With the increasing and widespread use of Facebook, it is prudent for brands to create a presence using Facebook pages and make them unique and engaging enough to attract fans and followers. Creating custom tabs within a Facebook page is a great way to encourage users to interact with your page, although it can be difficult working with Facebook’s developer tools if you are not well versed in HTML or CSS. ShortStack has emerged to help make the process easier for both developers and non-developers to create clean, visually appealing, and functional custom Facebook tabs for company pages.
ShortStack works by creating account using your email address and password, or using your Facebook login. Logging in via Facebook is useful for security and collaboration purposes. It also allows for quick and easy publishing because you have already given ShortStack access to the page(s) that you are the administrator of.
Once you’re logged in, you’re either brought to the Tab Designer or the Tab Manager, where you can get started creating and managing your custom tabs. ShortStack allows you to create tabs using their pre-made widgets, using your own code if you’re a developer, or a combination of the two. On the left-hand side of the Tab Designer, you’ll see all of the options for widgets that ShortStack allows.
The widgets allow you to do virtually anything with your tab, and are by far easiest way to build your tab. With widgets, you can add anything from images, links, and text to forms, social media feeds, contests, polls, promotions, and countdowns. They may not allow for as many customizations as writing your own code would, so if you are familiar with code, you can easily add that to your tab as well.
You can also include newsletter signups or create your own forms within a tab.
Then, you can drag and drop the widget areas so that they are displayed in the order you want.
You’ll be able to see a live preview of what your tab looks like so there are no surprises when your tab goes live on your Facebook page. There are options for you to set content for fans and non-fans, so you can create what’s called a “like gate” with ShortStack, where you can create fan-only offers or promotions. This helps encourage visitors to “like” your page, and increases engagement with your community.
ShortStack really excels in giving you an easy way to switch out, schedule, and monitor content. If you have a promotion, contest, or giveaway that you want to make available for a certain amount of time, you can set the parameters around when you want the tab to be live and when you want it to shut down so that you don’t have to inconvenienced by manually turning off the campaign. ShortStack also makes it easy for users to create promotions and custom forms through a simple form editor. If you use ShortStack’s Promotion tool, it has been built in a way that follows the Facebook guidelines for promotions so you don’t need to worry about compliance.
If you purchase an account with ShortStack, you’ll receive database storage space and analytics within your account. This is particularly helpful when creating custom forms and promotions so you can sort through the data using the ShortStack application rather than filtering through the email notifications you’ll be sent if you are using a free account.
ShortStack also makes it easy for you to encourage sharing within your tabs. Whenever someone fills out a survey, poll, form, or interacts with any other content on your tab, they have the option to share it with their friends on their wall. This, in turn, encourages their friends to interact as well. You’ll be able to track analytics such as traffic sources, views, and interactions by integrating Google Analytics into your tabs.
In addition to easy tab creation, ShortStack has done a great job of providing tutorials and documentation on how to use their system, including Webinars that are recorded and posted to their YouTube channel for later use. They are also active on Twitter and Facebook, providing new resources and support for users. Feel free to test out ShortStack on your company page by visiting http://www.shortstackapp.com/ and logging in with your Facebook account.
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About Jess Ostroff
Jess Ostroff
Jess Ostroff is a digital marketing and social media virtual project manager for Social Media Explorer and Exploring Social Media. You can follow her on Twitter @jessostroff for musings on technology, music, and other topics related to location-independence and freelancing.
