Facebook Creates, Removes Restriction on Landing Page Tabs
In an unannounced move yesterday, Facebook began requiring Page owners to have at least 10,000 fans or pay at least $25,000 in advertising in order to set application tabs as landing pages. But now it has reverted to letting anyone set a tab as a landing page, following widespread dissent.
[Update: A new statement on the change, from Facebook:
As of last night, we've removed the recently-added authentication requirement for setting custom landing tabs on Pages. The requirement was instituted as part of a Pages quality initiative, and we apologize for the inconvenience this caused to our developer and business community. We are re-investigating the situation, and will not make any further changes without first giving our community standard notice and lead-time.]
Pages are used by businesses large and small to reach Facebook users, and come with a variety of customizable features. Page owners can set application tabs to appear when a user first goes to the Page URL, a key way to promote sales or marketing campaigns to visitors.
BrandGlue‘s Jeff Widman quantifies the effect:
We ran an A/B test just four weeks ago to guesstimate the efficacy of a landing tab. We drove visitors to the fan page of a major brand using ads. Those ad-driven visitors converted to fans at a rate of approximately 47% WITH a landing tab. When we turned off the landing tab, those same ad-driven visitors converted to fans at approximately 23%. A VERY noticeable loss in conversions over the course of the campaign.
Why did Facebook add the landing page restrictions change in the first place? Some have speculated that one motive may have been to force small Page owners to pay for advertising — but this would be a nonsensical rationale for Facebook to have, because many small businesses who use Pages wouldn’t be able to pay the amount anyway. The move actually encourages them to use Pages less.
The limitations Facebook added were more likely meant as barriers to preclude spammers and scammers from setting up their own tabs filled with low-quality or misleading content. We’ve seen an increase lately in activity amongst spammers using Page app landing tabs to mislead users into spamming their friends or fork over personal information.
In any case, the outcry of many Page owners and Page management companies seems to have prompted a quick reversion by Facebook, although the company hasn’t said much about what’s going on. Here’s its now-dated message to concerned people in its developer forum, from yesterday:
We apologize for not messaging this earlier. Facebook recently made a change requiring that Pages be authenticated before enabling the ability to set a landing tab beyond Wall or Info. To be eligible for authentication, a Page must have greater than 10k fans or the Page admin must work with their ads account manager. If you are already working with an account representative, please contact that representative to begin the authentication process. If you do not work with an account representative, you can use this contact form to inquire about working with an account representative.
May 20th, 2010 at 11:25 am
[...] Facebook’as atšaukė vakar išplatintą informaciją…. [...]
May 20th, 2010 at 11:45 am
[...] of 10,000 fans… in less than 24 hours, Facebook has changed the new “rule” back [...]
May 20th, 2010 at 11:50 am
This is great news… many people were surprised, confused, and upset by the move yesterday. Kudos to Facebook for acting swiftly in response to the outcry from the developer and business community who use pages as an integral part of their marketing plan.
May 20th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
With every ill-calculated move, Facebook looks more and more like a frat house than the purported social media behemoth.
May 20th, 2010 at 1:38 pm
I agree. I am impressed by the response to rectify the position. It was a shock to our agencies yesterday that this type of change would be rolled out through the Facebook platform teams through the forums vs. some formal announcement of the changes. The path to driving additional revenue for Facebook is not in taking away existing functionality and options. The goal should be to create additional value for brands to manage, administer and analyze the data that is tied to their current initiatives. If I as a brand had a single framework to deploy multi-national pages that provided a cohesive approach to page management as well as partnering with white label application providers to form a marketplace to allow brands to plus up their experience directly from a single point then that warrants a mandatory ad buy or fee.
May 20th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
Facebook is incompetent. The sooner you realize that and avoid doing business with them, the better. What business needs is a SPAM FREE portal to hawk their wares. FB is no longer spam free and they have no clue about business. They can’t even make a profit, hence all the constant infusions from investors.
Do you want to be constantly monitoring a site for copycat pages of your business and removing spam from wall posts?
May 21st, 2010 at 2:01 am
[...] tabs for our Facebook pages to increase the chance of a visitor “liking” that page. So when Facebook announced they were limiting that use, page administrators revolted. They seem to have backed down, for now… but for how [...]
May 21st, 2010 at 2:50 am
Idiot move if you ask me. Creates confusion and a bad after taste. I’m getting sick of facebook and google.
May 21st, 2010 at 12:04 pm
I’m not sure where Facebook get’s their requirements but they are definetly opperating like they are their own private application without any regard for the opinions of the 400+million users that they have. There are standard processes for software development that can be applied without slowing down development, things that include gathering requirements, testing changes in a limited environment and communicating to end users before changes. They might want to consider using them.
May 21st, 2010 at 12:33 pm
Even Facebook has a greedy breaking point!
May 21st, 2010 at 12:36 pm
I too am very annoyed with Facebook about this and the swift reversal while welcome doesn’t fill me with a warm glow for the company. I can understand some of the restrictions Facebook apply to their less-than-gigantic clients but still overall I feel legitimate small businesses who cough up hard-earned advertising revenue to Facebook are barely considered.
May 21st, 2010 at 3:47 pm
This is a fine example why you need an overall marketing strategy, and not rely solely on web 2.0/social media sites like Facebook for you online presence. At any time, they may change their policies and pull the rug out from under your business. You need to have your own website, along with multiple traffic sources to adapt and survive changes in the marketplace such as this. They own the Facebook, so it’s their decision of the restirction to play in their sandbox. This change was a bit extreme, but at least the power of the crowd won over the bully to see how crazy it was to impose those restrictions.
