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Facebook Nixes Default Landing Tab Option

[UPDATE #2: May 20, 2010: A few members of my community alerted me their Default Landing Tab had “reverted” back… or was working now.

So I conducted a test: I logged out of Facebook, then pulled up about a dozen fan pages with fewer than 10,000 fans that would normally land on a Welcome tab. Some did, some didn’t.

There doesn’t seem to be any pattern. I’m guessing Facebook are rolling out this new “Default Landing Tab Only for Authenticated Pages” rule in phases. Or, perhaps they’ve listened to us and are rolling back?!]

[UPDATE #1: As a workaround to this new inability to direct non-fans to your custom landing tab, you could make your own redirect link, e.g. http://marismith.com/fanpage goes to my fan page and could just as easily go to any tab. (You could also use any link shortener, e.g. bit.ly)

Remember, each tab still has its own unique URL and all your tabs/apps are still intact.

This approach with your own redirect link could work well for promotions outside Facebook.

However, any promotion inside Facebook (e.g. @ tags) would automatically go to whichever default landing tab you’ve set – either Wall or Info. I recommend Wall.

Once you reach 10,000 fans, you’ll be able to set your cutom landing tab. Though, so far, a couple members of my community have mentioned they cannot make the change and they’re over 10k fans. Sounds like the change is buggy.

Props to my fab friend, Mike Stelzner for the redirect link suggestion.]

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Original post follows:

For some time, I’ve been raving about the benefits of having your non-fans land on a specific, custom landing tab on your Facebook Fan Page.

When you send visitors to your Facebook Fan Page, previously, you could have them land on a Welcome Tab, for instance – the purpose of which was to help visitors understand what your business is about and to compel them to want to join your Fan Page.

The option to set this was fairly easy – click on Options underneath the publisher on your Fan Page wall, then click on Settings and select the landing tab from the drop down menu:

However, in a rather odd move, today Facebook quietly let a few disgruntled developers know in the Facebook Developers Forum that they would no longer be offering the option to have a custom default landing tab. That is, unless you have a minimum of 10,000 fans or you have an account rep at Facebook.

New settings for fan pages with <10,000 fans:

(Image credit)

Here’s the forum post:

Amidst all the hoopla of the privacy concerns and morass of Community Pages, this default landing tab change just seems grossly unfair to the small business owner, in particular.

As Nick O’Neill writes, “We’d assume that this change was made for two reasons: to combat spam and more importantly, to boost revenue…”

Hmm.

To clarify, ALL of your custom tabs still exist. And – this is important – each tab still has its own unique URL. So, theoretically, you could shorten the URL’s and split test landing tabs as I’ve talked about before.

If you don’t have an account rep, here’s the contact form per Facebook.

How do you feel about this change? Was the default landing tab for non-fans a big part of your Fan Page promotion strategy? Let me know in the comments below:

Props to my bud Dave Kerpen for the phone call today about the Developer Forum post, and to my Twitter bud Ryan Burns for drawing my attention to this change last night (at first we thought it was a bug!), and to my bud Nick O’Neill for promptly blogging about the issue.

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Mari Smith

Often referred to as “the Queen of Facebook,” Mari Smith is widely known as the Premier Facebook Marketing Expert and a top Social Media Thought Leader. Forbes describes Mari as, “… the preeminent Facebook expert. Even Facebook asks for her help.” IBM named Mari as one of seven women that are shaping digital marketing. Mari is an in-demand keynote speaker, corporate social media strategist, dynamic live webcast host, and popular brand ambassador. She is coauthor of Facebook Marketing: An Hour A Day, and author of The New Relationship Marketing.

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83 Comments

  1. domain registration on February 13, 2012 at 1:42 am

    Some of the information you provide here. Thanks a lot!



  2. Cre8tvnrg on January 28, 2012 at 2:06 pm

    OK – I may be missing something here, but if Facebook changed this and ONLY gives this ‘privilege’ to the businesses with over 10k fans – doesn’t that defeat the purpose of why we were directing visitors to that page — we were tying to GET more fans, hence, defaulting to the LIKE US Welcome page to gain a fan. The businesses with 10k+ fans don’t really *need* the fans like the >10k fans to…it seems counter intuitive. Anyone with me? Or am I missing something?



  3. domain registration india on December 1, 2011 at 3:08 am

    Excellent information.. which I believe will be very useful for me.



  4. Veetil76 on October 13, 2011 at 11:36 am

     I have set up a fan page in Facebook, and want to customize my default landing tab, but for some reason, I don’t have the option to select my default landing tab under Manage Permissions. I can’t figure out why, or how to enable that option. Anyone know? I have set up a fan page in Facebook, and want to customize my default landing tab, but for some reason, I don’t have the option to select my default landing tab under Manage Permissions. I can’t figure out why, or how to enable that option. Anyone know?



  5. Anthony on October 10, 2011 at 3:15 pm

    Very disappointed took a lot of effort to get a decent page up on Facebook for my business and now this change just destroys all my efforts. Typical of a social network was always skeptical about using it in the first place your better off sticking with your own website. Thanks for information nonetheless. 



  6. Raj on September 22, 2011 at 9:34 am

    ?”Default Landing Tab for Everyone Else” has gone in my FB Page, is this the case with you?



  7. Security Systems on August 8, 2011 at 8:35 am

    Good article and very valuable information. Keep it up!



  8. Lauri Lloyd on July 21, 2011 at 3:34 pm

    This is so frustrating. I’ve spent several days working on a small business page, gaining “likes” and creating a “welcome” page; and then the last two days trying to figure out why I can’t find the default landing tab as per the instructions Facebook gives on how to set it! Grrrrr…



    • Oscar Aullon on July 27, 2011 at 8:37 am

      The same happens to me. The default landing page doesn’t appears.
      Oo



  9. Nia on April 12, 2011 at 10:49 pm

    I just learned how to create beautiful custom pages for small business..and then to have the default taken away and make it land on a boring wall? Booooo..
    Facebook needs to default back to common sense and give us the control back!



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