. Yet another way you can gain exposure with a new audience!

Facebook suggests "People To Subscribe To."

I hope these four suggestions give you some new ideas on how to gain visibility for your business with both your Facebook page and by adding your Facebook profile into your marketing strategy.

How about you? What do you think about the decreased exposure of Facebook page posts? Have you found your interaction has gone down or stayed about the same? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

You know it’s important to measure your social media marketing performance, and the new Facebook Insights will make this easier for you.

Locating Facebook Insights

First things first—where do you find these metrics? They are accessed on the left sidebar underneath your profile picture by clicking on the Insights link.

Click Insights to see more options: Likes, Reach and Talking About This.

We aren’t going to cover every term, definition and nuance in this post because that would be a small book. Most of the terms have a “?” nearby that you can click on to get the definition.

You can also read more in this useful Facebook Insights Guide: http://ads.ak.facebook.com/ads/creative/insights/page-insights-guide.pdf (Note that this guide has graphs and charts that aren’t actually shown, or some are shown slightly differently than in the guide. Facebook may have changed the way they are displaying the data but most of it is relevant.)

We will cover how to interpret the best metrics to help you decipher what is going right and wrong on your page.

#1: Main Insights

First click on Main Insights and you see a graph of the activity for the last month.

The most important part of the main section is the different ways you can view the individual posts.

When you click on the individual columns, you will sort the posts by descending value in the column.

• Reach is the number of unique users who saw your post.
• Engaged Users is the number of unique people who have clicked on your post.
• Talking About This is the number of people who have Liked, commented on or shared your post, or responded to the question or event.
• Virality is the “Talking About This” number divided by the “Reach” number.

The most important of these columns are Engaged Users and Virality.

Watch what types of posts are getting the best engagement.

You will also know what type of post you’re viewing by the icon next to the post.

• Green quotations: Status update
• Film: Video
• Note with a pin: A link or an application that posted on your behalf.
• Square that looks like an outline of a person in a picture: Pictures

In the above graphic, when we sorted by Engaged Users, we can see that the top three posts are all photos. So we know that if we want to focus on getting more engaged users, we should post pictures. See what types of posts are working for you by sorting the columns.

#2: Reach

When you dive into the Reach section, you first see a chart of demographics of people who have seen any content about your page within the last week.

Below that are the How You Reach People graphs. The one on the right shows the Unique Users by Frequency in a rolling one-week time frame.

The statistic to watch here is the number of people you are reaching more frequently. This is your core audience.

Monitor how many times people are seeing your content each week.

If you are not reaching people multiple times with your posts, you may have to adjust your strategy. Experiment with posting more often, focusing on getting more engagement so that your post comes up more in your fans’ news feed. You may need to do something more involved like running a contest or Facebook ad to reconnect with your audience.

The next graph shows Page Views and Unique Visitors and below this graph is one of the most interesting areas of Insights, the External Referrers.

Watch where people are coming from. If the only external referrer is Google, you need to get the word out about your page. Guest post on websites and blogs and use your page address in the bio.

In the example below, the Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies fan page was mentioned in a review post on Social Media Examiner. Find ways to work your Facebook page address in multiple areas across the web.

Monitor which tabs people are looking at and how people are finding your page.

#3: Likes

The next area of metrics is the Likes area. This area breaks out your fans by demographics, which can be useful for future ad campaigns. The area to watch in this section is the Where Your Likes Came From graph.

Watch the spikes of Likes and Unlikes to correlate what you are doing right and wrong on those days.

In this particular page’s graph, we can go back and track the posts on the wall to see what happened during the spikes.

On November 18, eight photos were posted within a fairly close time period, which may have caused the Unlikes. On December 2 and December 6, a highly shared recipe (on this food-based page) combined with an open-ended question that resulted in big participation on both days may have been the cause for the spikes in Likes. Pay attention to what’s working.

#4: People Talking About This

The People Talking About This number is publicly displayed on the left sidebar under the number of Likes. This figure is a great measure of actual engagement.

The "talking about this" number is publicly displayed on every Facebook page.

It includes all the following activities that happen on your page over a one-week rolling period:

• Liking a page
• Posting to a page’s wall
• Liking, commenting on or sharing a page post (or other content on a page, like photos, videos or albums)
• Answering a question posted
• RSVPing to an event
• Mentioning a page in a post
• Phototagging a page
• Liking or sharing a check-in deal
• Checking in at a place (if your page has a place merged with it)

The best part of this statistic is that you can see it on any page—meaning it’s public information! Now you can tell if a page is interacting with people. Big fan numbers don’t mean that the page is healthy. The People Talking About This statistic is the one to watch. Watch your competitors’ numbers to monitor what is working for them. For an accurate picture, take the People Talking About This number and divide it by the total number of fans. Healthy pages have percentages between 1% and 5% (or more for great interaction).

The graphs on the actual People Talking About This page within Insights aren’t as interesting as the overview on the main page. Watch trends in your numbers. See in this graph how the People Talking About This number was trending downward.

In the next figure, the admins of the page took some drastic measures by asking people to click Like on a post on December 7 to increase the “People Talking About This” number. You can see the jump in the numbers reflected in the graph. If people aren’t interacting with your page, you will drop out of the news feed.

Sometimes you need to change tactics to get interaction.

The new Facebook Insights has improved how you can track the health of your page and you can immediately see when you need to make some adjustments to your strategy. Try new things, monitor what’s working and what isn’t, and take your Facebook page to the next level!

I hope this gives you some great ideas on how to use the new Facebook Insights to monitor and grow your audience.

What do you think?  What metrics are you using to help your Facebook strategy? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

With so much focus on managing the wall and running promotions, Facebook page security is often overlooked.

The good news is that Facebook’s security is actually quite effective. SSL encryption greatly reduces the chance of a page being hacked by a malicious script to take over the page or bypass its content.

However, while Facebook’s security from external threats is great, there are still threats that every page admin needs to be aware of.

So here are five ways to keep your page safe and secure.

#1: Moderate your page’s admins

Many companies collect page admins over time because they fail to remove old ones. Add up the social media managers, graphic artists, web designers and even interns, and pages can have dozens of admins.

However, administrative privileges to your business Facebook page should only be granted to a handful of people and only for as long as necessary.

Keep the number of your page admins small, ensuring that only necessary, current personnel have admin access.

I once did some design work for a company’s Facebook page, so I was given admin privileges. I was shocked to find they had nearly 40 admins, most of them student interns who were only with the company for a semester.

Years later, these former interns still had the same permissions as they did during their internships. Any of these people could, at any time, post new content to the page, remove content and change admin privileges for others.

Because admin privileges give an individual so much power over a company’s image and online presence, manage your admins as closely as possible.

It’s a best practice for companies to write Facebook admin rules into their HR policy: If a person is no longer involved in a Facebook project, their admin privileges need to be removed immediately, and whenever an admin leaves the company, their admin privileges need to be removed immediately.

