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Facebook Fan Pages + Apps
And lots more… Mike Richwalsky
Allegheny College
A li=le about me…
• Assistant Director of Public Affairs, Allegheny College
• Technology Fellow, NaEonal InsEtute of Technology in Liberal EducaEon
• Blog at HighEdWebTech.com
• Twi=er: @mrichwalsky
Let’s Get Moving…
Let’s talk Facebook
• The most opEons of the big social networks to create a space for your school.
• Features: – Personal Profiles – ApplicaEons – Groups – Fan Pages – Ads – Photos/videos
Fan Pages
• Users become your “fan” • Users can post quesEons and share info • You can add applicaEons to your fan page • You can send an update to all your fans at once (and target these!)
• MulEple people can be admins
• Changed in March 2009 to be more like profiles
Groups
• Users can join a group or be invited in – Ask quesEons – Share links, photos and videos
– Events
Differences between Fan Pages and Group Pages
• Fan Pages can be viewed by non-‐FB members
• AnalyEcs Data on Fan Pages • Groups can be protected
Fan Pages
Fan Pages
More on custom tabs here:
h=p://highedwebtech.com/2009/06/19/how-‐to-‐add-‐a-‐custom-‐tab-‐to-‐your-‐facebook-‐fan-‐page/
How to create an awesome Facebook Fan Page
Encourage People to Interact
• Allow wall posts, shared photos and comments
• Post on your own wall and tell people what’s going on
• Post photos, videos, events and more to generate conversaEon.
• Be a part of the conversaEon, especially answering quesEons from prospecEves.
Promote Your Facebook Page
• Add links on your college homepage • Add link or text to your print pieces • Add “Share this on Facebook” on every page on your website.
• We encourage students to join the Class of 2013 when they receive their acceptance le=ers + afer they deposit.
Crowdsource Your Content
Facebook Apps
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Nerd Alert
• We are going to talk technical stuff, code and other geeky things here.
• We’re going to code in PHP for these examples, but many other plagorms are supported.
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Let me give you a good example…
• We launched the first of our Facebook apps in Fall of 2007.
• The first applicaEon we built grabbed headlines from our AthleEcs RSS feed and published them to Facebook.
• This is the app we’ll build today.
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AthleEcs Headlines
Awesome Chart Time
Steps to building an applicaEon
• Create a Facebook Profile, if you haven’t yet • Add the Developer ApplicaEon • Register Your ApplicaEon • Download Libraries • Design and Build • TesEng • Launch • Post-‐Launch MarkeEng • On-‐Going Maintenance
The Developer ApplicaEon
• Gives you access to be able to create apps • Manage your applicaEon sekngs from one place
• Gives you staEsEcs about your apps – (visits, users, etc).
• h=p://www.facebook.com/developers/
The Developer ApplicaEon
Register Your ApplicaEon
• Each applicaEon is given a public and private key. Keep it secret, keep it safe.
• Enter in other details about where your applicaEon lives, what types of sekngs it will have, etc.
Register Your ApplicaEon
Register Your ApplicaEon
• Leave app in sandbox mode for now • Decide if you want users to add this app to profiles or also fan pages.
Download Libraries
• Officially Supported: PHP, Javascript, AcEonscript 3.0, Force.com, FB Connect for iPhone
• There is unofficial support for: – Android, ASP.NET, Cocoa, ColdFusion, C++, C#, Erlang, Perl, Python, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Tcl, VB.NET, and several others.
Design and Build • Don’t over-‐do or over-‐think this. • Present informaEon quickly and easily
• You will have access to users’ informaEon, news feed, friends and more, so tread lightly
FBML or iFrame
• This is an important decision • You can have your applicaEon pages rendered so they look like naEve Facebook pages or you can include them in a scrollable frame inside Facebook.
• Let’s look at some pros and cons
iFrame
• Pros: – iFrame gives you more control over UI -‐ you can make it look more like your school if you want.
– Use iFrame if you are using a non-‐supported tool like Flash.
• Cons: – iFrames place higher demand on your servers since it has to call everything from your site, as opposed to using Facebook’s built-‐in methods and calls
FBML
• Facebook Markup Language • Pros: – Looks like Facebook – Less taxing on your server resources – Less Data flows between your server and FB
• Cons: – Tags and funcEons can ofen change without warning
FBML
Design and Build
• Our app will parse RSS • Will use the Magpie library to do some heavy-‐lifing – We’ll tell Magpie to grab the feed – Step through the RSS items
– Format and publish them to the page
RSS Reader App
• This applicaEon uses 4 main files, plus some helpers – Main: Index.php, conf.php, appinclude.php and rss.php
– Helper: crontab.php – Setup: Facebook API files, cache directory0
Index.php
Conf.php
Appinclude.php
Rss.php
Crontab.php
• Setup a PHP page that you call as ofen as you like (hourly, daily) to go out and check your RSS feed for updates – Takes load off your servers as users won’t have to parse your RSS every single Eme the applicaEon is loaded
• Set up a cron job on your server to run this
Test your applicaEon
• Do extensive tesEng before launch – Adding, removing the applicaEon
– Making sure applicaEon page and profile box show up correctly
– Make sure applicaEon updates correctly on the interval you’ve set.
Launch
• Invite some key campus users • Announce on internal communicaEon sites
With Great Power…
• Don’t spam users’ friends • Don’t spam their wall/news feed constantly
• Be very careful + aware of what data you are storing.
• Don’t be evil.
Post-‐Launch MarkeEng
• Add in “invite a friend” feature – Easy FBML Code (http://tinyurl.com/yskt8h)
– New Facebook rules for Invitation Spam (http://tinyurl.com/2e7a9t and
h"p://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=86)
• Submit to Facebook ApplicaEon Directory
• Send to your “fans”, post links in your “network,” link on your websites
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On-‐Going Maintenance
• Add your own app – Check it to make sure it works and conEnues to work over Eme
• Monitor stats, usage pa=erns, user requests and feedback
• Add new features and expand your app • Keep up on the FB plagorm – It changes ofen and without warning, breaking your applicaEon.
Further Reading and Research
• Build and host your app at Amazon Web Services – http://tinyurl.com/2b3o5q
• Adapt your application for mobile usage – h=p://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=49
• Explore new methods and classes, support forums – h=p://developers.facebook.com/
• Best PracEces from Facebook: – h=p://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Best_PracEces
QuesEons afer today?
• Twi=er me -‐ @mrichwalsky • Email: [email protected] or [email protected]
• Post a comment at h=p://highedwebtech.com
