This week, it has been confirmed Facebook has tightened up the capabilities on the Static FBML application on Pages. This has an impact on small businesses and can lead to some confusion when users want to place a lead-capture form on their Wall.
My inbox filled up this week from questions about how to do this and I wanted to provide an update for you.
Quite a few small businesses use Facebook as a way to host their online presence on their Pages. Within those, many leverage their Facebook for lead generation and to host their own content outside the scope of Facebook. They use the Static FBML application to do this and that was how we instructed users how to add opt-in forms to their Facebook Pages.
Unfortunately, new installs of the Static FBML app no longer permit you to place it on the Wall, located on the left side of the Wall content. Instead, the only option is to create a separate tab on the top and leverage the 720 (smaller soon, 520) pixel-wide space for your content. From what we can tell, previous implementations of the Static FBML “box” on the Wall remain — for now. Facebook indicated they intend to decimate all existing “Profile Boxes” in August.
(I have a theory as to why they want to cut off these profile boxes, but it’s pure speculation. The goal is to have more “applications” made for publishers. I’ll let you decide who benefits from these changes.)
It’s not a sudden surprise – They foreshadowed the changes ambiguously on their their now-missing Development Wiki pertaining to this capability. The only good news is the functionality remains unchanged and continues to provide value for businesses to place it on their Pages – but that will also change later in August.
I’ll update the tutorial on how to setup an Infusionsoft Web Form on Facebook and get that out to you as soon as possible. Hope this helps you and addresses the confusion of, “Why can’t I put Static FBML on my Wall?”
Your thoughts, reactions, comments?
[...] about the reception. I couldn’t put the form on my Event page on Facebook because of the recent changes, so I registered a domain name at GoDaddy and setup a simple WordPress site to host the lead [...]
That explains why it stopped working once I figured out how to add FBML… does facebook staff get paid by the change in the user experience.