#2: Be App-rehensive

Do research before you use a third-party application on your page. You need to know what information the app accesses and make sure the developing company is as committed to security as you are, because if they get hacked, your information could be compromised.

Any upstanding app will use SSL encryption, segregated databases, cloud-based redundancy, expiring passwords and expiring data purges, so look for these precautions from your third-party apps.

You also need to make sure the app doesn’t ask for more information or access than it needs. There are many “spammy” apps that provide limited functionality, but ask for lots of information and access.

If an app that does nothing more than pose a poll question wants access to your fans, the ability to post to your wall and a dozen other things, look elsewhere. A simple app with simple functionality doesn’t need all that permission.

Apps that require extensive permission also require extensive scrutiny on your part.

However, if you’re using something like a custom tab app, expect it to ask for advanced permissions. But clarify with the developer or the company what they’re doing with the information they access, why they need the permissions they’re seeking and inquire about the security precautions they take.

#3: Change and protect your password

I can’t imagine anyone in this day and age not reading that headline and thinking “well, duh.” Everyone knows they’re supposed to change their passwords regularly, and to something that’s obscure enough to throw even themselves.

However, there are so many instances of stolen passwords, I’d like to take it a step further: Never use the same password for two different web platforms.

Remember the PlayStation Network debacle from 2011? No matter how careful you are with your passwords, your information can be stolen if a website you use regularly gets hacked. So if that message board you post on or your fantasy sports league’s website gets hacked, and you use that same login and password for Facebook, your page could easily be hacked.

It does get tricky managing numerous passwords and changing them frequently, so sign up for a password management program like Passpack to keep things straight.

Save time when logging into online accounts with the Passpack It! login button. Works on your iPhone, iPad and Android too.

#4: Moderate the wall

This might not seem like security in the classic sense, but your page needs to be safe for your users; which means you, the admin, need to be active on your page. If you’re working for a big brand with thousands of fans but you aren’t moderating the wall, opportunistic scammers can take note and post malicious links or content that undermine your brand’s image or reputation.

Then your wall fills up with links to help an African prince post bail (he’ll repay you several hundred-fold, honest!), get a credit report (just enter your credit card info!) and lose weight fast (just visit this site to… whoops, you’ve got malware!).

Most Facebook users are savvy enough to recognize a scam, but you don’t want your fans to even have to think about clicking a link on your wall. So moderate all posts to your wall and make your page a safe place for your fans to visit.

#5: Take advantage of Facebook’s Blocklists

Along the lines of providing a safe haven for your fans, use Facebook’s Moderation Blocklists to keep undesirable content off of your wall.

Click on “Edit Page” and then “Manage Permissions” to access and update your list. Simply type in the words you want filtered out and the Moderation Blocklist will screen not just your fans’ posts, but comments to posts as well. All blocked content shows up in a spam folder that’s visible to you, but not your fans.

Keep undesired content off of your wall with Facebook's Blocklists.

While you’re at it, try adding some “spammy” keywords that have nothing to do with your brand.

What do you think? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

Do you have a pretty nice fan base, but you’re struggling to come up with ideas to engage them on a daily basis?

One proven approach is to help your fans.

Here are 3 techniques used by some of the most successful Facebook pages. Try them on your page to see how your fans respond!

#1: Become a resource

Despite the level of connection you think you have with your fans on Facebook, many still express pleasant surprise when you respond to them personally on the social network.

Use fan names when you can, and respond one-on-one to the comments they make. This proves to fans you are listening and are receptive to their commentary and feedback, making it more likely that they will post in the future.

Moreover, invite conversation by asking your fans’ opinions on topics, or asking them to tell you what sorts of content they’d appreciate.

Everybody likes being asked, and fans feel extra-appreciated when you fulfill these desires—so don’t ask them for input you never intend to use or incorporate.

In the example below, Time Warner Cable demonstrates an inconsistent response strategy toward different users. While “Sharon” got her request attended to by the page administrator, “Regina” reports frustration that her posts are being removed instead of replied to, indicating that she had posted additional comments earlier than the final post visible in the thread.

If your brand strategy is to be a resource to all fans, it is important that you treat all fan comments in the same way by responding to all of them, no matter the sentiment.

In the responses to this status update by Time Warner Cable, several fans voice concerns with the company, but only one gets a response. Seeing this, users like "Regina" become upset about being ignored and become even more vocal.

One example of this kind of open interaction strategy working very successfully is our own continued initiative to build out a Facebook fan page community of marketers, business owners and social media managers interested in sharing knowledge about social media (as well as Wildfire!).

We have found over time that our most engaging posts, which get the most feedback from our users, are consistently the ones where we invite people to post any question they have about social media or invite them to have their pages reviewed by social media professionals.

The key is to follow up (even for just an hour) with all of the questions and actually answer them. Because the promise to answer any question is not an empty promise, the users become confident that their questions can be answered and trust the brand for it.

An excellent example of a smaller business getting engagement right with great messaging strategies comes from the Pennsylvania Macaroni Company, an imported foods store in Pittsburgh.

As of this writing, the store had just under 1,100 fans. Their social media manager told me they regularly get over 1% engagement on their posts, a great figure for their size.

In this screenshot, we can see that the store's informal and kind-mannered one-on-one interactions with its fans help to grow a loyal and happy community.

#2: Offer your services, free

What is your brand known for? What would you like it to be known for? If you provide a product or a particular service like consulting or advisement, consider offering your fans a taste of it every once in a while for free!

According to eMarketer, the #1 reason users become fans of a brand on Facebook is to gain access to exclusive content, events or sales. Your brand can capitalize on this desire while leveraging the brand’s capabilities by giving users an occasional exclusive pass to experience the business, free.

Here are several examples of companies doing this on Facebook, to the delight of their users:

Rue La La, an online boutique of designer merchandise and clothing, knows many of its fans are in tune with fashion trends and enjoy thinking about design, clothing and style. As such, one of their most popular fan page “events” is a weekly invitation for fans to join a stylist on the page for an hour of live interaction.

Because typically most people don’t have access to a personal stylist or advice from one, Rue La La creates an environment where fans can happily expect this recurring event.

Fans can post any of their style questions, and the stylist will respond to all of them within the hour, right on the fan page, free.

We use this technique at Wildfire as well.

Every week, these invitations to post are the most consistently popular updates! Even the users who don’t get their pages reviewed that week leave feedback that they enjoy watching the advice for other fan pages, and that the learning experience is valuable.

Every week on the Wildfire fan page, users are offered the chance to get their fan pages reviewed by an expert for free.

#3: Make your fan page a complete knowledge hub

When brainstorming how to entice users to join and interact with your brand, the challenge is to come up with ways to encourage them to interact with the page continuously over time and prevent disengagement.

For brands that have a rich background or require a fair amount of user education, creating a fan page containing valuable resources and information that benefit the user is essential. The goal is to capture users with an initial promotion, and to keep them returning to your page for information even after the promotion is over.

