The rush to create engaging Facebook fan pages is on, and we’re thrilled to leverage our platform to bring great brands to Facebook. Moving forward we’ll be showcasing some of the best fan page examples through our blog to get you inspired. For example, the band 311 just launched a new fan page to showcase their new album entitled Uplifter. Check it out and take a moment to listen to the entire album through the Sprout. We’re also happy to see REI’s page that features the latest deals from the REI outlet.

And, you can always see our latest examples in our Facebook fan page gallery.

Now that you have a basic understanding of Fan Pages and the basis of why they are important for successful brands, let’s jump into the various elements of a Fan Page.  See the diagram below.

1. Profile Image: when you are on the wall or info tab, your profile image is viewed in its entirety.  There is a trick that if you make the profile image 200px wide by 600px tall, it will leverage more screen real estate.

2. Side profile boxes: here the first thing that is displayed is a tagline box, basic information, your fans and then supplementary content that can be added from the boxes tab.  The tagline box is a quasi status update as you can change it at any time but is designed to have more longevity.  The basic information is an excerpt from the more robust info tab.   The Fans section displays the total number of fans and a random selection of 6 fans.

3. Title, become a fan, and tabs: the title of your fan page in text form is listed right next to the “Become a Fan” button.  This button is only visible for those who are not currently a fan or are logged out from Facebook.  This is also the section where all of your visible tabs are displayed.  Every Fan Page has a “Wall” and “Info” tab which can not be moved from their respective far left positioning.  All other tabs in this section are able to be adjusted and modified.

4.  The Wall or Stream: this is where the activity content of the fan page lives.  Content here generally consists of content posted through the publisher (more on this in #6) or actions taken with the page outside the publisher, such as a new photo or video.  The Fan Page admin has the option to toggle whether they want posts just by themselves or want to allow fans content to be posted into the wall as well.

5.  Advertisements: Facebook has to make money and this is one of their prime sources to do so…ads.  This section on the right is dedicated to delivering targeted ads.  It cannot be moved or adjusted. If you are a fan page admin, you will probably see a fake ad for your own page.  This is how Facebook is trying to convince you to buy ads to promote your page.  Very clever but may trick you the first time you see it.

6.  Publisher: as you can see in this chart, I am now a fan because the “Become a Fan” button is not longer visible and the Publisher is now visible.  The Publisher is where Fan Page admins and the fans contribute content to a Fan Page.  This content can be as simple as a text message or as complex as an embedded interactive Flash element.  Once the content is shared through the Publisher, it appears in the stream.  Fan Page admins can also modify what content their fans are able to share.  For example here, Starbucks has decided that their fans should only share text, photos and videos.

7.  2nd-tier navigation: once you are beyond the Wall and Info tabs, the top of your Fan Page changes slightly. The profile image shrinks down to a 50px by 50px icon.  This icon is a section of the full size profile image that can be selected when editing the profile image.

8.  Additional content and applications: the structure and content of the Wall and Info tabs follow a very consistent protocol set forth by Facebook.  Once you are outside of those two tabs, the variety of content grows immensely.  You can have custom content through various applications that display a plethora of content (ie photos, videos, calendars, discussion boards) and also create your own type of content through something called FBML – Facebook Markup Language.  See this tutorial video to learn how to use FBML to add a sprout to your Facebook Fan Page.

You now know the basic elements of a Facebook Fan Page. Using the resources provided by Facebook to get started and the information I have listed here in my post, you should be well on your way to mastering how to leverage your Facebook Fan Page.

Johnathan and I discussed how he is using sprouts to both promote his documentary film across the social graph AND use it for specific applications within social networks such as Facebook.

Here is an example of using a sprout that can be shared across the social graph, with the starting point being the documentary’s MySpace profile. There is also a sprout that displays an RSS feed.

Johnathan also used Sprout to create custom interactive content for the documentary’s Facebook Fan Page.  This content is designed to stay on the Facebook Fan Page and not be shared across the social networks.