I've recently created a facebook fan page for links that are easy to read about experience design. As much as I'd like to link all the links I find interesting on my own blog, using facebook fan pages as a distribution point for pure links seems more worthwhile.

If a link is worth heavily commenting, there's no doubt that I'd place it on my own website first before I even think of linking to it on facebook :)

The fan page is called Experience Design Kochi.

The link to the section of the fan page with links is:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Experience-Design-Kochi/165938291371?v=wal...

 On a side note, I personally see Facebook fan pages as micro-sites rather than strictly a single fan page with a built in news feed and fan gallery. Using custom FBML code, fan pages could have multiple sub-pages and could appear as unique as Coca Colas fan page:

http://www.facebook.com/cocacola

Custom facebook pages seem to work best as a link to the official site of brands. For smaller organizations who have have yet to setup their own website, a facebook fan page works as a great one page website that is accessible to visitors both logged in and otherwise.

How does a facebook fan page fit into a business strategy?

Facebook fan pages are a social communication and social advertising medium for actively reaching existing, satisfied customers and their social network connections. Fan pages also brings in new referrals through facebook search as well as regular internet search engines. A fan page with a large number of fans and rich post content can create a positive impression of a brand.

Facebook fan pages offer a number of benefits:

• They have zero infrastructure costs
  • Businesses with a pre-existing website can use fan pages as a means to stay in contact with existing satisfied customers.
  • Businesses without a website can test the waters of internet based as an advertising and communication channel without investing in server infrastructure.
• Fan page posts reach the profile feeds of fans
  • Customers (fans) can be informed of new wares and promotions in a non-intrusive manner.
  • Everytime a fan registers as a fan and likes a post on the fan page wall, their friends see that they have joined the fan page or have liked a link or post on the fan page wall.

Despite the above, fan pages do have their limits both feature wise and as a marketing platform:

Featurewise, fan pages may have newsfeeds, fan and photo galleries and customizable pages but they (fan pages) don't allow more advanced features such as embedding widgets and fan pages cannot directly use javascript and flash enabled code for more feature rich interactions. A facebook application (not a trivial process) can however be used as a tab on a fan page to overcome current facebook fan page limitations.

For market awareness and promotion, search results leading to facebook pages are not as effective at bringing in new customers compared to dedicated websites with optimized SEO. Fan pages are however a tool for Social Media Optimization (SMO) of a business and can be used to promote businesses by utilizing existing connections to satisfied customers as both a communication channel and a promotion medium.

For those who are interested in setting up customized facebook fan pages, I am currently available to implement customized designs into facebook fan pages. To contact me, email the address in the image below: