There’s a new (free!) theme called “The Blissful Blog” and it’s very pretty and soft. Holly chose to make hers minimalist so that the images can shine through. Take a look and leave her some love!
Since the announcement that FBML would be deprecated in favor of iframes, I’ve been playing around quite a bit with different options for building a fan page. FBML was relatively simple to use – but it also had a lot of limitations. iframes are a bit trickier to set up (you actually have to get a developer account and build a new app for each one you set up), but they have a lot more options.
One of those options is using WordPress as your foundation for a fan page. This means that all of the plug-ins that you use on wordpress can work inside of your Facebook page. It also means that the fan page owner can add and maintain the content without having to rely on a programmer to change it! If you’re familiar with wordpress, you can easily update your own fan page with new content, new images, a portfolio, etc. It’s as simple as making a new post or page, deleting old ones, etc. Want to change the graphics on a page? Just upload a new image through the dashboard! Want to add another tab? Just make a new page and have it show up! Over the last year or two sites have morphed into blogsites due to the ease of using wordpress. Now facebook pages can do the same. You can see it in action on my facebook page. Go to facebook.com/lovebugsphotographydesigns and look on the left side. Towards the bottom you’ll see a link that says ‘website.’ Click on that and it will bring up the wordpress-powered page. You can see a brief welcome, services we offer, and a portfolio.
WARNING: Firefox is not playing nice with Facebook and iframes at the moment. FB says it’s Firefox and Firefox says it’s Facebook…I don’t really care whose fault it is, so long as they are working on fixing it!
See the red bar at the top of the page? That’s the HelloBar. It’s something many people are using to market themselves, and now it’s being used for a good purpose. It’s pretty easy to add one to your wordpress site with just a few steps. (NOTE: It looks like the HelloBar site is having trouble this morning…don’t panic if you don’t see it. I’m thinking they are being overloaded at the moment with people using their services).
1. Go to plugins – Add new
2. Search for HelloBar – you’re looking for the one with lots of stars
3. Click on install, then click on activate
4. On the left side of the dashboard you will now have a link to Hellobar. Click on it.
5. There’s a space to enter your code snippet. Add these lines:
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”//www.hellobar.com/hellobar.js”></script>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
new HelloBar(3823,9104);
</script>
6. Save.
Your HelloBar should now show up on the top of your site! I’ve noticed that sometimes it goes to the Red Cross, others to Doctors Without Borders. Both are worthwhile organizations in my book, so it’s worth the 5 minutes to set this up.
WordPress 3.1 just came out and I’m excited to be using it! It has some new features that will make your life much easier.
Of course you should always update for security reasons. The wordpress developers are always looking for ways to improve the safety of the software, and each new version has additional means of doing so. But 3.1 has lots more! The biggest change is that you will be able to see your dashboard links from your wordpress site – not just the dashboard! If you are familiar with blogger or wordpress.com, you’ll know about the links across the top of the screen already. But this is something new for 3.1. There are dropdown menus for comments, adding posts or pages, upgrades, etc. right on the top of your screen. No more needing to go back and forth between the site and the dashboard if you want to add or change something – it’s right there! Another addition is the possiblity to choose a post type, which makes wordpress have some of the tumblr-style functions.
FBML used to be the easiest way to make a custom Facebook landing page. Facebook has never supported certain HTML features like image maps, making it difficult to link to different areas on your welcome page. Now they are moving away from FBML and into iframes – which have more possibilities, but still aren’t easy for the typical user to install! If you don’t understand what all of that means, you would probably love the service that I have started using in the past couple of weeks – Assembly Line by Lujure.
Lujure is a service that lets you build custom facebook pages without knowing any code – just drag and drop, then publish to your page! The first step is to make the graphic for your main welcome page – 520px wide is the standard, and you can go up to 2000px tall. Once you have your page graphic, you can go to the Lujure dashboard and upload the background image. Then use their drag and drop interface to add things like clickable hotspots, flash content, a flickr stream, etc. Click on publish and it will show up on your facebook page! Of course you’ll still need to know your way around facebook in order to set the page up as your default landing page, but it makes things a LOT easier.
More and more businesses are using facebook to connect with customers and to stay connected with current customers. Some companies are doing away with the standard website altogether and opting to just use facebook – so you definitely want to have a web presence. A welcome page allows you to greet new visitors and show them immediately what you’re about. And happy customers are likely to share your link with their facebook friends, making it easier to get that coveted word of mouth advertising. You really should have a nice facebook page, and Lujure makes it easy. Lujure has plans ranging from free (one page, one tab) through $195 a month (unlimited pages, unlimited tabs – it’s unlikely a small photography business would ever need this) and most photographers will be fine with either the free or the $5.49/month plan (one page, unlimited tabs). Keep in mind that you also get a nice discount if you pay annually – $53 for the whole year.
Of course you don’t have to do it yourself – not all photographers want to be involved in the tech side of things, or have time to build a page and deal with the installation. I can do both the design of pages and installation on facebook. Installing lujure and the pages you design yourself is $25, if you want me to design the pages for you it is $60 – including the side profile picture. Take a look at Kim Skavnak’s page to get an idea of what you can do with the profile and main picture telling your story! (Keep in mind that if you already ‘like’ Kim, you won’t see her welcome page – you’ll need to click on it on the left side of the page.)