What’s working for you? What can you share about publishing from your page? How your pages work together? Something about custom tabs? Have you been A/B testing using Facebook’s publishing tools? Does interactive content perform better for you in the stream? Feel free to share your insights in the comments of this post, or just shoot us a note at marketing@sproutinc.com. If we use something from your comments, you’ll be credited in the guide!

This guide will be published in the next month or so, in the mean time, here’s some interesting articles on creating successful Facebook fanpages that you might like:

• Facebook: tips and best practices
• TechCrunch: building engagement on Facebook
• Mashable: 5 tips to optimize your fanpage
• Mashable: 5 insightful case studies
• All Facebook: 13 strategies for building successful applications on Facebook

Thanks!

We’re thrilled to share a new case study based on our recent work with Intel. Intel is doing an outstanding job with their social media work on Facebook and we are proud to be part of their effort. For those interested in learning more about how Intel is leading the way, check out a recent panel discussion led by Ekaterina Walter, Social Media Strategist at Intel. The presentation shares some great tips on how to drive fan acquisition on Facebook, which also happens to be a key element of the case study below.

Intel Reaches Out To Their Community On Facebook
Back in October, Intel challenged Sprout to create a new Facebook fan page and application, with the goal of building a significant Intel community on Facebook. Sprout knew Intel had to deliver immediate value, which worked well with Intel’s concept of linking laptop pricing to fan acquisition. The result: the wildly popular “Fan Plan” campaign, which empowered Intel’s Facebook community to incrementally lower the price on three laptops with every new fan added. It reached hundreds of thousands of people and landed Intel over 24,000 new fans—in just two weeks.

The Challenge
Without a pre-existing community on Facebook to get a campaign rolling, Intel needed an integrated approach that included Facebook ads, a fan page, and an application that drove fan acquisition. Sprout’s role was to turn their concept—empowering fans to lower laptop prices—into an application that fully leveraged the viral power of the Facebook platform. Sprout ensured that visitors converted to fans and shared the Fan Plan with their friends through a combination of incentives and viral hooks.

Integrating an Engage App and Fan Page to Drive Virality
The Engage App that Sprout developed for the new Intel fan page was a powerful nexus of social media technologies, desire, and reward. Every time someone became a fan, the app lowered the price on three popular Intel laptop models. Fans were motivated to tell their friends about the Fan Plan in order to further drop prices. The Engage App enabled them to do so easily by letting them place an interactive experience into their friends’ Facebook Activity Streams. Those friends could then join the Fan Plan and share the experience with other friends right from their Stream. A countdown clock provided a sense of urgency and encouraged users to participate before the Cyber Monday deadline, when they could purchase the laptops at the lowest prices.

Delivering Value to the Stream
Sprout belongs to the select group of Facebook Preferred Developers partly because of their expertise in implementing campaigns that maximize relevance and in-stream presence in the face of increasing competition and ever more stringent Facebook relevancy algorithms. Sprout does this by dropping highly interactive content that outperforms simple images or video content right into the stream. Sprout made sure the Fan Plan content drove users to the Intel fan page for the latest laptop pricing because overall fan page traffic increases publish-to-stream relevancy. And because interaction rates in the Activity Stream are much higher than interaction rates in the display ads on the periphery of the page, this approach also helped reduce Intel’s reliance on the supporting ad buy.

The Numbers Say It All: 24,000 Fans in Two Weeks
Intel built a solid Facebook community in record time, and ensured the community’s engagement by delivering immediate value. Over 8% of fans shared the Fan Plan with an average of two to five friends, and 16% of Fan Plan application users purchased a laptop, making this campaign a huge success. Mashable agreed, citing the campaign as “a fan-friendly, brand-conscious initiative that not only actively and passively works to generate buzz around the Facebook Page, but also rewards customers for recruiting their friends.”* For their next campaign, Intel can leverage this existing fan base and rely even less on Facebook ads.

Before partnering with Sprout on their Facebook Fan Page, REI felt like they didn’t have a solid way to grab new Fan Page visitors’ attention. Sprout used the assets provided by REI to create a bold-looking page that grabs users’ attention and encourages them to interact. To attract new fans, REI hoped to use their Fan Page to make a statement as more than a retailer. With that goal in mind, Sprout included expert advice, contests that gave fans a chance to get involved, and content from REI’s Twitter feed, YouTube videos, and Flickr photo streams on the page. REI wanted their fan page to help them achieve their retail goals, too, so Sprout implemented an REI Outlet deal of the day feature as well. The expert advice and deal of the day features have proved most popular on Facebook, helping REI to achieve two important objectives: educating new and old fans alike about the unique facets of REI that make them more than just a retailer, and boosting retail sales.

REI keeps the content on the page updated constantly, with new posts, a new deal every day, and other cutting edge images, advice, and videos. REI knows it’s important to show visitors they’re putting in the effort so that visitors feel it’s worth their time and effort to contribute and fan the company. Since the Sprout-designed Facebook Fan Page launched on October 16^th, REI has added 5,000 fans to their page, putting their total at 30,000 fans, a number they are extremely happy with. REI includes links to their Fan Page on their website, newsletters, Twitter page, and YouTube page, but they have not paid for any traditional advertising to drive users to the new page. 5,000 new fans in one and a half months represents a significant increase in the rate of organic, viral Facebook fan growth since the launch of the Sprout-designed page.

