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With Facebook implementing its most extensive update to date, its more important now than ever to ensure your business has a design that stands out above the rest. Facebook for business is less a social medium, and now more a “mini-website” platflorm for optimal conversion across the board. 

Timeline Troubles.

With the introduction of “Timeline”, visitors and fans are able to view your content in chronological order, and if they really wanted – go back to the birth of the company and what you were saying on Day One. Realistically however, Facebook users tend not to operate in such a way, and only really see what is being posted in the here and now. Similarly, companies operate with products and services available and on offer today, not what they specialised in X years ago.

But say, as an example, you have 5 posts a day on Facebook, Monday to Friday. Thats 25 posts a week, 100 in a month.  Suddenly the ‘here and now’ is a complete nightmare to navigate through. How will your fans find, well, anything? How do you make sure that important information and posts aren’t lost altogether?

Navigation is Key.

Navigation through your Facebook site should be at the forefront of all design decisions you make, as without it you may as well not having a page at all.

There are two forms of navigation through your new mini-site. One, the horizontal bar across the top of your screen (just under your banner picture) which has much the same usability as your bar on your main website,and secondly via your tabs.

Tabs.

Tabs are the single most important upgrade and tool you can use on page and crucial on onsite navigation. On your front page, you have 4 tabs ‘featured’ at the top of the page, with a further 8 that can be customised and used as best suited to your business.

Each tab has its own unique URL, which is another bid to enable your visitors to navigate throughout your page efficiently.

High quality design and planning for your Tabs is a must for any business, as this is the ultimate showcase for your products and service. We would even go as far to say its as important as the input to your overall main website.

Facebook users (especially those that access your information via their tablet or mobile) do not like having to go “off site” to access data, so it is important to ensure everything they need to know is included within your tabs and ‘sub pages’.

So what do you want to create as a tab? Here is your chance to be really creative. Provide an overview in key services or product areas, Contact Us capture forms, competitions, video content; if it looks great and is engaging, you have won half the social battle of making this medium work for you. Carry your brands theme and personality across the board, use these tabs to really express who you (as a business) are.

Your Social Reach.

So what do we achieve with all this design and development of our business page? Well, we turn it into exactly that – a page for business. Lest we forget that Facebook, although a great source for conversation and customer service, is a great place to engage future business and  a great potential source of revenue.

A ‘like’ is the social stamp of approval from someone. That they approve of the page, the content, the usability, the overall design. This in turn is reflected in their rolling timeline (on the right hand side of your page), and shown to their friends, who can like, and show their friends…. this is the viral effect that so many businesses strive for. With effective design and development of your page and tabs, you hold a distinctive advantage over your competition, and are one step ahead to reaching out to new ‘likes’ and new custom.

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