(Originally published in Dealer magazine)
Social media has been a hot topic for a while now in the automotive business. As the communities grew, dealers and OEMs started paying more attention. Progressive dealers started social media campaigns while others adopted a “wait and see” attitude. As time progressed and search engines started recognizing the importance of the content generated by the sites, they started integrating data from these sites into their search algorithms (Google includes Twitter content while Bing includes Facebook “Like” data.)
The biggest, and most basic, question that dealers always ask is the same core question that they ask for any advertising medium: How will this help me sell more cars?
Facebook recently announced that it was phasing out FBML in favor of iframes. All those custom landing tabs you created won’t go away… yet, however. If you already have the “Static FBML” application installed on your fan page, you’ll continue to be able to use it for now. It is, however, expected to be phased out eventually with some saying it could go away completely by year’s end.
The advantage of using an iframe on your Facebook page, in simplest terms, is that you now have the ability to use your current tracking software to measure traffic generated by Facebook to your site. An iframe basically allows you to create a “window” within your Facebook page (on its own tab) in which you can show users a website without having to pull them away from Facebook.
Historically, search engines have ignored content within iframes – they see the window but not the picture inside. I don’t know whether this will be changing or not so the SEO value of the framed website may be negligible. Don’t get me wrong, your actual Facebook Page will still be seen by search engines, it’s only the content framed into your landing tab that may not count.
About a year ago, I wrote an article showing people how to frame in their inventory and/or website into their Facebook page. It was great while it worked but it had its drawbacks. The biggest one being that, the easiest “solution” for website integration or display was displaying an existing web page on your site, which framed in your website at its actual size. Your website, in whole, is still much larger than the display area contained within a Facebook tab. This produced ugly looking results with horizontal and vertical scrollbars. Facebook also didn’t allow outside analytics so, while it was cool to have your website or inventory framed in, you couldn’t really tell whether anyone was on your site within Facebook. Facebook then got rid of the ability to implement iframes and limited businesses to FBML.
With their migration back to iframes, and their decision to allow analytics on the framed site, you now have the ability to measure traffic that is viewing your website from within Facebook. You also have much more control over the design of what you display.
My advice to you has several components –
- Install the app “Static FBML” on your fan page now. You will not be able to do so after March 11. If you have it before that date, you can keep it. I only say this because, if you decide you would rather use FBML, or some website or SEO wizard determines that a FBML landing tab converts or optimizes better than the iframe, you’ll have the OPTION of using it.
- If you decide to utilize iframes, create SEPARATE LANDING PAGES for each tab you create. (ie. If you have a tab “About Us” with a website framed in, create a page (website) just for that tab. If you then decide to add a “Specials” page, create a different landing page for that tab.
- Make sure your analytics code is installed on these customized landing pages.
- Make pages specifically designed for optimized viewing within Facebook. What do I mean by that? As I mentioned before, by simply framing in existing websites, you end up showing people a very small view of your website and have these scroll bars in which they have to scroll all over the place to see it in whole.
Bottom line:
Facebook landing tab windows are exactly 520px by 800px. Create individual landing pages, with analytics code installed, and sized to view within Facebook. By doing this, you will have an attractive landing tab for your fans AND you will be able to measure conversion and views. Personally, I would create and display some sort of conversion device within the landing tabs, like a “Contact Us” page, or something that could generate some leads.
I’m not promising that you’ll all of a sudden generate massive traffic and leads.
What I’m saying is now you’ll have the ability to track views, test different landing pages and measure conversions…
And that’s the first step towards being able to measure your efforts.
To learn more cutting edge digital marketing strategies, please join me at the 10th Digital Dealer® Conference & Exposition being held in Orlando, FL on April 19-21, 2011.
