Return On Subscriber – Email Marketing Blog

Wondering how to get more Facebook Fans? How about some good old fashioned bribery?

Everyone has a price – make them an offer they can’t refuse.



There’s a good chance a high percentage of your email subscribers are on Facebook.  Maybe you are currently promoting your fan page and social sharing in your email marketing, but haven’t had a big surge in fans.  In this post, I’ll show you a quick way to create a special offer that only your Facebook fans can access.

The image below shows what a facebook user who hasn’t “liked” your page sees, then shows what the user sees after “liking”.

Similar to the  Facebook opt-in form tutorial post, this technique also utilizes the Static FBML application. A quick refresher:

The Facebook Static FBML application gives you the ability to add advanced functionality to your Facebook Fan Page. This application will add a box to your Page in which you can render HTML or FBML (Facebook Markup Language) for enhanced Page customization. Installing the app is easy, but actually getting to the area where you edit can be a little tricky.  When you add the app it will give you choices of which Page or Pages you want to add it to.

After installing static FBML, head to your Page and click on “Edit Page”. Locate FBML in your list of applications and click on the pencil icon to edit. In “Box Title” you create a name for your custom tab with special offer. As you can see, for the post above, I chose “Coupon”.

Add Fans Only Code to Static FBML Box

The basic concept here is utilizing Facebook’s custom code options to make things visible specifically to connections.

For this particular offer, 2 images were created and hosted called “like.jpg” & “not-like.jpg”. Keeping the images the same size and similar visually will minimize confusion.

Below is the code you will use, similar to the example from the left, you will need to customize it to match your images and sizes:

<table width=”516″ height=”732″ border=”0″ cellspacing=”0″ cellpadding=”0″> <tr> <td background=”http://www.yoursite.com/images/not-like.jpg”> <fb:visible-to-connection> <img src=”http://www.yoursite.com/images/like.jpg” height=”732″ width=”516″ /> </fb:visible-to-connection></td></tr></table>

Add New Tab to Facebook Page Navigation

Visit your main page and drag the “Coupon” tab out into the visible Tab navigation. It should be located at the bottom of your hidden options, as seen to the left.

You will notice that the tab has a direct accessible URL. You will use this to drive visitors directly to the tab. It will look something like this:

facebook.com/yourpage?v=app_7146470109

Testing the Fans Only Coupon

This functionality will not work for you as a logged-in admin. You will need to logout first. Also, the application can take a few moments to work, so make sure to clear your browser cache/temporary files before giving it a try. It would be good to also test with some non-admin users/friends to ensure things are working properly. A non-logged in user should see your “not-like.jpg”, after liking they should see “like.jpg”.

Email Your Subscribers a Special Facebook Fan Offer

The best way to execute this is with a dedicated email. Don’t get too cute with the copy and subject line, make sure they know exactly what they will get and how it works. Over explanation when it comes to Social Media is never a bad thing. Also, remember that many folks aren’t allowed to visit Facebook at work, so get creative with the time of day you send the campaign. Early mornings, Dinner Time, and Weekends would be a good time to test.

One Last Thing…

Make sure to benchmark how many Facebook fans you have before you send the campaign, so you can show your peers that Email Marketing still gets the best results and ROI!

Send me your offer on Twitter @alexcwilliams, or post it a comment below. Good luck and happy Facebooking!