By Ching Ya via Social Media Examiner

Some great tips for creating a professional Facebook page that will keep your “fans” coming back!

Facebook fan pages number among the few social media channels that allow page customization for users. Instead of a mediocre interface, business owners and professionals can now apply HTML code to enhance their Facebook fan page presence to promote and build business branding.

Rich content creates a memorable interface that gets people talking, lets a special announcement or contest go viral, improves fans’ engagement and so much more.

To create an important hub to reach out to millions of fans, you need to up your game and optimize your fan page to meet its ultimate purpose.

Everything is possible, thanks to the powerful Facebook application known as Static FBML. Many people may be unaware of the advanced functionality FBML gives a fan page, such as creating and naming your tabs or boxes freely. For those who are curious just how powerful Static FBML can get, we’re going to inspect it all here:

#1: Welcome Page

The main purpose of a Welcome tab is to provide an overview of your page—what you can offer to your fans and why it should matter to them. Quit force-feeding new visitors a sales pitch; instead convince them with solid reasons to stay as loyal fans. You have one chance to impress them, so make sure your Welcome tab serves its purpose:  greet with enthusiasm, guide visitors to ‘become a fan’ or have a look at certain tabs.  Mini websites, Flash and webcasts are just some of the advanced methods you can use to create a lively, impactful Welcome page.

Create a strong call to action with eye-catching graphics and clear instructions.

#2: Social Profiles and Contact Information

Have you ever wondered why certain options are not visible in the Info tab? For example, there is no place to include your business hours and location, while other pages have it. You’ve probably selected the wrong type of fan page during the setup process. Because deleting and recreating a fan page with hundreds of existing fans is not really an option, Static FBML provides you a way to include your business contact details as often as you like.

Use extra information and social buttons to enhance visibility of a contact box.

#3: Testimonial Page

When it comes to service providers and professionals, nothing is more convincing than a testimonial page. You can have a static page with testimonials or have a designer create a catchy layout to attract fans’ attention. How you decide to showcase your testimonial page is only limited by its relevancy and your creativity. Static FBML allows you to do so much, even placing video testimonials and arranging client reviews in the order you prefer.

Create an attractive Testimonial tab with FBML that draws attention.

#4: Newsletter and Opt-In Form

An opt-in form can be easily placed on either your Welcome tab or as a box on the sidebar of the fan page wall. Regardless where you put it, make sure it’s visible at all times for your fans to sign up. It’s an added opportunity to build a strong readership and a potential client base with email marketing. Some of the famous services such as Aweber and MailChimp provide HTML code for users to place an opt-in form in any selected tab using static FBML.

To encourage sign-up, place an opt-in form on your Welcome page, as a box on your wall or as a tab.

#5: Secret Membership Area

This is a tricky one to entice visitors to become fans. Prepare several useful resources, backstage passes, anything you can think of that provides value to your fans. It can be a newsletter or any private content with hacks and tips, business guidelines or videos that are available solely to fans.

Convert visitors to fans by providing a secret resource area only accessible to fans.

#6: Contests and Special Events

For fan pages with regular monthly events or contests, a tab can be used as a promotional board for fans to check out the details and deadlines. A sharing button makes it all easy for fans to share the exciting news with their friends. Try it and see how your information can go viral before your eyes.

Build a special tab consisting of contest details and monthly events that can be shared easily.

#7: Article Links

Ever wonder what you can do for those old, yet timeless, posts on your blog?Why not give them some extra visibility by placing an ‘oldies but goodies’ box next to your fan box? Steal some attention with a slight bit of creativity and occasionally mention them in your announcements. You can rotate the frequency of post links or even post categories so fans have a wide range of selections, as shown on Social Media Examiner’s fan page.  Most of all, it’s much better than the usual Social RSS feed that only displays the most recent entries.

Include a category box of articles that allows visitors to navigate effortlessly to the main site.

#8: Job Board

People are turning to social media sites for job opportunities. It’s no surprise thateven Facebook’s own fan page has a We’re Hiring tab to recruit. There are 200 million active users who log on to Facebook daily. If your company has job opportunities, why not insert a job board on your fan page?

You just never know who might drop in one day.

