Facebook Fanpage Timelines: iFrame Tabs and Embedding Rafflecopter Widget in Facebook

Right off the bat, when Facebook timeline took over I noticed that the pages are much less friendly and the iFrame / FBML tabs you used to use on your older Facebook fanpage view don’t work properly anymore if you had the arrow at top pointing to “Like My Page” this arrow no longer points next to the like button.

When someone first visits your page they are greeted with the timeline and your logo and Facebook favorites are the biggest things on display.  These favorites by default will show photo’s which can’t be changed, Facebook likes (but not the like button, will just show information and stats about likes) and notes or whatever other sub apps you created that created tabs on your Facebook fanpage.

The first thing you will want to do is get rid of the “Likes” favorite by default since this could confuse users and isn’t the actual like button.  @ileane from Basic Podcasting Tips does a great job explaining why you should ditch the like button and you should read her post: http://www.basicpodcastingtips.com/2012/03/facebook-timeline-fake-like-button.html

Facebook Fanpage Timeline Optimization

Now that your Facebook Fanpage is using timeline, you can leverage and optimize your favorites to really showcase content that you want your fans or potential fans to see and be a part of.  It sucks that Photo’s can’t be removed or changed and you can’t even customize the tab pic for photo’s, it always seems to use the latest photo you uploaded.

What most bloggers will probably want to do is create an iFrame “favorite” which can be a signup for your mailing list, this is one way to get attention and draw subscribers.  I also used a Youtube on Fanpage app which links my YouTube account and shows off my latest video’s.  I also linked a Twitter app but will replace this with a mailing list signup soon I think.

I have a video tutorial on how to install iFrame tab / favorite for Facebook Fanpage and this specifically focuses on how to embed a Rafflecopter widget into your Facebook Fanpage favorite (tab) but you can also embed any code that you want.

For those who can’t watch the video, here are the steps manually to create iFrame tabs for your Facebook fanpage.

Step 1 – Install Static iFrame Tab App

Click on this link and install the Static iFrame Tab App just click on Install Page Tab.

Step 2 – Configure the Static iFrame Tab App

Edit the favorite by clicking on it, after clicking on it authorize the tab applications.

From here you can choose your thumbnail image, set the width for Facebook Timeline and configure what you want the tab to do.

You can set the page source as custom html which is what I did above and just cut/paste the rafflecopter widget you can find on the “embed code” tab in Rafflecopter.

Just remember to select Facebook as the code type and click copy the code and paste it in the HTML of your iFrame app.

Other options include URL which allows you to iframe in a web site, you can also remove scroll bars and size it as you need it as well as Redirect which will instead redirect the user to your website or page instead of iframing in information.  This is a good way to send a user to a page on your site.

Non-Fan Favorite Display

One great thing about the iFrame for Facebook tab app is you can control what gets displayed if a non-fan looks at your page.  This allows you to put in code to ask them to become a Fan first, or redirects them elsewhere like to your site if they aren’t already a fan.

You can install multiple iFrame favorites / tabs with this same application by clicking on the button below to add another tab to either the same Facebook fanpage or another one.

Note, default tab doesn’t work in Facebook Timeline and this was only for pre-timeline where you can actually have a welcome tab listed by default.

Remember, Facebook Timeline mode doesn’t call them tabs anymore, they are now “Favorites” and you can’t default a user to visit one like you used to be able to.  This means you will have to use attractive images and titles if you want to convince fans or non-fans to click on your favorites in your Facebook Fanpage once it is in timeline mode.

-Dragon Blogger