Fan Page Services Will and Won’t.

There are plenty of fan page services now a days and they seem to be popping up on a weekly, if not daily basis, you have most likely run into a few if you have any interest in creating a fan page for yourself or your business.

I use a couple of them, I play around with the different features and apps, I happen to like ShortStack the best at the moment because they make it very easy to add all of the various apps to any fan page. I also use pagemodo because of the templates they offer. You can even use both services on one fan page if you want.

The fan page services can make it easy to add apps, tabs, pages, images, videos, twitter, links and on and on, so that you do not have to be technically savvy or waste too much of your time.

What I have been seeing though and what I think many people are misunderstanding are two implied values that simply do not exist with any of these services.

1. Your fan page is not going to look like UnderArmour ( http://www.facebook.com/underarmour ) or Victoria’s Secret ( http://www.facebook.com/victoriassecret ) simply because you are using one of these services. It doesn’t matter if you are using the free, paid or executive exclusive super professional business mode, it’s just not going to happen.

The reason those pages look the way they do is because they have professional designers on staff that create those great images, which give the page the look and feel that they have. What you will find is that all of the fan page services give examples of how your fan page could look if you use their service and of course they always look amazing so you want your page to look like that. Any page could look great, if you use a service or not, the key here is a designer, not a fan page creator service.

If you already have professional images, logo and a video then you can use those, add them to the template or app that is provided by the service and easily create a very professional looking fan page. If you don’t, then you have a fan page that looks like all the rest but with a few added tabs.

I’m sure some of these services may offer professional design services, which is of course going to cost you, as will any designer.

The best thing to do is to have a designer create images for your website or blog, then use those same images on your fan page.

The fan page services are a bit misleading, unintentionally I’m sure since most have a free version that you can check out, which would allow anyone to see exactly what they can and can’t do with the service, so I am not trying to say they are being shady, the services certainly do have value and you can’t beat free. However, being in the business that I’m in, I know for a fact that people expect their new fan page to look awesome and unique, they see others that look that way, they see all of these services that show fan page examples that look that way and that is what they want. I can’t tell you how many times I have said, “I’m not a designer”, to a client. I have a designer that I use or you can find one yourself, but it all costs extra and no fan page service is going to change that.

I even offer a package that has professional design included because it’s not included with set up, management or fan page services, it’s always extra and I try and make that as clear as possible, unlike the fan page services.

2. Fans. We all want fans, that’s the point to a fan page. Most of the fan page services also make it seem like either you will automatically get fans by using their service or that they will somehow get you fans. No matter how it’s presented, it gives the impression that you will get fans by using their service.

This isn’t even close to true and in this case, I have no doubt that most of them have presented it in this way intentionally. Not all of them of course, but many certainly have.

There is nothing about a fan page creation service that will get you fans. It may get you more fans than you would have gotten if you had not put up certain pages, features, images, videos, etc. because it allows you to present yourself better than you may have been able to without the service, but it doesn’t take any action to get you fans, it doesn’t friend people, it doesn’t run ads, it doesn’t drive traffic, it doesn’t recommend your page, like your page or interact with your existing fans. It is a tech service, just like wordpress for blogs, video creation software or web page HTML software that make it quick and easy for you to do what you need to do, without going to ITT Tech.

If you have ever been the administrator of a fan page, you will know that you can’t do anything on facebook while using facebook as the page. If you don’t know, you can now change from your personal account to your fan page account and use facebook as the actual fan page. But, you can’t do anything. You can’t send people messages, you can’t send friend requests, you can’t even interact with the friends you already have. You can only edit the page or post on the page wall.

You have to drive traffic to your facebook Fan Page just like you do to your website or blog, by paying for ads, promoting it on your other web sites, promoting it on your personal facebook account to your friends and hope they will like it, fan it and recommend it to their friends. You have to actually work at getting fans. Building a hot, sexy fan page will not get you fans unless you are already a name brand and people are looking for you.

People become fans of pages that are interests of theirs, like movies, TV shows, sports teams, celebrities, activities and that type of thing, they also fan pages that are “cool” products, like Nike or Xbox. They will also become fans of pages that their friends are fans of and recommend on their walls. They don’t just go around becoming fans of every fan page that looks good. They don’t fan “boring” products, even if they use that product. They don’t fan every service unless they use that service and love it. It’s just not as easy as certain types of businesses make it seem. It’s actually much easier to get followers on Twitter than it is to get fans on facebook.

Here is what I recommend you do. Make yourself a fan page using one of those services and see how it looks. Then, go get fans. See how all of that works out for you. It may work out well, then you can hire a Social Network Manager to just manage the page and your other social media activities to save you time or you may find that you enjoy doing it yourself.

If it doesn’t work out well, then at least you have an understanding of what exactly you are paying someone to do for you, the time involved, the process, all of the various aspects of Social Network Management and you can be comfortable and confident that you are spending your money wisely.

Thank You for Visiting,
Jim Vigilante
The Social Network Manager