Facebook fan pages are a great way to offer discussions, videos, blog feeds, events and other interesting content to your business fans. But did you know that you can add social oomph to your white paper launch by creating a landing page for it on your Facebook page? A Facebook landing page gives you a low-cost opportunity beyond your website and/or syndication sites to get your white papers in front of prospects.

How Are Facebook Landing Pages Created?
Landing pages can be created using FBML, which stands for Facebook Markup Language. It’s similar to HTML for writing websites. By using Facebook’s Static FBML application, you can create just about any type of “landing page” you want on your Facebook page, such as an intro to your white paper, report, or ebook. It allows you to create forms, add graphics—all the bells and whistles that make an interesting web display page.

If you’re already using an HTML editor like Dreamweaver, you can design your page with it and then drop the HTML code into the FBML application. You might have to tweak it a bit for Facebook’s size and display restrictions, which is why I have my designer do it for me. Learning how to manipulate HTML and CSS in FBML can be a little tricky, but you can check out a helpful tutorial on using it at HyperArts.

Pictured above is a landing page I created recently that offers my fans a chance to register for a special report.  I use this report as a list-building tool on my website. When people enter my Facebook page and click on the “Reports” tab, this landing page pops up.

Three Ways to Use Landing Pages to Share Your White Papers
Because all Facebook page content is indexable by search engines, FBML landing pages can generate additional “Google juice” for your white paper offerings.  Here are three options you might consider:

#1: Modified Registration Page: Are you currently using a traditional online registration page to garner leads? Cut and paste the code into FBML (if your registration form uses Javascript, however, your designer will have to convert to Facebook’s version, FBJS).

You should modify the registration a bit—social media users don’t like to fill out long registration forms. For quick and easy opt-in forms, Aweber and other versatile list-building tools can be used to create short forms and autoresponders to collect emails and deliver your white paper.

#2: No-Strings Download: Show a compelling “teaser” of your white paper content (a few paragraphs) followed by a “download full document instantly” button where fans can get the complete document without having to register for it. If having your paper shared virally is more important to you than lead generation, this might be a better option than #1.

#3: Video Embed: Use a short video clip to invite fans to download your white paper. The video can be as fancy as you like, but keep in mind that people prefer interacting with people as opposed to a faceless brand—especially in social media. Short and personal are best. You can use this tactic by itself, or in conjunction with #1 or #2 above.

If your prospects are on Facebook, you really should be thinking of ways to offer your white paper content there. Try testing these and other methods for creating Facebook white paper landing pages, and let us know what works best for you.

Editor’s note: Click here to see SocialMediaExaminer.com’s Fan Page and here for Apryl’s Fan Page.

About the Author: Apryl Parcher was Michael Stelzner’s apprentice. You can learn more about her at http://www.aparcher.com.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 3rd, 2010 at 12:02 pm and is filed under Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.