An example of a page that achieved this goal is Webroot, a software company that distributes security applications and programs.

The initial user pull is the promotion Webroot has set up on its landing page. Users visit the Facebook page for a chance to win high-value prizes such as airline tickets, electronics and kitchen appliances.

Webroot created a powerful, resource-rich page about its products and services, including a tab with educational slide decks, a full customer support portal ("Ask Webroot"), an explanatory splash page about their mobile security products and even a collection of YouTube videos about the software.

Recognizing that its promotion would drive considerable traffic to its page, Webroot created a powerful, resource-rich page about its products and services, including a tab with educational slide decks, a full customer support portal (“Ask Webroot”), an explanatory splash page about their mobile security products, and even a collection of YouTube videos about the software.

Webroot has created a resource rich page for their fans and visitors on Facebook. Not only do they include a tab for a virtual agent that users can interact with to "Ask Webroot," but they also have a collection of product related videos in the "Videos" tab and information about how to start a free trial in a separate "Free Trial" tab.

As a result, users who visited Webroot’s page to participate in the promotion were also exposed to the page’s valuable content, which gave them a reason to return. In turn, Webroot created a full-service, user-friendly community through its Facebook page, a place where fans go to access information about the company.

Now that you’ve seen several examples of companies helping their fans help themselves, what’s the first approach you are planning to take with your fan page? Putting together a library of resources? Testing the waters by giving away some free services? I’d love to hear from you! Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

This article takes a detailed look at how the News Ticker, Smart Lists, News Feed, Subscribe feature and Timeline will impact marketers and business owners.

It’s been quite a rollercoaster recently with all the new Facebook changes. Some changes have already happened (i.e., News Feed and the new Smart Lists) and other changes will be coming as a result of the Facebook F8 conference.

Let’s dive into these changes in detail and talk about the changes to come in the next few weeks with the new Facebook Timeline.

#1: The News Feed Ticker

Probably the most controversial change is the addition of the News Feed Ticker. Some people hate it; others love it. But the one thing you can’t do is easily hide it. Although there are some workarounds.

The News Feed Ticker shows all the comments, posts, likes, friendships and events of all of your friends, pages and subscriptions.

The Ticker contains posts and “activity stories” (such as friends commenting on other posts, liking pages, RSVPing to events, etc.) but now the “recent stories” area contains only posts (which can include status updates, pictures, links and videos) by friends, pages, subscriptions and stories posted by apps (such as YouTube or Networked Blogs).

The Ticker is very real-time and shows who is doing what on Facebook right now. By clicking on the down arrow in the upper-right corner of a post, you can have more control over what you see from that person or the app that posted the story.

Click the down arrow in the upper-right corner to adjust the settings for posts.

The “activity stories” are what appear in the Ticker, so if you don’t want to see every move made by a person, you can unsubscribe to their activity stories. You’ll still get updates when that person posts something in their status bar. You can also decide if you don’t want to see updates from a certain type of application as shown in the picture above.

Something interesting about the Ticker is that previous posts by pages and friends may have a longer life than they did before. When someone comments or replies to a previous post, the story of that comment shows up in the Ticker and you can then click on the story to see the whole post again as shown in the figure below.

Posts have a longer life due to follow-up comments.

One benefit of the Ticker is if you have friends who are also connected to your fan page, and you see that they’ve replied to your fan page post in the Ticker, you can reply as your page right from the Ticker. But only if you have your Posting Preferences set to “Always Comment as your Page.” Find this setting in the Edit Page area of your Facebook page, and then select “Your Settings.”

Reply as your page right from the Ticker.

#2: Smart Lists

Smart Lists were also introduced. Mari Smith taught us how to make a Friends List in the Facebook 101 for Business Guide, but many people still haven’t made one. These lists help us keep track of posts by certain groups of people. And many of us have found that they were sometimes difficult to maintain when we made new friends.

Your New Lists are on the left sidebar of your Home page.

Facebook automatically creates several lists:

• Close Friends: Facebook does not actually pick your close friends (thankfully), but they do have a list of suggestions based on whom you interact with the most. When you put people on this list, you’ll see all of their updates.
• Acquaintances: Again, this list is not automatically populated, but if you add people to this list, you’ll see fewer of their updates in your News Feed.
• Work (based on your employment listing): If you add someone to this list, he/she will get a notification to confirm employment at this location. Facebook will add that employer to their profile. So only add people to this list if you actually work at the same place.
• School (both high school and college): These lists are self-populating, meaning that any Facebook friends of yours who list your high school or college in their profile will be put on this list. It is also self-updating for new Facebook friends you make or Facebook friends who later add this information to their profile.
• Family: If you have people who previously indicated they were related to you, they’ll be on this list. It’ll be self-updating for people who indicate they are family of yours; otherwise, you’ll have to manually add people to this list.
• Your city (set to a 10-mile radius around your city): This is another self-updating list for any Facebook friends who list your city in their profiles. You can set the radius of this list to include more people by clicking on the list on the left sidebar and selecting the “10 miles” hyperlink at the top of the page. You’ll then see a box where you can edit the radius as shown in this picture.

Change the radius of your area to include more people on this list.

If you’ve already created Friends lists, they are all still available. And maybe you’ve already created a list for local friends or family. You can merge these lists together by clicking on your list and clicking Manage List in the upper-right corner.

It's easy to merge your lists.

You can also easily send a post just to this list by clicking on the list, and then updating your status within the list.

Update your status just to people in your lists from within the list.

You can also send an update to certain lists at any time by clicking on the dropdown menu to the left of the Post button.

Control which list can see your posts.

One frustrating thing about Smart Lists is that you can’t delete them, you can only hide them. Click the pencil next to the list to hide it or add it to your favorites. If you have a list that you want easy access to, click More next to the lists, find that list and click the pencil next to it to add it to your favorites and now it’ll appear on your left sidebar.

Add a list to favorites.

#3: The News Feed

The News Feed has changed. There is no longer the Top News and Most Recent to toggle between, now there are Top Stories and Recent Stories. The Top Stories are things Facebook thinks you might be interested in based on your interaction in the past. The Recent Stories are in chronological order.

Top Stories appear at the top and Recent Stories are below.

If you check Facebook more frequently, you won’t have as many Top Stories because everything will be in the Recent Stories area.

As mentioned earlier, only posts such as status updates, photos, videos, check-ins and posts from applications like Networked Blogs appear in the News Feed. The “Activity Stories” will be posted in the Ticker.

The other change to the News Feed is the larger photo size.

#4: The Subscribe Button

The Subscribe Button allows you to make your personal profile more public. You can allow subscribers to see your public updates. You may not have wanted to friend people and weren’t sure about making a fan page. The Subscribe button is perfect for a more public person who wants to allow more connection with people.

To allow subscribers, go to www.facebook.com/about/subscribe. Edit your Subscriber settings and make sure you’re using the dropdown menu next to the Post button when you update your status to control who can see your posts.

