What you need to know about Facebook iframes

The Static FBML application that helped you create custom Facebook landing pages is being phased out. It was due to disappear on Friday but Facebook have extended the deadline to the 18th of March 2011. After this date you will be unable to create new FBML applications although you will continue to be able to edit existing applications.

What is a Landing page?

We’ve talked about Landing pages a lot before. These pages are seen by those who don’t already ‘Like’ your page the first time they visit. Most users will only see this page once so the key call to action of that page should be to get them to click the ‘Like’ button. Here’s a video we made recently about some pages we really like.  And here are some pages we have designed for clients.

What is replacing Static FBML?

As a replacement Facebook now allow you to create iframe applications for your business page. This is slightly more complicated than FBML and requires you to host the page on your own hosting space and create an application within Facebook. The advantage is that you can do far more with the pages, for example javascript that allows you to do things like rollovers wasn’t allowed within FBML but is possible within iframes.

Can you create iframes if you don’t have hosting space?

There are a growing number of Facebook applications that allow you to create your own custom Facebook page.  Pagemodo is a favorite of mine as it’s easy to use and you can include click thrus.  Here’s our guide on how to use it.  I just discovered this page from NCI that looks great and was created using Pagemodo.

PageLever is a very simple application.  The free version allows you to add an image to your custom tab but to do anything more complex you will need to subscribe to the service.

Finally Static FBML: iframes tabs was pointed out to me yesterday.  It looks great and I love the way it allows you to keep some of the FBML functionality.  Has anyone tried it?  I’d love to hear what you think so if you have used it leave a comment below.

Competition

Don’t forget if you would like a Welcome Tab designed professionally for you we have a competition at the moment on our Facebook page.  Every 100 ‘Likes’ we get up to 700 will win a page.  Click here to enter.