So hopefully by now you’ve got a Facebook Page set up. A Facebook Page is not the same as your Facebook user profile and, If don’t have one yet, or you’re unfamiliar with Facebook Pages in general, then you should check out last weeks entry on why you NEED to have a Facebook Page as a musician.

The first thing you need to realize is that your Facebook Page is not just for Facebook users. Granted, you will get the most of out people who are both a Facebook users, and a who have subscribed (or “Liked”) your Page, this is not the only traffic that will pass through your page; You’ll also get people who aren’t even members of Facebook who get there through links posted to them or via Google. This means you have to realize that your Facebook Fanpage is more than a microblog; It’s a whole new mini-site, or a portal, for your users to find more information about you. Some users may land on your Facebook Page before even your website. How will you welcome them?

• Do not let someone land on your wall. This one is a very easy mistake to make, and it’s one of the most important things to do right away. Would you let visitors land on the guest book of your personal website? Of course not! Why then would you let them land on your Page’s wall? Admittedly, our Facebook Page currently isn’t setup like that (yet), nor is OverClocked ReMix’s, but zircon’s Page is a good start for what you want to go for in a Facebook Page landing page, and many major franchises are great examples. You can make an engaging landing page like this using the Static FBML App. Some things you should consider having on it are: Some information about you, some of your other sites on the web they might be interested in such as your personal site or YouTube profile, and most importantly…
• Give incentive to follow/like you. The first questions in your head whenever you create something like a landing page are: “What are the long and short term goals of this?” and “How do I achieve these goals?” In this case your long term goal is to convert visistor into fans, and maybe at some point sell them music. You achieve this goal through the short term goal of giving them information about you and, most importantly right now, getting them interested enough to follow your page. You do this by telling them to follow your page, and giving a clear reason why they should. Sounds crazy, no? This is what we “selling the value” and giving a “Call-to-Action.” Everything you do should have some Call-to-Action, and incentive to do so by selling the value of it, and be sure to not give away the value without the action, first. In the case of your Page one value right away is up-to-the-minute updates on you and what you’re doing, but consider that someone who’s landing on your page might not be interested in your updates upon first getting there, and might not even stick around long enough to find the value themselves. Why then, would you stop there with the value? Give your visitors some incentive right away, and try to make it something more than your Facebook spam in their news feed. What kind of incentive? Here is an example of a case study done by “Socially Buzz“, a social media marketing firm, for restaurant. In it they explain how, by giving visitors incentive through value to “Like” the restaurant’s Facebook page (in this case, coupons), they were able to drive over 5,000 new Facebook followers, and create more social awareness of the brand. What kind of incentives can you create? Maybe downloadable and/or stream-able songs available ONLY on your Facebook page? If you charge, maybe it’s a coupon for your music. Maybe you could release an entire exclusive EP available ONLY to people who like your Facebook page. Play with it, and see what you can think of.
• Make sure to keep engaging your audience. The biggest grace of social media is the ability to engage your audience. Make sure, once you get followers, that you use them! Keep them informed with important, relevant updates about what’s going on with you (subscribers probably don’t need to hear how drunk you are tonight), consider releasing exclusive or world-first items on different social mediums, and make sure whenever possible to end your updates with a question. You’ll notice OverClocked ReMix often does this, as does mashable. You want to engage your audience as often as possible, and encourage them to engage you as well. This gives them a much more personal experience, and gives them a stronger connection and dedication to you, and your brand. Remember: A personal connection could be the difference between a casual fan, and a die-hard fan.

These are just some of the ways you can use your Fanbook Page to help increase your visibility on the web, and hopefully help you convert more users into die-hard fans, but remember: Facebook isn’t the only social medium out there, not is it the only one people are actively using. In the upcoming weeks I’ll explain the important of things like a twitter page and, more importantly, a YouTube profile, before getting into the down and dirty of building and maintaining your own personal site, but for now go make yourself an awesome Facebook Page and start collecting followers.

If there’s any questions about anything discussed this week, have any Facebook Page suggestions of your own, or if you have any other questions relating to marketing yourself on the web that you’d like me to cover, feel free to leave a comment.