Edit your Subscriber settings.

You can subscribe to others if they have a Subscribe button on their profile.

Subscribe to others.

Now a question you may have is, “Should I create a Facebook page or should I just allow subscribers?” Here are differences as shown on the Facebook+Public Figures page:

Differences between the Subscribe button and a Facebook page.

#5: Timeline

Now to get to the Facebook Timeline and other F8 announcements. The personal profile page is now called the Timeline. Facebook describes it as “All your stories, all your Apps, a new way to express who you are.” It’s also been described as your personal scrapbook.

The new Timeline.

You can update your status from here and your friends can still write something directly on your Timeline.

You now have one large picture at the top that you can change and update but it doesn’t change unless you change it (unlike the photostrip that was updated with your most recent photos). You can choose something recent that you were doing as your photo or have an artistic picture to express yourself.

Make your photo artistic.

One thing that I like about the new Timeline is the ability to go back in time. Click on View Activity or click on a date on the right side to a date in your Facebook history.

Rediscover what you were doing on a certain date.

You have options on your Timeline to hide stories, feature a story or change the privacy settings.

Use the editing features on your Timeline.

Other changes that came out of the F8 conference include Facebook partnerships with apps such as Spotify (music), Netflix, Hulu and the Guardian among many others. These apps will help Facebook differentiate itself from Google+.

So far there are no immediate changes seen for Facebook Pages. Facebook Pages will still continue to have the same look and feel for the time being, but most likely they will be updated to reflect the look of the personal Timelines. As all the changes are to the personal profiles, there are no actions to take for page administrators. We’ll continue to monitor the effect of the new Ticker and News Feed on engagement for Pages and keep you posted on the results!

What about you? What do you think of all the Facebook changes? Leave your thoughts and comments in the box below.

Keep reading to discover nine ways you can build loyal fans who’ll love your business.

In a recently published infographic, Moontoast illustrates a Facebook fan’s journey from a “Potential Fan” all the way to a “Super Fan.” The image below shows a fan’s progression.

Moontoast shows how a fan's level of interest with a brand can move from light to heavy engagement.

Moontoast says Super Fans are Facebook users who have given you access to their data via their Facebook profile, purchased from you and also encouraged another fan to purchase from you as well. There’s no doubt we all want an abundance of Super Fans!

So how do you move a Potential Fan all the way up the ranks to Super Fan?

For starters, it takes time. Facebook success rarely happens overnight and unless you are a huge brand like Zappos or Target, patience, persistence, and hustle are all required to create a successful Facebook page.

There are also specific actions you can take to create a thriving Facebook page full of Super Fans.

The following nine core strategies will help you streamline your Facebook activity and turn your Facebook page into a success story.

#1: Give your page a human touch

The most successful companies on Facebook are those that step out from behind their logo and let the people behind the brand represent their Facebook page. The goal is to communicate with your fans as though you were talking to your friends, and let your personality come through in each post.

One of the ways to do this is to step away from your niche once in a while and show your personal side through entertaining posts and photos. Change things up a bit and share details about your experiences and everyday life.

Have you taken a fun trip recently? Post some pictures of your vacation to let your fans see a different side of you. Or maybe you see something funny while you’re out and about—share it! Snap a photo of it and post it to your wall with a fun caption.

Guy Kawasaki, author of Enchantment, does this on a regular basis and his fans love it. The reason we are intrigued with Guy’s posts is because we get to see the real side of him, not just the author/expert side of Guy.

When you visit Guy's Facebook page, you'll often find posts and photos that give you a peek at Guy's entertaining journeys outside of work.

#2: Become a content machine

Always make sure that your content educates, entertains and empowers your fans to keep them engaged and coming back for more. The key to a successful content strategy is to consistently create new content and mix up your media often.

For example, some of your fans might respond better to video than text, while others might be drawn to the images in your posts. To make sure you’re attracting the attention of your diverse group of fans, post your content in a variety of ways.

iPhone Life Magazine does a great job of always showing fun images with each text post. Images and videos are the top two types of content that Facebook users gravitate to the most.

One simple way to do this is mix up your blog posts by posting written blogs, video blogs and audio posts. Regularly drive traffic from your Facebook page to your blog to introduce your fans to a variety of content.

#3: Cultivate engagement with two-way dialogue

Imagine this: You haven’t talked to your good friend in a while, so you call her up. When she answers the phone you say, “Hi! How’ve you been?” But before your friend can answer, you hang up the phone. That would be odd, right?

Well, essentially that’s what you are doing each time you post a Facebook update and then instantly move on to a new task before waiting for a few fan responses so you can engage in a conversation.

Make sure you never miss an opportunity to thank a fan for reaching out. Replying to your fans' posts shows them you really do care about what they have to say.

Real success on Facebook happens when you mirror real-life situations. Don’t “post and ditch;”  instead, stay around a few minutes to get involved in the conversation. True engagement happens in the “back and forth.”

#4: Create consistent calls to action

Facebook gives brands the optimal opportunity to create genuine relationships with their prospects and customers. But it’s also a great platform for moving your fans to action. One of the best ways to move a Potential Fan to a Super Fan is to start out with simple calls to action.

To do this, start out by posting valuable content, such as interesting articles and videos related to your niche, and accompany this content with simple calls to action such as “click this” or “watch this.” The valuable content will show your fans that you’re an authority and consistently post good stuff.

Also, consider offering discounts and specials or ask your fans to sign up for your newsletter. These are all low-investment calls to action that will help you build trust and affinity over time.

Zappos does a great job of mixing up their calls to action on their Facebook page. Some include value-added content as you can see above with the call to "CLICK PLAY" to participate in the live fashion Q&A video. Others are more promotional, such as "Click here to check out our new summer flip flops!"

#5: Make word-of-mouth advocacy easy

Studies have shown that social media users tend to trust their friends and peers more than they trust brands. It makes sense. If you were looking to try out a new restaurant, would you rather get a recommendation from a friend who just had a great meal or the restaurant that’s promoting its latest special?

Word of mouth matters, especially on Facebook. To get your fans talking about you, the key is to make it easy to spread the word.

One great way to do this is to create a contest or promotion that rewards fans for spreading the word. By using a platform such as Wildfire, you can track and reward the fans who invite their friends to join your contest.

This sweepstakes by Kudzu promises extra chances to win for every friend you encourage to enter the contest.

#6: Encourage fan-to-fan conversations

Enhance your fans’ experience by creating a community that encourages your fans to interact with each other. One surefire way to do this is to spotlight your fans. When you create opportunities such as “fan of the week” or recognize top contributors, you are giving your fans an opportunity to get to know each other.

Social Media Examiner regularly highlights a fan of the week on their Facebook page and always makes a point to link to their fans’ websites to give them free exposure.

This generous gesture also allows fans to get to know the fan of the week even better.

#7: Focus on smart branding

You have multiple opportunities when it comes to branding your Facebook page. One option is to make your Facebook page an extension of your website to spark familiarity when your existing customers visit your page. Another option is to make it different from your own website so your fans experience a sense of exclusivity when they become a fan of your Facebook community.

