5 Creative Facebook Pages

Design is a word that is often tossed around lightly and a quote from Steve Jobs I think best sums it up.

“Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it “looks”. But of course if you dig deeper , it’s really how it “works”. The design of the Mac wasn’t what it looked like, although that was part of it. To design something really well, you have to “get it”. You have to really “grok ” what it’s all about. It takes a passionate comittment to really thoroughly understand something, chew it , not just quickly swallow it. Most people don’t take the time to do that.”

Creating innovative and memorable Facebook welcome pages that are brand coherent is a creative web designers task but quite often the design process can be blurred by how it looks rather than how it works.

When landing on some Facebook pages I am often not quite sure what the objective is and what message they are communicating.

The creative should not overwhelm the goals of the page which could be to increase likes, to engage or to grow sales.

Why Should You have your Facebook Wall as Your Landing Page?

This post was inspired by an email from Keith Latman the creator of the Quackville game for the iPhone, Ipad and iPod, which is the first title for Latman Interactive. .

As part of our resulting conversation, he said that it amazed him how many people still use their wall as the landing page!

The goal of  Quackville’s Facebook landing page: “Separate yourself from the crowd” and what a large crowd it is!

He later told me  that he really wanted to do something ‘different’ for their “Quackville Facebook landing/welcome page.

Wish List for a Perfect Facebook Page

So he started with a wish list of what he thought a perfect landing page would be.

• It would be compelling
• It would reflect our corporate image
• It would define us as unique and innovative
• It would make you want to explore all of our tabs
• It would make you want share the page with your friends

He started conceptualizing by thinking of the welcome page as the cover of a book, you glance at it and immediately decide if it is worthy of digging deeper. Mark said that after a few lame concepts, the spark came from the Energizer Bunny. Remember those ads where great. As you recall, it was a 30 second spot of a battery operated bunny, followed by another “unrelated” commercial in which the bunny barged onto the set.

The Result: You land on the Quackville wall and suddenly the geese start havoc and the duck fights back.

Here is Quackville’s Facebook landing page and a few more for inspiration.

5 Creative Facebook Landing Pages

1. Quackville

Quackville is a game app for your iphone and the iPad. The town of Quackville is being overrun by these nasty geese. Look, we’re not geese haters but this was a quiet fun DUCK town (notice the caps) and the geese came in and are ruining the place. The caption “In a World Full of Geese, Only You Can Save the Ducks”

The Goal: To sell a mobile App

You will need to to go to the Quackville Facebook site to see how it ‘works” It is fun and worth checking out

2. 20th Century Fox Spain

20th Century Fox’s Spanish Facebook landing page doesn’t over complicate things and it keeps it very clear and simple. Is this creative? Maybe simplicity and brevity is the essence of great design. As Winston Churchill said “I would have written a shorter letter but I didn’t have the time“.

The Goal: To promote the latest movie

3. Cadillac

Cadillac as one of the brands of General Motors has an ambitious Facebook landing page  and there is a lot happening when you land there and it sets out to achieve several goals

Goals: First is to ‘like’ the page, then to engage and entertain with videos and multimedia stories and finally to acquire email subscription the the newsletter

4. Louis Vuitton

Louis Vuitton is a luxury prestige brand built on the foundation of travel luggage with style

Goals: Acquire Facebook ‘likes’ and also to spread the brand message which is a world of elegance, inspiration and innovation within the experience of travel.   This happens after you like the page with an online video that captures the essence of Louis Vitton.

5.  Victoria’s Secret

Victoria’s Secret official “about”: THE destination for Angels, Bombshells and the sexiest fans on Facebook.

Goals: Many goals trying to be achieved here and the screen shot does not give it justice. Distribute their app onto your iPad, iPhone, Email subscription, SMS alerts, Follow on Twitter and also and finally to engage you on their YouTube Channel.

Victoria’s Secret certainly knows the ‘secret’ of  being ubiquitous on the social web!

These examples may make you think with more clarity on three key questions you should be asking yourself.

Who is your target audience, what are your Facebook landing page goals and finally, does your Facebook design ‘work”?

More Reading

Why Design Matters

The 10 Best Facebook Campaigns

The World’s 20 Most Popular Facebook Pages

50 Fascinating Facebook Facts and Figures

Image by Phil_Parker