Creating a custom Facebook tab is not a task for the faint of heart. It’s a lot like wandering the halls of a deadly labyrinth. Only, instead of battling flying arrow traps and ill-intentioned minotaurs, you are constantly on the lookout for unannounced changes to the Facebook code structure. You are sure to find yourself winding your way through a maze of development blockades.

However, the opportunity that Facebook Pages hold for brands and marketers makes custom tab development a big piece of the puzzle for anyone serious about a Facebook campaign. It is difficult to develop in this space as a result of frequent Facebook code changes, so many tabs either hold back on functionality and design, or resort to installing flash applications. At Room 214 we know with skill, patience and commitment you can create great applications within Facebok tabs.

In our recent re-design of the Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations Facebook page we built four custom tabs with a clean look and feel and whole lot of functionality.

• No Reservations Tab – A nice looking welcome tab that serves as an info section and includes Anthony Bourdain’s blog posts, tweets, and an added like button giving the fans another way to “Like” the page. It works as a hub to promote all things social relating to the show

• Episodes Tab - Contains content enriched listings of all the newest episodes of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations including episode clips in pop-up modal windows. The tab lets our fans interact with, and share, a neatly organized yet far reaching range of fresh content.

• Youtube Tab – Automatically pulls in the latest episode clips posted to the Travel Channel YouTube channel and provides a commenting stream for fans to talk about the videos. It brings the social commenting experience of YouTube into our Facebook page.

• Poll Tab – Allows fans to vote on relevant topics and share their answers with their friends. It is a great way to gain exposure to the exponential layer of fans’ friends.

These custom tabs provide a content-rich experience that adds value for any fan of the community. They pack a huge punch when space for content and promotions is limited, without being noisy or over-bearing.

If you are about to depart on the harrowing journey that is Facebook tab development, please know that you can create tabs/applications that look great and meet your objectives, despite the unstable code structure.

Godspeed,

Brandon Whalen

PS. Hug a developer.

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