Crafty Mumma's Facebook page is a great example of smart branding.

No matter if you want to create familiarity or a sense of exclusivity, it’s important to make your page dynamic and interesting so it will stand out from the rest. One way to do this is to create custom tabs that showcase your programs, products and services and tie in the look and feel of your brand. The key is to make it obvious who you are and what you’re about. Short videos that tell your fans about your business, mission statements and easily identifiable logos and images are great additions to a branded custom tab.

#8: Be deliberate and manage expectations

One of the most important questions to ask as you create your Facebook marketing plan is, “What do we want to achieve with our Facebook page and overall marketing on Facebook?” Often your Facebook vision will be closely aligned with your company’s vision.

For example, let’s say you own a local running shoe store. Your vision for your retail store may be to sell the most high-tech, top-of-the-line running shoes and running gear to all the avid runners in your local community.

As an extension of your company vision, your vision on Facebook may be to create a community of like-minded people who openly share their running stories and give each other support and advice. Over time your Facebook page becomes the ultimate hub for avid runners and you begin to attract runners from cities beyond your local community and you start to sell your top-of-the-line running shoes to people all over the world. Setting a clear vision can lead to lucrative opportunities.

When you create a vision for your Facebook efforts, your actions are more deliberate and have purpose and your fans clearly understand what your page has to offer.

If you’re just starting out developing your Facebook mission, one great place to start is with your fans’ expectations. What can your fans expect when they become a fan of your page? One optimal place to display expectations is on a custom welcome tab so all of your new fans will know what to expect before they start engaging on your wall. The following example is from the Facebook page of Pam Hendrickson Consulting.

Notice how Pam tells her fans exactly what they can expect when they join her Facebook community. This is the first step in creating your Facebook vision.

#9: Monitor, measure, and track

With the rise of social media, your customers are now all social customers. They love to share, chat, post, Like and comment, and when they have something important to say (good, bad or worse), they are quick to share it on their social networks. Their comments run the gamut from the best raves to the worst rants. This is why monitoring is so essential to social media marketing.

Social Media Examiner often gets great raves on their Facebook page. They monitor their page closely so they can respond to all comments.

In addition to listening to your fans, you should also do a reality check to find out whether all of your social media activities are worth your time and effort. To make sure you’re on track, first you want to set your key performance indicators.

To figure these out, ask these three questions:

1. What do I want to achieve?
2. What does success look like? What are the indicators of my success?
3. How often will I check in to evaluate my progress?

Once you answer these questions, make sure you have surefire methods in place that enable you to consistently track your Facebook marketing progress. The tools you choose will largely depend on the level of measuring and tracking your company needs. Most likely you’ll want to use a few different tools to get a clear picture of the overall activity on your Facebook page.

If you’re new to social media analytics or are looking for a few new ideas to add to your tracking arsenal, consider these areas for monitoring and tracking.

Here are a few areas you might consider monitoring:

• The names of key people in your company
• Your company name
• All brand names associated with your company
• Product and service names
• Competitor names
• Industry- or niche-specific keywords

Here are a few areas you might consider measuring and tracking:

• Engagement
• Brand awareness
• Influence
• Sentiment
• New Likes/unsubscribes
• Click activity
• Financial return
• Conversion rates

Now it’s your turn! Applying these nine strategies will help you sort through the many layers of Facebook marketing. If you’ve tested any of these strategies already or plan to do so in the near future, leave a comment in the box below and let us know.

Keep reading…

There are several lesser-realized features on and around your Facebook page that can be optimized to best reflect your brand.

Let’s break down your page visually into 5 major parts to understand best how to optimize your Facebook page:

The tips below will encompass advice about how to optimize areas #1-5 shown above, including taking a look at the featured photos, left-side links panel, impressions and feedback on the wall, featured likes, and wall tab display.

#1: Featured Photos

Any photo you upload to your page automatically flies up to the featured photo feed, a row of 5 photos that will change position every time a visitor lands on the page. We’ve seen examples of some brands getting creative with this panel and using it for branding. But because you have to account for the pictures changing order each time the profile is refreshed, you might need to come up with branding imagery that remains consistent no matter what order it’s viewed in.

Because any pictures you upload automatically go into the strip, including wall photos that you upload as part of a status update, the only way to remove photos is to manually delete them from the strip as you see them appear. This will not remove them from your albums, only from the top of your profile. User-uploaded photos will not go into the strip.

It’s worthwhile to consider how you want the strip to appear to your visitors. A collection of random photos of people in the distance may not grab visitors’ attention. Optimizing the photos in the strip and selecting only closeup shots of your employees or your products may give you a new opportunity to engage visiting users.

Let’s look at some examples of interesting uses of the photo strip by brands:

Hanes uses their photo strip as advertising space to promote a giveaway on their page. This serves to grab attention of users visiting the wall and works any way the pictures get ordered. It also promotes further activity within the Hanes page—telling users to click on another tab on that page in order to participate.

Steve Madden's fan page also gives special treatment to the 5-photo strip. Here, the photos are used to depict new items from that season's collection, as well as a 30% off sale that's happening. Again, it's worthwhile to note that no matter in which order the pictures appear, the message in the strip remains clear.

#2: The Left-Side Links Panel

All Facebook pages have a panel of links on the left-side navigation which, when clicked, open the application in tab view, right in the fan page.

Every fan page comes with 3 default applications native to the Facebook platform: Wall, Info, and Photos. Of those 3, only Photos is removable—Wall and Info are mandatory to maintain a page.

You can install as many other applications to your page as you want, of course. Most will either be third-party applications like promotions or applications you create yourself using iFrames.

It’s important to note that there is a concept of above or below the fold within the links panel: only 8 links are visible to visitors at first. To see more, users need to click “More,” and that’s something we can’t always count on people to do. For this reason, you want to make sure you’re displaying the most important tabs above the fold, in the top 8 links.

Below is an example of a page, for the North Face, where some of the most interesting tabs are hidden below the fold, a result of which may be that scores of users might not stick around long enough to find and engage with them:

This is the North Face page for all new visitors. The first 8 left-panel links are displayed, along with the "More" function to display the rest.

On expansion of the links panel, we can see that North Face actually has 3 additional custom applications hidden below the fold.

When the “More” button is clicked on the North Face page, 3 additional tabs are revealed, all of which are custom-created, including the one pictured above. This tab contains a well-designed interactive page with video.

While there have not yet been studies conducted to see how many users click “More” when viewing rows of links in a panel, we can assume there would be significant dropoff, leading this page to have lowered exposure, and become a marketing effort lost on many users who never see it.

The good news is that it’s very easy to change the order of how the links appear in the panel. When you’re logged in as administrator of the page, you’ll see an option to “Edit” right underneath the links. Once you click, you’ll notice that the editable links gray out and can be dragged up and down to change their placement, or deleted outright from the panel.

