With the number of people on Facebook growing rapidly every day it is inevitable that more and more businesses are creating fan pages. With such an influx of businesses all competing for the attention of your fans and customers it is important that you stand out from the crowd.

I know what you’re thinking, “But all of facebook looks the same”. While the Facebook framework is uniform across all users and pages, the flexibility and option to create a custom tab on your fan page is one that all businesses should be thankful for. Now don’t get me wrong, having a ‘pretty’ custom tab on your Facebook page is a fantastic opportunity to add some colour and flair to your page (given it is done the right way) but other than the custom look of the tab there are other great reasons for why your business should have a custom tab. Let’s take a look at the top 10 reasons why you should have a custom tab on your business page:

1. Branding integration – not every business matches in perfectly with Facebook’s blue and white colour scheme. Creating a custom tab on your business page allows you to pull elements of your branding in to your Facebook page in a fun and memorable way.

1. Product/ Service showcase – with the flexibility of custom tabs you can create one to showcase your ‘top seller’, ‘featured product’ or even a new package offer. Show your products and services in a fun and clean environment to people that have already made a commitment to (by liking it). Avoiding the clutter of your wall or the distractions of your website a clean custom tab is a great way to keep your fans focused on your products.

1. Increase awareness/ reach of a special offer – creating a fun and well designed custom page with inbuilt functionality allows you to not only run special offers but leverage the social media phenomenon and (hopefully) make your offer viral! The more people interact with your page the more the information of the offer will spread amongst their friends giving you a greater audience.

1. Provide a ‘reason’ to like your page – having a custom page means you can include a special offer or freebie that fans receive access to once they like your page (after first seeing a fan gate teasing them about what is available inside). Providing a freebie or special discount offer to likers can be all that it takes to increase your liker numbers. 40% of people surveyed in a HubSpot poll said they have have ‘liked’ a page to receive discounts and promotions, 36% said they have liked a page to receive a freebie and 25% said they did to gain access to exclusive content. Providing  a special offer is proven to convert browsers into fans, improving your chances of converting them into customers.

1. Provide your brand credibility – with new pages appearing daily and the option for users to create a ‘place’ page for your business name when trying to check in on their smart phone the need to provide your official page credibility is growing. Having a custom tab promotes and displays your page as the official and formal page for your business – the best way to ensure fans are getting the right information on your business.

1. Collect a fans contact details – custom pages allow you to integrate a form to collect your likers details in return for a subscription to your newsletter. Newsletter providers like MailChimp offer integrate-able forms to add to your custom page. Remember: you don’t own the details of your Facebook fans, using a newsletter subscription service means you have access to you fans even if you are deleted (heaven forbid) or fans decide to stop using Facebook.

1. Generate page activity with contests – running a competition on your page using a custom tab is a fun way to generate page activity and interest in your business. Past page competitions such as the one run by TargetVacations.ca (above) have proven to generate a large number of sales for the business. The competition alone generated a 45% increase of sales year on year and a 1500% increase in fans.

1. Create personality – Provide a personality for your business and overcome the generic theming and restrictions of a Facebook page on its own. Providing a personality for your business, or putting your face to the page gives depth to the page and creates a firmer connection with your likers.

1. Increase liker numbers – providing a fan gate or reasonto click the like button provides further incentive for people to like your page, once they have liked your page you have the opportunity to further interact with them via status updates, posts and messages out to your page likers – creating the ongoing relationship that supports return visits or return purchases. A study by BrandGlue found that pages with a like gate or landing tab (custom tab that users are taken to initially before becoming a fan – instead of your wall) converted 47% into page likers as opposed to 23% who converted from seeing the wall and no landing tab, that’s a 24% difference!

1. Increased likelihood to recommend your product – According to a recent Syncapse study 68% of a pages fans say they are VERY LIKELY to recommend your product to someone. If you gain 24% more fans from a custom page and 68% of your overall fans are likely to recommend you, you have a increase in positive word of mouth (and no-one I know wants to miss out on that).

As with all things Facebook, custom pages are a very exciting feature that can benefit your business strongly if implemented correctly. If you would like more information or are interested in having a custom facebook page created for your business, please do not hesitate to contact us. Alternatively leave a comment below and I will be happy to answer your questions.