May 25th, 2010 at 9:23 am
[...] Facebook Creates, Removes Restriction on Landing Page Tabs Facebook flip-flops & removes landing pages restrictions http://j.mp/aL7jjH #fb #in #D (tags: fb) [...]
May 25th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
[...] Facebook testas įdėmiai įvykius sekantiems Ketvirtadienis mums buvo itin įdomus, nes beveik visą dieną su kolega Ariu „prabrainstorminom“, ką darysim po naujos ir žaibiškai įvestos taisyklės, sakančios, kad Facebook LIKE puslapiai naujiems fanams rodomą individualų puslapį leis nustatyti tik po projekto autorizacijos, kuri galima turint 10000 fanų arba reklamai išleidus daugiau nei 20k $. Ta proga net ir tinklaraščio įrašą parašėm, o vakare mėgavomės paneigta žinia, kuri vainikavo ketvirtadienį:) [...]
May 31st, 2010 at 10:43 am
[...] studies are bearing out; from BrandGlue’s Jeff Widman’s quote concerning a 47% conversion rate for Facebook pages with a Customized Landing Tab, to Adobe [...]
June 2nd, 2010 at 10:43 am
[...] the Facebook page with the goal of an increased conversion rate to “Like”. A recent BrandGlue study found a 47% conversion rate to “Like” with a landing tab vs. a 23% conversion rate without a [...]
June 22nd, 2010 at 3:50 pm
I thought Facebook’s move was a hoax. I mean, what a stupid decision. Good they rectified it so quickly, but they should have done more market research beforehand and could have avoided this latest fiasco. I use Facebook because I get some insane ROI with it on certain projects, but my trust of the company is waning fast.
While the landing page tab obviously works in certain scenarios, I’m not convinced it’s effective across all industries. Personally, I find most landing page tabs super annoying and would prefer to see the community activity on the Wall instead—that’s why I’m there. So, like anything else, setup a test to see if it works for your needs.
June 25th, 2010 at 5:57 am
[...] to a May 2010 BrandGlue study, visitors to Pages with a landing tab converted to “people who like” the Page at a rate [...]
July 26th, 2010 at 11:30 am
[...] customized FB “Welcome” tab has a high rate of views to fan conversions. In fact a study indicated that the conversion rate of views to fans from a customized landing page was 47%, as [...]
August 21st, 2010 at 12:13 pm
[...] of 10,000 fans… in less than 24 hours, Facebook has changed the new “rule” back [...]
September 12th, 2010 at 4:34 am
i love my id
October 18th, 2010 at 1:48 am
[...] Σύμφωνα με τον Jeff Widman του BrandGlue, το conversion των χρηστών από επισκέπτες σε fans υπερδιπλασιάζεται με τη χρήση ενός τέτοιου tab από 23% σε 47%: We ran an A/B test just four weeks ago to guesstimate the efficacy of a landing tab. We drove visitors to the fan page of a major brand using ads. Those ad-driven visitors converted to fans at a rate of approximately 47% WITH a landing tab. When we turned off the landing tab, those same ad-driven visitors converted to fans at approximately 23%. A VERY noticeable loss in conversions over the course of the campaign. [via] [...]
October 28th, 2010 at 8:04 am
This change, had it happened, certainly would have “nerfed” the effectiveness of Facebook pages for marketing. Glad they backed off!
Great quote from Jeff Widman at BrandGlue about the A/B testing he ran on landing tabs – the conversion rate doubled with a landing tab!
Businesses who are looking to get these results from their Facebook page should check out the service I’m working on: http://splashtab.com. It’s a fast and easy way to make great custom landing tabs.
(Boy are we glad Facebook didn’t institute this restriction on landing tabs!!!)
December 11th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
[...] to BrandGlue, pages with custom landing tabs acquire more fans than pages without them. Offering a deal, [...]
December 24th, 2010 at 3:00 am
[...] it’s important to have a branded Landing tab for your Facebook page. In fact, as reported by InsideFacebook, BrandGlue founder Jeff Widman discovered that a custom Landing tab DOUBLES conversion to fans: We [...]
February 10th, 2011 at 4:34 am
Great!! It is very nice way to convert visitors into fans, but I still cant program my page so that visitor sees different page after becoming fan. If anyone knows good tutorial on this topic please give link
February 10th, 2011 at 9:40 am
@Peter: When people who already Like your Page visit, they are always sent to the wall. There is currently no way to change this.
February 24th, 2011 at 5:30 am
[...] fact, a May 2010 BrandGlue study showed that visitors to Pages with a landing tab converted to “people who like” the Page at a [...]
April 9th, 2011 at 3:47 pm
[...] reported increases in likes vs. when no landing page is available. One example can be found here: http://www.insidefacebook.com/20… – they cite a BrandGlue.com A/B test that resulted in a 47% conversion rate w/ like tab vs. 23% [...]
June 21st, 2011 at 8:27 am
[...] the Facebook page with the goal of an increased conversion rate to “Like”. A recent BrandGlue study found a 47% conversion rate to “Like” with a landing tab vs. a 23% conversion rate without a [...]
August 18th, 2011 at 8:44 pm
[...] Facebook: Did you know that having a call-to-action to Like your page on your default landing tab on Facebook can double your conversion rates of people Liking your page (source: BrandGlue study). [...]
October 6th, 2011 at 8:10 am
[...] landing tab on Facebook can double your conversion rates of people Liking your page (source: BrandGlue study). Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this [...]
February 2nd, 2012 at 11:32 pm
[...] of you before your visitor has to go search for your information. “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%, [...]