#3: Rolling Feedback

When you’re logged in as an administrator of your page(s), Facebook displays handy rolling feedback with every post you make. This makes it very easy to see trends of interaction on your page by content type, time of day or frequency. This also makes it easier for you to assess how you’re doing over time (rather than analyzing these particular traits inside “Insights,” which doesn’t show what type of message it was, like a post with a photo, or a post containing a hyperlink).

The numbers won’t show for approximately 12 hours after you post, as the EdgeRank algorithm is still working to determine how much reach your post will get. Once a baseline reach has been determined, according to the initial hours of popularity your post has garnered, the numbers will show up and can change over time as more (or fewer) people interact with your page.

Let’s assess some trends I can learn about the fan page I administer for Wildfire Interactive in the screenshots below:

Two trends I can assess for this audience are 1) certain types of posts I make inspire many more likes than comments, and 2) other types inspire more comments than likes.

In the screenshot above, both posts, which were made one day apart, are successful by the standard of feedback I have gauged over time for this page. But now I know that when I invite my audience to share and publicize information about their own businesses, they like to do it and will leave this information in the comments. However, fewer of them choose to leave opinions about the video produced by the fan page using comments, instead preferring to express a like, which requires less work.

In both instances, the reach was very similar, but the opportunity to publicize their own fan pages inspired markedly higher interaction and feedback from fans, whereas just asking for their opinion achieved more clicking Like with less commentary.

#4: Featured Likes

Under the left-hand links panel, there is a group of 5 Featured Likes, which will display up to 5 other brand pages you have liked while logged in “as page.”

Along with the latest brand page redesign in February, Facebook introduced new login options which allow users to browse Facebook as their personal account or as a page (that they administer). The distinction is that when you leave comments and like things, you’re either tying that activity to coming from your personal profile or your professional brand profile. In this way, brands can like pages and leave comments as the brand itself, without bringing the person behind the brand into the mix.

Now that you have the opportunity to express the voice of your brand in this way, consider how you could add to the reflection of your brand by choosing which 5 featured pages your brand likes. While the Featured Likes default to cycling randomly through all the pages your brand has liked on each page refresh, you can also set the 5 “featured” pages in your settings so that they don’t rotate.

Here are some examples of pages that relay different messages with their Featured Likes pages:

The Tide fan page takes advantage of the "Featured Likes" section to demonstrate the brand's affinity for other Proctor and Gamble (P&G) product pages.

The Verragio fan page uses the Featured Likes section of the page to display the fan pages of jewelry shops and brands that carry the Verragio brand in their stores.

To set your 5 pages so that they don’t change or rotate when your brand’s page is refreshed or revisited, you’ll need to select the featured pages within your page settings, as pictured in the screenshot below:

Set your page Featured Likes by changing the settings in "Featured" when editing the fan page.

#5: Wall Tab Layouts Can Be Different

Facebook allows page administrators to choose the default wall layout for visitors, between the chronological “Most Recent” and just posts made by the page, “Page.”

If the selection is chronological, users landing on the wall will see every interaction made on the page, including page posts intermingled with fan posts.

Many businesses choose not to use this view as the default, especially larger brands, because a lot of what random fans post can be spam or otherwise irrelevant content that quickly clogs the wall.

By choosing to display posts made by the “Page” as the default, posts made by your fans don’t go away—they can be accessed by clicking into the “Most Recent” feed. In fact, it is still highly recommended to stay on top of this feed, because as the admin you’ll want to moderate and respond to what fans are trying to communicate to you by posting on that part of your page.

In the example screenshots below, you can see that Joe’s Crab Shack, which has the Chronological view set as the default, has a mixed bag of commentary from fans straight on the wall, which isn’t the most engaging marketing messaging for new and returning visitors to come across at first sight.

If, instead, Joe’s Crab Shack changed the default wall view to “Joe’s Crab Shack Official Posts,” the feed viewed by visitors to the wall would, by default, be the one created by Joe’s itself—with catered marketing messages and pointed status updates, encouraging fans to visit and interact, as seen below:

To control which posts show on the wall tab, edit the settings of your page as pictured below:

Now you’re armed with 5 ways you can optimize your fan page using available Facebook functions.

What do you think? What’s the first change you’re planning to make? Share with us in the comments section below. Maybe you have some tips for improvement the entire community can appreciate!

This article highlights nine companies (big and small) that have transformed their Facebook presence by implementing innovative Facebook marketing practices.

You’re guaranteed to find inspiration for your Facebook marketing efforts here.

These tactics will work for just about any business—large or small, B2B or B2C. So let’s dig in!

#1: Cheese & Burger Society

The Cheese & Burger Society is sponsored by the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board. This page is an innovative way to promote Wisconsin cheese by talking about something many people love—burgers and grilling.

One savvy practice introduced here is fan gating. Fan gating, also known as “like gating,” is where you require visitors to become a fan of your page to gain access to special content, discounts or contests.

If you use a contest for fan gating, make sure you abide by Facebook’s terms of service. These articles can help: Mari Smith (compliance) and Sara Hawkins (legal promotions).

This contest brought 1000s of new fans for The Cheese & Burger Society

To increase engagement, Cheese & Burger Society created a Send to a Friend app, allowing fans to send a cheeseburger to their friends. This is fun, easy and promotes viral visibility.

The Send to a Friend app makes it easy to connect with a friend in a fun way

The Cheese & Burger Society also encourages fans to post pictures. Photos and videos get a better EdgeRank (Facebook’s algorithm for determining what shows up on your fans’ news feeds) and people love to share photos.

In fact, approximately 6 billion photos are shared on Facebook each month according to Pixable. For some tips on how to take full advantage of photos on your page, see this article by Debbie Hemley.

Fans love posting pictures of themselves

#2: IdeaPaint

IdeaPaint is a B2B company that sells a specialty paint that converts walls and other spaces into a dry-erase writing surface, eliminating the need for hanging white boards and opening up creative space.

In keeping with their creative purpose and mission, IdeaPaint makes innovative use of their welcome tab by creating hot spots with links to their social sites. This promotes interactivity. The exploratory user will also find a link for a coupon.

Idea Paint's welcome page is loaded with discreet hotspots

Find the "Download" button and find this clever coupon.

A key to building long-term customer loyalty is to give your customers a good first experience with your product or service. IdeaPaint does this by providing detailed videos on their Facebook page on how to install and use their product.

Idea Paint provides a variety of instructional and inspirational videos.

IdeaPaint integrates several social components in their Facebook videos. In addition to the Like button, they use the Send button, which enables you to directly send the link to your friends. The Facebook comment section allows people to make comments that will show up on their wall.

Look at the smart social integration on this video.

Another smart tactic employed by IdeaPaint is their use of NetworkedBlogs to automatically pull their blog posts to a dedicated tab. Additionally, they manually add their posts to their wall. As explained by Mari Smith, this will enhance your news feed. (Get a free class here from Mari on Facebook News Feed Optimization. See the yellow box.)

