Yesterday Lauren wrote about the importance of having a plan behind what you are doing in social media and that just setting up a Facebook Page is not all that your campaign should entail and today I wanted to highlight a small business using a Facebook page effectively. Decisions For Heroes are a company that are clearly going places with coverage in Techcrunch here and winning the 10k IQ prize. Robin Blandford who runs the company said the following to me…

Facebook has been our no 1 source of leads in 2009 so we’ve been working on improving it

Now they have gone away and added a new landing page and some fancy new features to their Facebook Page that means they could compete with all the big brands out there who are all spending big money on developing their pages.

Breaking down their page

There are many reasons that this Facebook page is effective and I am pretty sure that they will be able to generate additional sales leads through Facebook and keep interaction up with the community that they are clearly trying to build. There are many factors that make this Facebook page a success but I wanted to focus on the landing page that they have created using FBML (Facebook’s own markup language) by breaking it down into different sections…

Quick Links

This is a section that clearly lays out some of the most important content and allows you to find what you are looking for in a clear and effective manner. Does what it says on the tin.

Cut To The Chase

Nothing annoys me more than being on a page or website that doesn’t let me know what it does instantly. People “bounce” of sites very quickly when they are not sure what it is but this clear message in a very prominent position on the page leaves you in no doubt as to what the page is all about

Data Capture

Chances are that people coming to explore this site might like to be contacted in the future and rather than just hope for the best there is a clear field for an email newsletter sign up to capture a visitor permanately.

Benefits

I am starting to get interested in what the service offers now and I may want to look in to it a little further so that is when they hit me with clear and concise benefits.

I Wanna Join Now!!!

The important buttons to get you signed up and have a tour of the product are very simple to find and once you have digested all the information on the familiar territory of Facebook it is time to head off to the site to try it out

Sharing

One little favor that the guys do ask you for is to become and fan and if you like the page enough to pass it on to your friends by suggesting it to them.

Meet the team

It is always nice to know that there is somebody behind a website or service and the guys show you their profiles and encourage you to become their friend, a further great way of gaining yet more trust in the service.

Rich Media Content

There are some great photos and videos on the page that help you to build trust and feel as if you are getting to know the guys and the service on a more intimate basis.

Interaction

The guys are very active on their page and always interacting on the wall so if you have questions they will answer them fairly quickly as well as posting new and relevant content and links.

Summary

First thing you should do is become a fan here and watch and learn.

There is so much going on here that the whole page feels alive and as soon as people arrive here there is plenty of content to digest as well as a very sales message, data capture and calls to action without it being an over the top sales job. I see Facebook pages all the time from big brands that have massive budgets and feel dead to me, they have no soul. This page is from a start up, a couple of guys who have bootstrapped their business and poured some serious effort in to this page. If they can do it there is no reason why you can’t go out there and out a little effort in yourself , create some great content, interact with your fans and get the same sort of page going.

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