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As of today Facebook is rolling out the Facebook Questions, a new feature that prompts Facebook users to ask questions

If you are on Facebook, you may have noticed a new publisher for personal accounts and pages alike with an icon that says “Ask Question.” From what we can tell it’s in Beta mode so if you haven’t seen it yet, you probably will soon. To see the dedicated page for Facebook Questions, go to http://www.facebook.com/questions/.

You can add a description, pictures and a poll to your questions. You can follow questions and get notifications if anyone answers them. It also appears that questions are either automatically categorized and if Facebook can’t determine the category, then the user is prompted to associate a keyword with the question. It looks like now you can browse and search for questions based on these category keywords. However, Facebook Questions isn’t a filter option in Facebook search. Also, all Facebook Questions are by default public – and can’t be changed to private.

Pages can also ask questions and get credit for it. As of right now the questions appear as stories in the News Feed however they disappear from Pages’ walls. I have a feeling this is going to change and is a glitch.

Allfacebook.com shares in a post “One other pretty impressive feature is that users who define interests within their profile will have questions surfaced to them based on that information. In other words, it functions identically to Quora which also has a questions based profile for users. Just like Quora, Facebook Questions also has the ability to “Follow” specific questions and receive updates any time someone submits a new answer.”

TechCrunch reported in a post that “Facebook will also be integrating Questions and their answers into the Community Pages that launched in April, which already include content from Wikipedia and Facebook user status updates. Finally, this is a big SEO opportunity for the site, though a Facebook spokeswoman said that there are no plans to include the content in search engines yet.” Facebook is definitely building an empire of information and data, leveraging its 500 plus million users.

The big question is what are the bigger implications of Facebook Questions? Does this directly compete with Google as the go-to source for all questions? Or is it more of a threat to Yahoo! Answers? Is this a better place for businesses to establish their expertise than on sites like LinkedIn which also has an Answers feature? Here’s our question – what do you think?

Post written by Helen Todd aka @helenstravels. To learn more from fbadz.com, connect with us on Facebook!

Optimizing a profile picture on your Facebook Page is important to maximize your branding on Facebook. The profile picture is not only prime real estate on the Wall tab – the default landing tab for your page’s connections/fans – but it is also responsible for the thumbnail picture. The thumbnail picture is the small picture that appears by every status update from the Page. This picture along with the Page’s name brands every status update on Facebook from your page, regardless of where the connection/fan reads the update (i.e. their home page, the actual page or from their smart phones). It’s important to maximize this space because Facebook status updates help your company stay top-of-mind with your connections/fans.  The thumbnail serves as an optimal visual cue for your connections/fans to associate all of your status updates with your company.

The maximum size of a profile picture can be 200x600px; the maximum file size is 4MB. However, to optimize the thumbnail, whatever you’d like to fill this space (logos are often used) should be 175x175px and can live anywhere within the overall profile picture design.

If you upload pictures other than 200x600px Facebook will automatically resize the photo. Using the “edit thumbnail” option, you can select what part of the profile picture you’d like to feature as the thumbnail. Just remember that the thumbnail is a small picture so you want to choose an image that will look good sized down to 50x50px.

It’s recommended to strategize how you’d like to use your profile picture. Do you want to simply share your company’s logo? Or maybe feature a connection/fan photo? Or maybe you want to feature a product? Is there something else compelling that you want associated with your company?  Below are three examples of companies using their profile pictures well. Have you seen any other companies doing anything clever with their profile pictures?

Keep in mind that the thumbnail picture is just 50x50px. You want to make sure that your logo or whatever image you select for your thumbnail looks good in the profile picture AND the thumbnail picture.

We love how Keen features fan photos with the caption on the photo. Featuring fan photos is a great way to encourage fans/connections to upload photos to your Page.

Victoria Secret does a great job with their PINK page’s picture by rotating out the image above the logo to reflect that season’s featured product.

Dunkin Donuts also uses their profile picture to feature fans. We love how they incorporate the fan photo with their branding in the profile picture.

Post written by Helen Todd aka @helenstravels. To learn more from fbadz.com, connect with us on Facebook!

One critical element to a successful communication plan for any Facebook page is to encourage engagement from your connections (aka fans). The best advice to optimize your Facebook page’s wall posts is to simply ask a question at the end of the wall post (also referred to as status updates). A good question will entice a response. Keep in mind that open-ended questions that entail too much work on behalf of the fan, questions that are complicated or questions that ask too many things won’t be as successful as a question that’s simple, compelling and easy to answer.