#3: American Express Open Forum

American Express has created a forum just for small business owners and leaders. Through a strategic partnership with Facebook, they created a massive contest for small businesses that generated lots of interest and increased their fan base. Note the importance of having a valuable prize ($20,000).

This contest brought lots of new small business fans to Amex.

A key to creating ongoing engagement on your wall is to use variety in your posts. Notice how Amex uses questions, quotes and articles to engage their fans. It’s also important to use shorter posts. Buddy Media found that posts with 80 characters or fewer get 27% greater engagement than longer posts.

Notice the variety in these 3 posts.

American Express also cleverly integrated their rewards program so people can redeem points for Facebook ads. Maybe you can’t leverage a deal with Facebook, but perhaps this kind of rewards incentive might get you thinking about partnership opportunities you’ve been overlooking.

This partnership with Facebook helps small business owners.

Amex features their authors and articles through some savvy Facebook integration. This requires special programming, but gives contributors the notoriety they deserve.

Amex features their experts and ads variety with polls and video clips.

#4: Banez Insurance Agency

Banez Insurance Agency is a local Farmers Insurance agency in Stockton, California. This small business is doing a number of things smart marketers should study.

Ron Banez is the owner of this insurance agency. He makes an immediate impression on his welcome page by doing two things: 1) Making a charitable donation for every Like and 2) using a video.

Notice Ron's disclaimer.

A few things to notice on his wall: First, observe how Ron has taken advantage of the photo strip by creating 5 interchangeable photos that reinforce his core messaging. Here’s a helpful article on optimizing your photo strip.

Banez insurance makes good use of their photo strip.

Next, observe how Ron incorporated his photo in his profile image, enabling him to use his headshot as his avatar when interacting on his Facebook wall. In a relationship-based business like insurance, it’s important for people to see you’re a person.

Additionally, see how the profile image points you toward the links below it. This subtle guidance will keep visitors on your page longer, increasing the likelihood they will engage with you as a fan.

Finally, this page makes a great use of the tabs. Through the tabs you can get a quote, learn about insurance products and enter a contest.

#5: PETCO

PETCO is a national pet supply store. They have masterfully integrated their store on Facebook, allowing greater social engagement. See how it allows fans to tell their friends which products they like, even as they shop.

NOTE: Mari Smith recommends TabJuice as a great service for small businesses wanting to set up a store on Facebook.

PETCO makes it easy to share your favorite products with your Facebook friends.

Everyone wants fan engagement, but few companies tell their audience the rules of engagement. PETCO does it in a friendly, but direct, manner.

PETCO's engagement guidelines are clear and lighthearted.

As an example of fan gating, PETCO shows you the benefits of becoming a fan: access to coupons, news and Facebook-only contests.

PETCO makes it easy to see the benefits of liking their page.

#6: Red Bull

Red Bull is a popular energy drink that has built a very strong fan base. Let’s study some of their smart practices.

Upon your first visit to their page, you can’t avoid their strong, but fun, call to action. If their power of suggestion isn’t enough, they also provide a subtle hint as to what’s waiting for you when you become a fan (notice the grayed-out videos). This is a powerful alternative to PETCO’s approach of listing the benefits. Determine which approach makes more sense for your business.

The grayed out area shows you what you're missing until you like Red Bull.

The more you can get fans returning to your page and lingering, the greater the likelihood they’ll tell their friends about you and eventually choose your products and services.

Red Bull developed a series of games and a TV channel for this very reason. While you may not have the budget to hire game developers or start your own TV channel, this might inspire some creative thinking on how to keep fans returning to your page.

Red Bull has created games to keep fans returning to their page.

Red Bull also has their own TV channel.

Depending on your brand, it might be valuable to find ways to meet your fans in person. The Events tab can be a powerful way to let your fans know where to find you. Red Bull makes a great use of this.

Some of the places Red Bull fans can gather.

Look at a couple of things about Red Bull’s tabs. They have creatively integrated their logo on their iFrame tabs. However, the Events tab gets lost due to the number of tabs they have. This highlights an important lesson: think carefully about the order of your tabs.

#7: Toll Booth Saddle Shop

Toll Booth Saddle Shop is a local horse supply shop in Mt. Holly, NJ (suburb of Philadelphia). This small business has built a loyal following by utilizing several smart Facebook strategies.

On their welcome page, they provide a clear overview of why a fan would want to Like their page and keep returning. Make sure to put your URL in the About section. As a physical business, you can create a Facebook Places page by merely including your address in your profile, thus allowing for check-ins.

The design of Toll Booth's welcome page is fitting for horse lovers.

Toll Booth’s store experience is highly social, allowing customers to tell their friends about their favorite items. Additionally, they provide an added benefit for following their page: a 10% discount automatically deducted when you shop in their Facebook store. That’s some easy money!

See how they've made their shopping social.

On Toll Booth’s welcome page they also encourage you to sign up for their mailing list, telling you why you might want to do that. They have made it easy by using an iFrame app that links their list with Constant Contact.

Integration with your mailing list can be easy with an app.

Toll Booth Saddle Shop keeps their page fun by incorporating a humorous series of horse videos each week. This is a great strategy to keep the interest of young and old customers alike. Many parents prefer shopping in places where their children enjoy themselves.

Fun videos increase engagement.

Toll Booth announces the fun video.

#8: Threadless

Threadless is a community-based online t-shirt company. They invite artists to create t-shirt designs and then sell the ones selected by fans. As you can imagine, their fans are very engaged (as noted by every post having comments).

A design-based company should utilize their graphic capabilities to keep their site interesting. Threadless does this by regularly changing their photo strip images and rotating various profile images.

Great graphics make your page stand out.

Threadless has found ways to segment their audience by interest and location. To differentiate interest groupings, they have developed separate pages for things like Kids and Design. Threadless has done an amazing job of taking their community off the Internet to communities around the globe through meetups.

Targeting different interests.

Targeting fans by location.

Threadless sells most of their products online, so it’s vital to have compelling photos. But they establish their brand as “by the people for the people” by using real people as their models and having fun.

Threadless uses everyday people to sell their products.

More examples of how Threadless uses everyday people.

One of Threadless’ trademarks is their customer involvement in the design and selection process of their business.

Many businesses could benefit from these principles by running contests or challenges where you invite your customers to develop a new product, process or concept. Then have your fans vote on their favorites.

T-shirt challenges provide ways to engage the creative powers of the Threadless community.

The leaderboard encourages community participation.

#9: Skittles

Skittles is a colorful candy company that uses Facebook to reinforce their fun-loving, wacky culture.

On their welcome page they provide several opportunities to further engage their brand. They offer social buttons, links to memorable ads and the chance to “Experience the Rainbow” (a link back to their website). Additionally, they have a rotating “fan of the week,” who happens to be a comedian showing up in a variety of fun settings.

Skittles provides integration with their other media on their welcome page.