#9: Analytics

Who would forget the popular Google Analytics post about the magic code we place in the FBML tabs to track page visits? Combining this fantastic method with static FBML, we can now decide which FBML tabs are staying which tabs should go.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR, Ching Ya

Ching Ya is the author of Social @ Blogging Tracker. She is a header designer and provides Facebook customization service for small business. Follow her on Twitter @wchingya

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Words By Erik Qualman

Originally posted at ClickZ

In coming months, there are at least five trends in social media that you should watch. They are:

Merging of Search and Social Media

Bing is helping to power search results on Facebook, tweets are appearing in Google results, and Facebook Connect is allowing for passing of data into sites like TripAdvisor. Consumers want to know what their social graph likes and dislikes on almost everything; 90 percent of people trust recommendations from peers, according to theNielsen Global Online Consumer Survey in 2009. The merging of search and social helps this information sharing become a reality.

Cable Providers Increased Interest in Social Media

We are already starting to see Comcast advertisements touting the ability to tweet and update your Facebook status via your television-viewing experience. Television network news viewership is in the decline, while social media has enabled us to no longer search for the news, but rather have the news find us. If you can’t beat them, join them.

Increased Social Media Access via Mobile

Facebook Zero, Apple iPad, tweeting Fords, Nanos with video capability, and so on. Advancements like these are helping to drive the use and access of social media via mobile. This intuitively makes sense because people are constantly on the go and social media is comprised of people. Facebook recently indicated that 25 percent of its users – or roughly 100 million – primarily access Facebook via mobile methods. A recent study in the U.K. showed that 50 percent of all mobile data usage was tied to Facebook, according to this Guardian.co.uk report citing GSMA Mobile Media Metrics.

E-reader Collaboration via Social Media

Whatever the e-reader of choice (Nook, eReader, Kindle, iPad) readers want to be able to share notes. It will be insightful to see what’s the most highlighted sentence in J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye.” For students, this is a tremendous opportunity. Historically, college students have prayed that the used book they purchased was previously owned by an A+ student. Now it’s technically possible to see the digital notes and highlights from all the A+ students who have read the book across the globe and not just at your particular university.

This is a tremendous boon for the advancement of knowledge. It benefits students and authors alike. Most college textbooks are often revised; now the author has the insight and knowledge to properly revise the book for the most salient points of interest, or correct points of confusion.

E-book costs will likely drop, too. My guess is they will cost between $3 to $10 depending on the book. Site and networks that supply free digital books will likely increase in popularity as well. Look for services that connect authors and advertisers for product placement within books. Why say soda when you can say Coke and earn product placement marketing dollars? Why say “Italian restaurant” when you can say “Carmine’s” with a hyperlink to this establishment in Times Square, New York City, known for its pre-theater dinners?

Social Media Legal Issues

Laws have had difficulties keeping up with technology advances. This holds true in social media. Look for clarification around this specific item: If a company is using social media monitoring tools like a Radian6 or Filtrbox to capture what is being said about their product or service, does this increase their liability? It might.

If a social media monitoring tool shows that a disgruntled employee posted something publicly about doing harm to other employees prior to the eventual act – should something have been done about it? How liable will companies be for conversations happening on the Web? It’s certainly a daunting task to act on every potential harmful possibility or post. This can range from Toyota’s faulty breaks to a student or employee going “postal.” It will be important to see where the courts eventually rule on this.

Also, look for further clarification around how highly regulated industries (pharmaceuticals, law, heath, government, etc.) can engage within social media. My hope is that these organizations can better help consumers without fear of increased liability.

While these are just a few items to look for in coming months, there are other trends that we can’t fathom right now. But taking note of these five particular trends should keep you ahead of the curve for now.

Biography

Erik Qualman is the author of “Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business.” Socialnomics made Amazon’s No. 1 Best Selling List only after three weeks of publication & is consistently in the Top 100 Best Selling Business Books List. Qualman is a frequently requested International speaker of the Fortune 500 and has been highlighted in numerous media outlets including: BusinessWeek, The New York Times, CNET, San Francisco Chronicle, Mashable, USA Today, Forbes, CBS Nightly News, and The Huffington Post. He has been fortunate to share the stage with Ford CEO Alan Mulally, Walmart CEO Lee Scott, Portugal Prime Minister Jose Socrates, Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, actress Julie Andrews, and former Vice President Al Gore.

For the past 16 years Qualman has helped grow the online marketing and ebusiness capabilities of many companies including Education First, Cadillac, EarthLink, Yahoo, Travelzoo, and AT&T. He is also the owner of the social media blog socialnomics.com. Qualman holds a BA from Michigan State University and an MBA from The University of Texas. He is currently the global vice president of the world’s largest private education company [EF Education]. He was Academic All-Big Ten in basketball at Michigan State University and still finds time to follow his beloved Spartans while living in Boston with his wife.