Most Facebook Fan Pages bring the visitor to the Wall. This is the equivalent of landing in the middle of a conversation. Wouldn’t it be better to open the door first with a special Welcome tab? Or offer an overview of what actions your organization is promoting now? Consider developing a custom Welcome tab to introduce the organization to its visitors, and convert fans to stakeholders.

Facebook Page administrators can choose any tab to be the landing tab. Most choose the Wall tab. However, why not add a custom landing tab highlighting the value of Liking the Page? A custom landing (or Welcome) tab is designed for visitors to your Page who have not yet Liked it; once they become a fan, fans land on the Wall. The value of a custom-designed landing tab is that you can create the first impression, ask visitors to become a fan directly, ask visitors to take an action, and show the “at a glance” unique value of your cause.

Pages with custom landing tabs have a higher conversion rate to fans than Pages without them.

According to a May 2010 BrandGlue study, visitors to Pages with a landing tab converted to “people who like” the Page at a rate of 47%, while those without a custom landing tab converted at a rate of 23%. That’s a pretty compelling statistic. You can check these statistics for your own Page by looking at the Page Views in your Page Insights. What percentage of Page visitors currently convert to fans?

Another approach is to develop a custom landing tab with a special offer. Organizations could learn from Danny Brown’s recent experiment of offering an exclusive e-book, only available through his Facebook Page, and only available to people who liked his fan page. Danny Brown found that, within a week of the offer via Facebook, the number of people who Liked his Page grew by 245% (from 190 fans to 466). And, importantly, there had been only seven unsubscribes – the vast majority remained fans. (Hat tip to @AskAaronLee for pointing me to this experiment.)

How could a nonprofit organization take advantage of this?

* Create a similar goods promotion, such as the WeCanEndThis.com t-shirt (given away for free at SXSW 2010)
* Offer an exclusive Facebook application, such as the facebook application for My Social Actions
* Download a free e-book, such as World Shapers: Extraordinary Women Making a Difference
* Download an iPhone app, like the iPhone app for The Extraordinaries