You know your fans best, so ask targeted and relevant questions. They’ll tell you with ‘likes’ and comments whether you succeeded at engaging them with your wall post. If you haven’t succeeded, experiment with content and questions that work best for your fans. If you’ve fostered engagement, replicate the formula but keep in mind that you have to continually offer fresh content and questions that keep the fans interested.

Here’s an example of a status update that is optimized with a question:

Wall post:

“Ever wonder how to engage your fans on Facebook? Here is a blog post that has 10 suggestions for status updates that encourage engagement. [LINK]“

Why there’s room for improvement:

By asking the question at the beginning of the status update it comes across as a rhetorical question with the second sentence serving as the answer. It doesn’t entice a response from fans. Simply sharing information isn’t enough to encourage engagement either.

Optimized Wall Post with a Question:

“This blog post has 10 suggested status updates to encourage engagement on your Facebook page [LINK]. What question have you asked on your page that got the most comments or ‘likes’? Share here!”

Why it’s better:

This status update ends with a question that is direct and easy to answer. By ending with ‘Share here’ it also has a strong call to action for the fan to comment with his or her response.

When you think about social media, think about socializing your content. Asking questions is a key element in holding a conversation with someone in person or online. This is applied to Facebook pages too. Always think of how you can make your status updates more social with your fans.

Post written by Helen Todd aka @helenstravels. To learn more from fbadz.com, connect with us on Facebook!

The equivalent of the Bat-Signal went out to the Facebook developer and business community in the form of F8. If anyone migrating to San Francisco last week thought that the big announcement was related to geo-location, they were far from correct. Facebook’s announcement was bigger. Much bigger. The company released their vision of the “Open Graph” that has the potential to make every web experience an individual, customized and social experience. In a nutshell, Facebook is socializing the internet in profound ways.

What exactly is the open graph? Facebook is your social graph because it maps out your friends. A life graph refers to the locations you’ve tracked from geo-location sites like Google Latitude. Basically, anything that maps out an aspect of your life can have a graph whether you’re tracking restaurants, music, movies, news, books, stores or hobbies. Facebook wants to connect all of these graphs together and bring a social element to every aspect of them too, which is bringing a social element to all of your web experiences (with potential to tap into non-web applications like TV and video games).  As a user, the implications are vast. Some examples they shared at the conference include logging into Pandora and listening to music your friends like or checking out Yelp and seeing what restaurants your friends recommend.

Over 50,000 websites are already using the tools that Facebook released to make their websites more social. To see some that Facebook are showcasing click here. The tools are plug-ins that can easily be added to a website. The one that Facebook is pushing the most is the Like button which makes it possible to virtually “like” any piece of content on the web. When a user “likes” something, this action is featured in their friends’ Facebook stream and on the website where the action was taken place. By doing this and bringing in the ability to see which of a user’s Facebook friends have also liked content across the web, it makes the experience social. You can easily and quickly start by adding some of Facebook’s new plugins.

Maybe you’ve already invested a ton of energy and resources into building a community on a Facebook page (previously referred to as fan pages) and now you’re wondering what this means for you and your social media strategy. Here are some thoughts to chew on:

What this means for page admins:

• Your Facebook connections will grow. The new “Like” button which is replacing the “Become a fan” button will generate more connections (previously known as fans) due to less friction for a user to commit to endorsing your brand. Once a users connect with you on Facebook, you can stay top of mind and engage with the users by publishing content to their stream. This means that you will still be able to grow a community on Facebook and it’s absolutely crucial that you continue to engage with your connections through the stream on a regular basis.

• Make your website social. Facebook integration onto your website is paramount. Prior to F8′s announcements, the Facebook wave was very “Fan” Page-centric and there is now a shift back to the website. As the previous bullet point indicates, your connections will continue to grow on Facebook and what this shift means is that you have to apply social media practices to your entire web strategy. Make the social experience seamless on your website. The internet is moving in this direction. Get on board now.  Your website and Facebook presence should compliment and support one another in this regard.

• Content, content, content. With the introduction of the “Like” button, customers will be able to “like” virtually any type of content online and their friends will be able to see these actions both on Facebook and on your website. This means that you need to give them content to like and share with their friends on Facebook. This will not only empower customers to spread your brand message among their friends, but it will ultimately drive awareness of your brand, regardless of where a user interacts with the content.  The more content there is to share and like, it will be easier for customers to passively and actively endorse your brand to their friends.

