do more with your college’s Facebook page/profile

Like many of you, Hope College Admissions has created a “page” in order to have an additional presence on Facebook.  What you begin with is pretty basic, but there are some tricks to get a more interactive experience going, particularly with the page’s profile picture/box.  I realized this after I came across the Facebook page for another institution.  My first thought: What a huge value-add to be able to have students link back to our site… I want this now.

The first thing I did was take a look at the source of that other institution’s page.  Somehow they were able to work code where the profile picture should be.  After a little research I realized that Facebook has its own markup language (aptly named “FBML”) that somewhat resembles HTML.  So here’s the process I came up with for adding this additional functionality to our page:

1.  You’ll need to add FBML as an application on your page.  It’ll look like this on your “Edit Page” screen:

NOTE: Adding this application will add an FBML “box” on your page — you should be able to edit whether not that is displayed. We don’t need it to be displayed; more on that later.

2.  When you go to the FMBL application within your page, you’ll be able to input the code you’d like to see displayed in the profile picture area of your page. You might need to spend a little time learning FBML, and here’s the best resource for learning and testing your code. Here’s what we have going on there (.odt file, please steal if you like!), however, I make no promises about it meeting any web standards!

3.  Head to your “Profile Picture” on your “Edit Page” screen, and hit “edit.”  You’ll see option now available at the bottom of the screen. Make sure “FBML” is checked:

4.  After saving, Facebook should now render/display that code in the profile picture area of your Facebook Page! Enjoy!