6 Facebook Fan Page Design & Custom Tab Apps

April 26, 2012 by

Facebook fan page applicationsFacebook is the Darling

Facebook is the social media and soon-to-be stock market darling. While other social media platforms have gotten a lot of buzz, Facebook has captured serious attention from brands, marketers, app developers and investors because there’s a lot of money being made on the platform – and people expect this to continue.

The platform requires some effort (and investment)

Of course, Facebook requires work. Not only do companies need to develop and promote their Fan Pages, but Facebook’s ever-evolving technical specs require repeated attention and occasional rework.

The Facebook ecosystem and the army of app developers

While some social media platforms are fairly self-contained, Facebook has a symbiotic relationship with an army of application (“app”) developers who add significant value to the platform…and who, in turn, are able to reap some of the benefits of Facebook’s growth.

Necessary for Facebook success

It turns out that, in order to succeed in Facebook, companies need access to the advanced capabilities that apps provide. These apps help companies customize their Fan Pages, to add custom “Tabs” (or pages) and to add advanced capabilities via specialized apps such as video players, contests, fan-only content, email opt-in forms, or integrations with other social media platforms like Pinterest and Twitter.

How do you sort through the options?

There are thousands of apps available that do a variety of tasks required (or desired) by individuals or companies. In fact, because there’s no highly controlled “app store”, a la Apple, it can be pretty hard to find apps that deliver the most important elements. Searching on Google makes this task nearly impossible and searching on Facebook is almost as bad.

With that in mind, I did some research, checked with members of the Facebook #Toolschat group, did some testing, and came up with this set of Facebook Fan Page Design and Customization application options. I’ve included a video with each so you can get a flavor for their application – as told by the company themselves. I tried to find a video that included information about post-Timeline functionality. I also included some basics on pricing and whether they have a free option or not.

The 8 Facebook Fan Page Design Applications

So here are the eight options. Let me know in the comments which ones you use, what you like/don’t like about them and any others that you’d suggest. They are in no particular order.

1) Pagemodo

PageModo is one of the options that I’ve experimented with. When I was working with it, it had some fairly robust and attractive templates. Things change fast, so I’m sure they have even more options available now for you to try out. They have a free option and paid plans start at $6.25/month.

Visit PageModo here.

2) Lujure

Lujure Facebook fan page app

Lujure has a free option available and plans start at $30/month. This company is getting a lot of buzz and in addition to their free option, they just released their less expensive version (the one at ~$30/month).

Visit Lujure here.

 

3) Shortstack

Shortstack facebook fan page app

Shortstack is the company that several people mentioned when I asked for a favorite Fan Page app in the #Toolchat group that I’m a member of.  Shortstack has a free option available and plans start at $15/month.

Visit Shortstack here.

 

4) Tabsite

Tabsite facebook fan page app

Tabsite is the custom tab application that I’ve experimented with the most. It worked well for my earlier needs and has a free option available (with some limits to the functionality, like most free versions of apps have). Paid plans start at $5/month.

Visit Tabsite here.

5) Dojo

Dojo facebook fan page app

Dojo is a late entry that was recommended by one of my contacts. I liked the look of it – have a look for yourself! There’s a free option for pages with less than 200 fans. Paid plans start at $19.95 per month.

Visit Dojo here.

 

6) North Social

North Social is a popular Facebook application development company that has both standard packages (with several options) and custom fan page options. For their standard platform, they have a 14 day free trial available and the paid plans start at $19.99/month.

Visit North Social here.

Which one are you using?

Which option are you using to add interactivity and functionality to your business page? Let me know in the comments what you like/don’t like about the ones you’ve used and feel free to mention other ones that you consider to be worthwhile options.

If you found this to be a useful resource, please share it with your friends! Click here to Tweet it (you can edit the Tweet).