REI has plans for the future, too. Next up they hope to make the deal of the day section truly shareable so that users can add the section to their home page or site. REI understands that it’s critical to keep refining the page to keep content fresh, relevant, and shareable, so that fans understand what differentiates them from the competition. We at Sprout are thrilled when we have the chance to partner with a client who so fully embraces the power of Facebook and social advertising.

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.

1. Target is not only using their custom tab for additional content, they are creating multiple integrated mini-applications (Flash-driven) to tie all their Facebook content together.  If you click the play button on the video graphic, it will take you to the videos tab.  While watching that video, you have an option in the top left corner to become a fan, if you are not already a fan.   Some of the content remains within the fan page such as videos but other content links to applications or products.  Since this is a back-to-school promotion, some of the content links directly to relevant products on Target.com.
   

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2. Hurley leverages the custom content section of their fan page by driving traffic to their web cast Facebook application. This is a relatively new concept to drive people to Facebook for live media consumption.  We first saw it in the spotlight with the Jonas Brothers.   This is a great way to engage your fans and give them a significant reason to come back to your Facebook Fan Page.
   

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3. Fan Woody is a campaign for the restaurant, TGIFridays, that promised free hamburgers if the Fan Page reached 500,000 fans.  The reason the additional content in this fan page is particularly engaging is because you are only able to enter the content AFTER becoming a fan.  There is a trick in Facebook code that can choose what content to display based on whether the viewer is a fan.  You are only able to enter the contest if you have already become a fan.  This is brilliant.
   

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4. Volkswagen created an additional tab on their Fan Page to promote their “Meet the VWs – Analyze Me” application.  This application basically analyzes the your profile information and outputs which of the new VW models matches closest with your interests.  If you look closely at the navigation when you click “Analyze Me” you will notice that you are actually leaving the Fan Page and using an application (note the URL http://apps.facebook.com/…).  This is a small trick so that the user doesn’t feel like they have been directed elsewhere. It works and is unnoticeable to most users.
   

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5. Beth Kanter uses custom content on her page to create an extension of her other web properties.  Skittles tested this concept to the limit when they made their web site an experience across their social networks.  On Beth’s “Welcome” tab you can see her Twitter stream, latest blog posts, Flickr photos and Slideshare Presentations.  Viewers of her page can consume and access a significant amount of content and information about Beth with out leaving Facebook.  This is in sync with the idea that your social properties should provide enough information about you or your company if your main web site didn’t exist.

What’s your favorite or most engaging 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.

So you have a Facebook page and you have a sprout.  This blog post will show you how to get a sprout with a custom tab on your Facebook Fan Page.

I had previously written out each step-by-step but decided to re-do it as a video and only include the crucial code to make this easier.

Here is the code I used for this specific example:

WordPress was treating the single quotes very weirdly so you will need to manually type in the code above.

San Francisco, March 31, 2009 – Today Sprout (http://sproutinc.com) announced support for Facebook Platform, Facebook Connect, and OpenSocial. Now, for the first time, a Flash-based social engagement campaign created using Sprout’s visual design platform can be simultaneously published as a full-blown OpenSocial application, a Facebook application, a Facebook Fan Page application, and as a standalone campaign integrated with Facebook Connect. The automated solution enables brands and agencies to focus their time on the creative campaign development, not back-end integration, and still reap the rewards that social networking applications offer, such as increased virality, activity, and access to richer customer data.

Using the ActionScript 3.0 Client Library for Facebook Platform (http://www.adobe.com/go/facebook), Sprout was able to integrate its campaigns with the Facebook platform, allowing customers to simultaneously create both web-based engagement campaigns and social media applications. “A year ago, Sprout was on stage with Adobe at Web 2.0 showing how we give visual designers the ability to create rich media content and engagement campaigns without writing a single line of code,” said Carnet Williams, CEO and founder of Sprout. “Now, a year later we are providing our customers with a way to turn those campaigns into fully functioning social media applications without coding or adding time for production.”

“We have been really impressed with Sprout and what it has to offer our customers in the social media space,” said Nicole Neopolitan, senior vice president, production at Schematic. “As a leading interactive agency, Sprout gives us a world-class, turnkey option to quickly build engaging campaigns across social networking sites.”

The social media technology announced today will dramatically help brands increase their reach on social networking sites. “I am really excited that Sprout campaigns, such as the one we built for the launch of Afro Samurai the videogame, can now be published simultaneously as applications across the leading social networks,” said Ryan Grissom, senior manager, interactive at NAMCO BANDAI Games America. “The focus addresses our desire to extend our reach into social networking sites in a fun, natural way while limiting the need to secure additional support and development,” Grissom added.

Availability:
Sprout engagement campaigns can be rolled out as Facebook applications, Facebook Fan Page applications, or standalone campaigns integrated with Facebook Connect starting today. To see a demo, go to http://sproutinc.com/socialmedia. OpenSocial support will be available in Q209.

About Sprout:
Sprout enables brands to engage their audience across the social graphs. The Sprout platform solves a problem that has been plaguing new media marketers for years – How to quickly create brand experiences that are easily transportable across Facebook, MySpace and other social networks without needing expensive development resources. Funded by Polaris Venture Partners, Sprout is based in Honolulu, HI and San Francisco, CA. To learn more, please visit http://sproutinc.com.

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