• Your audience is king. The web is becoming more people-centric and catering to customers in the most personalized sense as possible through the semantic web. Online purchase decisions are going to be heavily influenced by users’ Facebook friends as the social web becomes the norm. You have to enter the conversation and engage with them in an open and transparent way, if not, the consequences could be detrimental. Your audience is on Facebook and will come to expect these social experiences. Get on board.

• Embrace the new terminology. Pages are no longer “fan pages” they’re referred to as just “Pages.” “Fans” are now referred to as “Connections.” You should update these terms in your marketing material and use them in your offline conversations as well. The idea of connecting with your customers fosters more of a two-way dialogue than asking someone to “fan” your brand. Since terminology does affect perception, connecting with your customers on Facebook is a good shift to embrace.

Let us know if you have any other thoughts on how Facebook’s announcements about the open graph will affect page admins.

Post written by Helen Todd aka @helenstravels. To learn more from fbadz.com, connect with us on Facebook!

A custom welcome tab is a great way to convert visitors to your Facebook fan page into fans and grow your presence on Facebook. fbadz.com is setting up our own fan page and this video walks you through the steps of how to create a custom welcome tab with an image and make it the default tab for non-fans when they visit your fan page. This is done using the FBML application on Facebook. FBML is Facebook’s mark-up language, similar to HTML, and it allows for complete customization of Facebook fan pages. The steps outlined in the video are below.

Steps:

1. Create a welcome tab image that’s 520 pixels wide. To be viewed without scrolling, the maximum height should be 500px. Note: You can use 750px as the maximum width but Facebook will be changing this spec to 520. Tip: Have a strong call to action for viewers to become a fan of your page.

2. Host the image online. Tip: http://tinypic.com/ is a great photo hosting resource if you don’t have your own server.

3. Go to your Facebook fan page’s admin management portal. You can access this by clicking the ‘Edit Page’ link that appears right beneath the fan page’s profile picture.

4. Add the ‘Static FMBL’ application to your fan page. To do this, scroll down to the bottom of the page. There will be a box that reads ‘More Applications.’ Click the ‘Browse More’ link. Or simply go straight to the applications directory here: http://www.facebook.com/apps/directory.php. Search for ‘Static FBML.’ Click on the ‘Static FBML’ search result. Then click the link ‘Add to my page’ that appears right beneath the profile picture of the app’s page. On the pop-up box, click “Add to Page” beside the fan page that you want to add the custom tab on. Your fan page admin area will now have the Static FBML app in the admin management portal.

5. Once the FMBL application is added to your fan page, go back to the admin management portal and click ‘Edit’ in the Static FBML box.

6. Type the name of your tab in the “Box Title” field – this is what will appear on the actual tab navigation area. Examples include “Become a Fan” or “Welcome”.

7. Type this html/fbml code into the FBML editing area:

<center><img src=”LINK TO YOUR IMAGE GOES HERE”></center>

8. Click ‘Save Changes’

9. Go back into your admin management portal and find the FBML application. It will have the title of the tab in the name.

10. Click ‘Application Settings’

11. Click ‘remove’ beside the box option and ‘add’ by the tab option. It should look like this when you’re complete:

Box:  Available (add)

Tab:  Added (remove)

12. Your tab is now live!

13. If it’s buried, you can make it visible on your fan page by moving it to the top 6 tabs that are shown on fan pages. To do this, click the arrows tab that appears to the far right of the visible tabs. Click your custom tab and drag it to the visible tabs area. The tab that was closest to the arrows tab will now be buried.

14. To make the tab the landing tab for non-fans of your page, go to the Wall and select the ‘Options’ link that appears right beneath the status update publisher. It has a little looking glass icon. (You can also edit the Wall Settings in the admin portal area too.)

15. Then click ‘Settings’ link.

16. For the option ‘Default Landing Tab for Everyone Else:’ select your custom tab from the drop-down b0x. It will be listed as the name of your tab.

17. Congratulations! You’ve created a custom landing tab for your Facebook fan page for non-fans!

Have you seen any great welcome tabs on Facebook? Have any questions about custom tabs or boxes on Facebook fan pages? Share here!

Post written by Helen Todd aka @helenstravels. To learn more from fbadz.com, become a fan!