Related posts:

Filed Under: Facebook Tips & Tools Tagged With: , , ,

Comments

  1. Ryan Hanley
    Twitter:
    says:
    April 26, 2012 at 9:56 am

    Tom,

    I’ve been doubling down my effort on Facebook and Google+… Time I used to spend on LinkedIn and Twitter has shirted over to these two networks… That being said, Facebook does take a good deal of time to develop. In many cases it is a mini-website and the design work associated can be time consuming.

    These are good tools… I’ve heard of most of them. I know a few like North Social.

    Thanks

    Ryan H.
    Ryan Hanley recently posted..7 Completely Stupid eBook Publishing MistakesMy Profile

  2. Avi Kaye
    Twitter:
    says:
    April 27, 2012 at 1:43 am

    Another excellent Facebook app is MyWebees (disclaimer: I work with them :)). MyWebees imports your entire website, fully functional, straight to your Facebook page, with no coding or design required! It makes all the necessary adjustments so that your site looks perfect, and all your Facebook fans can browse it straight from your page. There are also dozens of social and marketing widgets you can add on, which help expose your page – and your business! – to a much wider audience.

    You can check out MyWebees for free at http://bit.ly/GRK50g

  3. Mike Gingerich
    Twitter:
    says:
    April 28, 2012 at 10:18 am

    Hi Tom! Thanks for the inclusion of TabSite. We recently started offering 14 Day Free Trials on our plans so everyone can experiment with our full suite. In April we launched Contests for TabSite enabling users to build and run Fan Photo Entry, Video submission, or Content / Essay submission contests with social sharing tools. With Timeline’s new 810 wide tabs, our tab publishing to the web as a website/landing page/microsite is of even more value. More new tools on the way as well but just thought I’d mention a few key items. Thanks again for the write-up!

  4. Pagemodo
    Twitter:
    says:
    April 30, 2012 at 8:19 am

    Thank you for including Pagemodo in your list.

  5. Neeraj Kumar says:
    May 1, 2012 at 1:34 am

    Nice post,

    Out of all these apps, i think NorthSocial has a bigger market share.

    also, I recently found out about Social Munkee, they are new but seems promising though: http://bit.ly/Jyz9nc

  6. Gemma says:
    May 3, 2012 at 12:15 pm

    Hey Ryan,

    There’s loads. Had no idea. So thanks for that. North Social was the first I saw along with Pagemodo but Shortstack looks real good. I love their examples. Couldn’t find lujure’s stuff. Ne’ermind.Thanks for listing all these and broadening the choices.

    Gemma

  7. Scott Ayres
    Twitter:
    says:
    May 14, 2012 at 8:04 am

    Thanks for including Fan Page Engine in this post! We’ve worked hard to make things super easy and affordable. Everyone else in the market is charging monthly fees and we don’t like being tied to any product and we don’t think others should either.

    So that’s why we only charge a very low 1 time fee. And we recently lowered our one time cost. All the platforms listed are great and all will basically do the same thing. The more you bring to the app with your own images will determine the look. Ours by far is the least expensive and offers the most bang for your buck.. Plus we do more than just supply the apps. WE also supply loads of social media training!

    If anyone ever has any questions please contact me.

  8. David Foster
    Twitter:
    says:
    May 14, 2012 at 8:14 am

    Hey Tom,

    This is David Foster and I am the owner of the FanPageEngine. Just wanted to thank you for your review and point out that our packages actually start at $27…not $47 =]

    We are a small business too and know how hard it is to get off the ground, so pricing affordable is VERY important to us. We love helping people succeed online using Social Media because it is still the wild frontier for many people…

    Thanks again for the review!!
    David Foster

  9. Brian says:
    May 22, 2012 at 3:44 am

    Nice list. Check out Woobox – both free and paid versions.

  10. Sara
    Twitter:
    says:
    June 7, 2012 at 4:10 pm

    Hi Tom,

    Thanks for including ShortStack in your post. We appreciate it!

    Sara

Newer Comments »