A Facebook Fan page is an excellent tool to get people engaged. Once they "Liked" your page they will get your new posts on their wall. But how to get people to "Like" your page?

It doesn't differ from what attracts visitors on a normal website:

• let people find it.
  • link to it anywhere you can
  • use the Like box widget on your site
  • post on other FB pages as the page's username
• offer regular updated quality content
• have a clear functionality.

Now, how to get content with a certain functionality on your Fan page? Well recently Facebook opened up by allowing iFrames to be used. What's an iFrame? An iFrame allows you to display content from website A on the page of website B. For example to embed a YouTube video on your site via iFrame. This way Facebook takes  strain away from their own servers while giving more flexibility to the Fan page owners. The content displayed in the iFrame runs on other servers.

• a menu
•  a slideshow
• content that is always directly updated on your Facebook page
• interaction with the user (e.g. forms)
• download/upload of files.

Use the iFrame to "embed" your own web content in your Facebook page, but:

• Use own web content in Facebook's iFrame only if it's themed like the rest of the Facebook page. Having two different styles on one page is ugly and confusing. Show off your graphic skills on your real website. It means you have to make a separate website that looks like Facebook, only intended to be viewed through your Facebook page with a theme of 810px wide. That makes sense anyway because you don't want to have duplicated content from your website on your Facebook page. At least not one on one.
• Offer extra value if people become a Fan. Provide pages that asks a visitor to click "Like" first, before exposing "Premium" content. Do it in a kind way using the words "please" and "thanks". Offer really interesting things like discount coupons,  tutorials, free downloads that are not available elsewhere online (HD images, vids, software, docs).

Look at an example Fan page. Take also a look at the corresponding website made with the only intend to be viewed in the Facebook iFrame of 520px wide.

Some other things to notice on the example Fan page:

• Only clean high contrast 16x16 icons for the "menu" on the left. Keep the number of items low to avoid the "More" showing up under it (I think it's nine). Hide or delete any apps you hardly use (e.g. Discussion Board).
• Consider changing the default landing page to "Info" or another generic page. This is used only on the first visit to tell people what your page is about. That's better than dropping onto a Wall with posts that might be confusing if you don't know the context.
• Use a link to your own website in the "About" section. This will show in the left sidebar of every page, resulting in more traffic.
• Offer visitors also other ways to stay updated (see the "Stay tuned" item). Wall updates might go unnoticed, being pushed down in the stream.
• If possible show the page owner (left sidebar down) through the options. It gives your page a human face.
• After you've hit the 25 fans, get yourself a page username. It gives you an url like http://www.facebook.com/DivingBikers instead of www.facebook.com/pages/Diving-Bikers/202415843106052. You can use uppercase to enhance readability without any problems. What ever case type a visitor uses, they end up on the right page. Try http://www.facebook.com/dIvInGbIkErS to see where you end up.

Now you might say: "Nice but we don't have a clue how to set up an iFrame or add custom tabs".

Get help from someone that:

• can show you they have a Facebook look alike theme, 810 px wide without a header
• can give you the ability to add and edit the content yourself on this Facebook purpose only website (provides you a webmaster login with edit permissions)
• did other Facebook Fan pages that you like
• you trust making them an admin of your page temporarily.

We love these kind of jobs. They can be accomplished in a couple of days and bring back a bit of simplicity in our work.