Nonprofit Facebook Welcome Tabs: Inspiration and Innovation

34 Comments 25 June 2010

Most Facebook Fan Pages bring the visitor to the Wall. This is the equivalent of landing in the middle of a conversation. Wouldn’t it be better to open the door first with a special Welcome tab? Or offer an overview of what actions your organization is promoting now? Consider developing a custom Welcome tab to introduce the organization to its visitors, and convert fans to stakeholders.

Facebook Page administrators can choose any tab to be the landing tab. Most choose the Wall tab. However, why not add a custom landing tab highlighting the value of Liking the Page? A custom landing (or Welcome) tab is designed for visitors to your Page who have not yet Liked it; once they become a fan, fans land on the Wall. The value of a custom-designed landing tab is that you can create the first impression, ask visitors to become a fan directly, ask visitors to take an action, and show the “at a glance” unique value of your cause.

Pages with custom landing tabs have a higher conversion rate to fans than Pages without them.

According to a May 2010 BrandGlue study, visitors to Pages with a landing tab converted to “people who like” the Page at a rate of 47%, while those without a custom landing tab converted at a rate of 23%. That’s a pretty compelling statistic. You can check these statistics for your own Page by looking at the Page Views in your Page Insights. What percentage of Page visitors currently convert to fans?

Another approach is to develop a custom landing tab with a special offer. Organizations could learn from Danny Brown’s recent experiment of offering an exclusive e-book, only available through his Facebook Page, and only available to people who liked his fan page. Danny Brown found that, within a week of the offer via Facebook, the number of people who Liked his Page grew by 245% (from 190 fans to 466). And, importantly, there had been only seven unsubscribes – the vast majority remained fans. (Hat tip to @AskAaronLee for pointing me to this experiment.)

How could a nonprofit organization take advantage of this?

Create a similar goods promotion, such as the WeCanEndThis.com t-shirt (given away for free at SXSW 2010)
Offer an exclusive Facebook application, such as the facebook application for My Social Actions
Download a free e-book, such as World Shapers: Extraordinary Women Making a Difference
Download an iPhone app, like the iPhone app for The Extraordinaries

Nonprofit landing tabs come in all flavors: some offer a call to action, others highlight the latest projects, reveal special offers, ask for your email, or offer incentives for Liking the page. It is up to your organization to decide what makes the most sense. In the slide show below, I’ve highlighted 15 nonprofit Pages with custom landing tabs.

I also created a wiki exclusively for Facebook landing tabs. In the wiki, you will find the links to Facebook landing tabs in the slide presentation. I invite you to join and add other links, as well as include information about metrics related to custom landing/welcome tabs.

A few resources:

How to create a landing tab that converts visitors to fans (All Facebook)

Welcome Tab Facebook Application (create your own)

Facebook Landing Pages Wiki (add your landing page to this, discussions on usage and metrics)

« Previous

http://twitter.com/ilenerosenblum Ilene Rosenblum

I experimented with this but found that most NPs cared more about using FB to promote new material, and when that comes out on a frequent basis, updating the landing page means more for work for overworked people. Moreover, finding giveaway incentives was a bit difficult, because of the resources involved in producing something appealing.
Then again, this is given an attitude where social media is treated as “Oh yes, this is something we can also use,” as opposed to an established and specifically funded part of an overall strategy.

[Reply]
http://www.communityorganizer20.com/ Debra Askanase

Hi Ilene,
I agree that changing the custom landing page can be difficult, especially for an organization that pays outside consultants for website work. I'm designing a welcome tab for a client who decided to create a “sign up for our email list” as the call to actions so that the page will not have to be changed often. I think that your point is also the reason that there are so many general “welcome” tabs that are an overview of the organization's unique value.

Love your last point about attitude. To make a real commitment to using social media, also means a commitment to prioritizing it (and the associated expenses).

[Reply]
sue_anne

Debra, I agree that the best way to go (especially if a non-profit doesn't have the internal resources to make changes) is to do something generic like a “join our email list” page.

Also, another custom tab that I found that liked was the one for the National Wildlife Federation and the oil spill, but for they aren't using it as their landing page. http://www.facebook.com/NationalWildlife#!/Nati…

[Reply]
sue_anne

I wish I had seen this on Friday (work has been so busy that I'm a few days behind on blogs and Twitter).

Here's two that I created:
- The call to action is a new page — http://bit.ly/dwXwge
- The newsletter is actually a Facebook conversion of a landing page on our web site — http://bit.ly/ciQ8Ba

I think the ones that really seem to be working are those that primarily use images and hope that they don't lose people who can't see images. But, I guess it's a good assumption that if you're on a custom Facebook tab, you're going to be able to see the image.

[Reply]
Debra Askanase Reply:
June 27th, 2010 at 10:56 am
Sue Anne,
What a great job you’ve done with the EMQ Familes First Facebook Page. I really like the newsletter tab – clear, compelling, good images. The landing tab has a clear call to action, too. Thanks for sharing. I’ve also added this to the wiki.

[Reply]
sue_anne

Here's another interesting one I just found:
http://www.facebook.com/TheMusicMattersProject

[Reply]
Debra Askanase Reply:
June 27th, 2010 at 8:50 am
Sue Anne,
That’s a nice one. I’ve added it to the FBLandingtabs wiki. Thanks!

[Reply]
Debra Askanase Reply:
June 27th, 2010 at 10:52 am
Sue Anne,
That’s a good one! I’ve added it to http://fblandingtabs.wikispaces.com/ as a reference. If you find any more, please add yourself to the wiki and contribute. Thanks for pointing this one out.

[Reply]
http://twitter.com/bfholmes Brenna Holmes

Great write up Debra & thanks for including @CalParks welcome tab in your slide show. There are some great ones in there! Also, thanks for pointing me toward Danny Brown's experiment, I love it!