Skittles also has a set of guidelines that are short, clear and fun.

The Skittles rules of engagement are fun, but clear.

Finally, Skittles has developed a unique voice for their wall posts. They always speak in the first person. The posts are personal, playful and creative. Fans are encouraged to engage with each other directly.

Want to Learn More About Facebook Marketing?

If you’re not taking full advantage of Facebook’s marketing power, don’t worry. You’re not alone. Many businesses are still just getting started with Facebook marketing.

There’s one simple way to take your Facebook marketing efforts to the next level. By attending the web’s largest online Facebook marketing conference, Facebook Success Summit 2011, you’ll become empowered to use Facebook to increase your fan base, better engage your customers and improve your sales.

You’ll be learning from 19 Facebook marketing experts. Join Guy Kawasaki, Mari Smith, Dave Kerpen, Robert Scoble, Michael Stelzner and experts from Intel, Applebee’s, PETCO and Intuit as they reveal proven Facebook marketing tactics at Facebook Success Summit 2011.

It’s the web’s largest online Facebook marketing conference. Go here for a sample class and to learn more.

What do you think about these Facebook pages? Have you tried any of these techniques? How did it go? Let us know! Please leave your comments in the box below.

More than 1400 nominations came in from our contest.

Our panel of Facebook experts carefully reviewed the nominees and finalists, analyzing their landing pages, engagement, reader involvement and creative use of promotions (among other things).

None of these businesses have huge budgets, yet they have all achieved amazing success. The following are the winners of Social Media Examiner’s Top 10 Small Business Facebook Pages for 2011:

#1: Intrepid Travel

Intrepid Travel is an Australian travel agency specializing in creating unique travel adventures.

Fans: 79,018

What the judges liked:

• Great description of company philosophy on Info page
• Appealing use of “photo of the day”
• Keeps customers returning through mystery trips (“surprise and delight” element) and an interactive game
• Creates customer community on Meet Others page

#2: Easy Lunch Boxes

Easy Lunch Boxes makes healthy, green lunch boxes and containers.

Fans: 11,606

What the judges liked:

• Fabulous branding on welcome page, also making clear the incentives for liking the page
• Creative use of Photos tab
• Excellent responsiveness to each individual commenter
• Shares good content for moms/people raising families

#3: SnapRetail

SnapRetail is an online marketing agency for retail stores.

Fans: 3,455

What the judges liked:

• Good use of quotes, links and personal stories in posts
• Keeps it personal through photo uploads and allowing employees to reveal their identities
• “Snappy Hour” is a great way to increase conversation, involvement and answer social media marketing questions
• Welcome tab has a good video and integration with other social media platforms

#4: Garden Quest

Garden Quest is an innovative Facebook gardening game that requires knowledge of gardening to win.

Fans: 56,719

What the judges liked:

• Effective pre-launch page and campaign – good buzz created
• Smart use of incentives for liking the page
• Fantastic interaction on the wall (getting fans to post pictures, etc.)
• Effective job of marketing its unique 3D gaming experience

#5: Arizona Pro DJs

Arizona Pro DJs is a teen entertainment company based in Scottsdale, AZ.

Fans: 10,261

What the judges liked:

• Vibrant graphics appeal to the right demographic
• Good use of prizes for liking the page
• Great enforcement of spamming policies
• Excellent engagement practices of posting photos and music asking for feedback

#6: Dog Training Ireland

Dog Training Ireland are dog trainers and behavior specialists based in Blanchardstown, Ireland.

Fans: 2,287

What the judges liked:

• Tons of helpful info on Info tab (might never have to visit website)
• Good use of Facebook for customer service (e.g., taking reservations)
• Fun video under About Us
• Great practice of posting pictures of dogs available for adoption

#7: New Jersey Family

New Jersey Family is a magazine and resource for New Jersey kids, parents and families.

Fans: 2,515

What the judges liked:

• Great use of the avatar and photo strip
• Outstanding family-oriented content (recipes, trip ideas, free advice)
• Good customer engagement
• Fun use of Questions tab

#8: Obeo

Obeo is a creator of online interactive visual experiences for realtors.

Fans: 2,378

What the judges liked:

• Good use of incentives to like the page for Facebook exclusive promotions
• Variety in posts (blogs, pictures, trivia, links)
• Nice presentation of video and virtual staging on Welcome tab
• Smart balance of content on YouTube tab – informational and inspirational

#9: Piggies & Paws

Piggies & Paws are creators of custom art from children’s hand- and footprints.

Fans: 5,961

What the judges liked:

• Fun and engaging Welcome tab (good use of Fan of the Week in avatar)
• Find an Artist Near You tab is helpful to fans wanting to host a party
• Posts are audience-appropriate
• Consistently responsive to fan posts

#10: Brasserie Sixty6

Brasserie Sixty6 is a modern European restaurant in Dublin, Ireland.

Fans: 4,730

What the judges liked:

• Excellent use of apps for displaying menu, reviews and reservations
• Strong call to action for joining mailing list
• Good use of videos
• Engagement on wall is personable and consistent

Congratulations to the winners. Be sure to check out these amazing pages!

The Prizes

Each of our winners receives the following:

A free pass to Facebook Success Summit 2011: Each company wins a pass to attend the web’s largest online Facebook marketing conference.

The badge of distinction: If you’re a winner, you can post the image you see here on your blog or Facebook page and please link back to this page.

A special thanks to our judges—Mari Smith (co-author, Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day), Dave Kerpen (author, Likeable Social Media) and Michael Stelzner (author, Launch)—for their participation!

What do you think? Share your comments in the box below.

The list of 20 finalists is pretty impressive! Take a look for yourself below.

The Judges: Our judges include Mari Smith (co-author, Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day), Dave Kerpen (author, Likeable Social Media) and Michael Stelzner (author, Launch).

The Finalists (in alphabetical order)

• Arizona Pro DJs
• Brasserie Sixty6
• Crafty Mumma’s
• Dog Training Ireland
• Easy Lunch Boxes
• Frisco Square
• Garden Quest
• HiredMYWay.com
• How To Market Your Horse Business
• Illegal Jack’s South West Grill
• Intrepid Travel
• Kimberly Castleberry
• NeighSayers
• New Jersey Family
• Obeo
• Passionately Rivalicious
• Piggies & Paws
• Post Planner
• Sixthman
• SnapRetail

How We’ll Pick the Winners

#1: Initial qualification:

A page must have a compelling Facebook presence, must have been nominated multiple times by multiple individuals and must be regularly updated. If someone nominated more than one page, only the first nomination was counted.

#2: Final winner selection:

Quality of Facebook page: Our judges will examine and score the Facebook page of each finalist (65% of decision).

Fan engagement: Facebook pages that have regular comments from readers are another sign of a healthy page. In addition, the number of nominations for a specific page plays a part in this (35%).

Congratulations to the finalists! We’ll announce the winners here soon!

What do you think about these Facebook pages? Leave your comments in the box below…