I think welcome tabs are a MUST and it's unfortunate that great orgs like National Wildlife Federation aren't making the most of their custom oil spill tab… Thanks for pointing that one out Sue_Anne.

[Reply]
Debra Askanase Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 1:15 pm
@Brenna,
I asked the NWF why the BP Oil Spill isn’t a landing tab and Danielle Brigida replied that they hadn’t thought of it. She also said that most people were using the Cause to promote the NWF’s efforts around the oil spill.

I wonder, do you have any thoughts on the conversion rate to fans of @CalParks vs. conversion rate to fans of FB Pages without welcome or action tabs?

[Reply]
http://www.wchingya.com wchingya

Love the slides = great inspirations for Welcome Page. I'm new with the wiki thing so thought about joining to check out what can I learn from you, hopefully to gain knowledge about Welcome tabs too. See you there.

@wchingya
Social/Blogging Tracker

[Reply]
Debra Askanase Reply:
June 29th, 2010 at 1:13 pm
@Ching Ya,
Yes, I saw that you joined the wiki. Always glad to have the help of a knowledgeable online friend. I am new to wikis as well, and so I’m excited to try it out with you. If you come across good examples of Welcome Tabs for brands, please add them to the wiki.

[Reply]
http://johnhaydon.com John Haydon

Debra – great post. And thanks for pointing out the May 2010 BrandGlue study. You and I both know that first impressions do have an impact. But I wonder how much other factors played a role in the conversion. For example, big brands generally have budgets for things like email marketing, cool looking websites and other tools to influence fan growth.

In other words, I think more factors may have influenced the stats. That said, even if the delta is only 10%, the investment in a custom landing Page more than pays for itself.

Great slides too!

[Reply]
http://johnhaydon.com John Haydon

Debra – great post. And thanks for pointing out the May 2010 BrandGlue study. You and I both know that first impressions do have an impact. But I wonder how much other factors played a role in the conversion. For example, big brands generally have budgets for things like email marketing, cool looking websites and other tools to influence fan growth.

In other words, I think more factors may have influenced the stats. That said, even if the delta is only 10%, the investment in a custom landing Page more than pays for itself.

Great slides too!

[Reply]
http://johnhaydon.com John Haydon

Debra – great post. And thanks for pointing out the May 2010 BrandGlue study. You and I both know that first impressions do have an impact. But I wonder how much other factors played a role in the conversion. For example, big brands generally have budgets for things like email marketing, cool looking websites and other tools to influence fan growth.

In other words, I think more factors may have influenced the stats. That said, even if the delta is only 10%, the investment in a custom landing Page more than pays for itself.

Great slides too!

[Reply]
http://johnhaydon.com John Haydon

Debra – great post. And thanks for pointing out the May 2010 BrandGlue study. You and I both know that first impressions do have an impact. But I wonder how much other factors played a role in the conversion. For example, big brands generally have budgets for things like email marketing, cool looking websites and other tools to influence fan growth.

In other words, I think more factors may have influenced the stats. That said, even if the delta is only 10%, the investment in a custom landing Page more than pays for itself.

Great slides too!

[Reply]
http://johnhaydon.com John Haydon

Debra – great post. And thanks for pointing out the May 2010 BrandGlue study. You and I both know that first impressions do have an impact. But I wonder how much other factors played a role in the conversion. For example, big brands generally have budgets for things like email marketing, cool looking websites and other tools to influence fan growth.

In other words, I think more factors may have influenced the stats. That said, even if the delta is only 10%, the investment in a custom landing Page more than pays for itself.

Great slides too!

[Reply]
http://johnhaydon.com John Haydon

Debra – great post. And thanks for pointing out the May 2010 BrandGlue study. You and I both know that first impressions do have an impact. But I wonder how much other factors played a role in the conversion. For example, big brands generally have budgets for things like email marketing, cool looking websites and other tools to influence fan growth.

In other words, I think more factors may have influenced the stats. That said, even if the delta is only 10%, the investment in a custom landing Page more than pays for itself.

Great slides too!

[Reply]
http://johnhaydon.com John Haydon

Debra – great post. And thanks for pointing out the May 2010 BrandGlue study. You and I both know that first impressions do have an impact. But I wonder how much other factors played a role in the conversion. For example, big brands generally have budgets for things like email marketing, cool looking websites and other tools to influence fan growth.

In other words, I think more factors may have influenced the stats. That said, even if the delta is only 10%, the investment in a custom landing Page more than pays for itself.

Great slides too!

[Reply]
http://johnhaydon.com John Haydon

Good call. They should at least create a welcome Page, or as you (and Sue Anne mentions below), and email opt-in Page.

[Reply]
http://twitter.com/starfocus starfocus

Thanks for the suggestion Sue Anne! And for the sweet comment. Honestly I think it's a great idea, and maybe we can make the page even more interesting to look at… Do you have any suggestions for what you'd like to see?

[Reply]
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sue_anne

I think it's already really great for what you're trying to do with it. I was just surprised you aren't sending new people visiting the page to that link.

[Reply]
sue_anne

I think it's already really great for what you're trying to do with it. I was just surprised you aren't sending new people visiting the page to that link.

[Reply]
http://twitter.com/phiunit Phi Pham

This slide share is extremely helpful. Thanks a lot for posting!
I am working on one for http://www.facebook.com/communitylab.
Your resources and wiki here have helped a lot.
-Phi

[Reply]
http://www.communityorganizer20.com/ Debra Askanase

So glad the resources and wiki are helpful. Be sure and go back to the wiki to link your custom landing tab example for Community Lab, once it's done. Would love to see it.

[Reply]
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hi friend, i think you shoul check the size of that box, it overflows from the content.

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