Updated 14th May 2012

With the new Timeline For Pages – Facebook has discontinues their Discussion Board App however Forum For Pages have created something very similar.  Here is how to install their app.

1. Go to https://apps.facebook.com/forumforpages/
2. Select the page you want to install the forum to and click on ‘add page tab’
3. The Forum for Pages App is now installed.  You can click on “new topic” to start the discussion or “forum settings’ located in the bottom left to customise your forum settings.

Forum for Pages has a premium version starting at $5 per month.  Some of the features include:

• Threaded discussions
• Deep linking
• Page owners can post as the page
• Embed images and YouTube videos in posts
• Moderators can delete or edit a post or the entire topic
• Users can edit their posts up to 2 hours after posting
• Moderators can lock a topic (preventing further replies) or make a topic sticky (always show on top)
• Moderators can ban a user and prevent him from further posting
• Moderators can block specific keywords
• Posting restriction to Fans only or Moderators only
• Automatically re-post new topics to the wall
• Liking a post
• Support for tagging topics into categories
• Topic search
• Addition of moderators who are not necessarily page admins
• Text Formatting: add titles, subtitles, bullet points, bold and italic
• Integration with Google Analytics (premium version)
• RSS Feed (premium version)
• Customizable Header (premium version)
• No advertising for all the visitors of your Forum (premium version)
• Migration of apps page to a new page
• Available in: Arabic, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Russian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish

Using Social Media in your business is all about interacting with your clients and getting them involved with you, your business and industry. Adding a discussion board to your Facebook Fan Page is a great way to start the conversation. Here are the step by step instructions on how to add a discussion board to your Facebook Fan Page.

Generally the discussion board is already part of your Facebook Fan Page when you create it, however if it’s not, this is how you add it.

1. Using the search box at the top of Facebook, type in “discussion boards” In this list this should bring up “discussion boards app” Click on this.
2. You will be taken to the Discussion Board Fan Page.
3. Under their profile photo is a link “add to my page”
4. This will bring up a list of your pages.
5. Select which pages you want to add the discussion board on
6. Click on “add to page”
7. Navigate back to your page and the discussion board should be part of your page.

All my pages already have the discussion board, so I couldn’t test this correctly. Please let me know your feedback on if this works for you.

I always recommend to business owners that they need to set up a Facebook Fan Page. Here are the step by step instructions on how to setup your own Facebook Fan Page.

1. Go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php
2. You are creating an “Official” page, so select if it’s a business (most people reading this blog), brand or product, public figure.

3. When you select this option, it brings up drop down box. From this box select your type of business. If you can’t find your business type – select professional service.

4. Now give the page a name – generally your business name ie Brilliant Web Design or Social Media For Your Biz
5. You then have select that you have the authority to create a page on behalf of this business.
6. Select the button “Create Official Page”
7. You have now created your Facebook Fan Page
8. You page looks like this:

There will be more postings coming soon on editing your page and making it search engine friendly, but the basics are:

Changing Your Profile Picture
1. Roll the mouse over the question mark – then click on “edit picture”. From here you can upload your new photo

Adding Your Info
1. Click on the Info tab and select “edit information” from the right and input your business details

Description
1. Under your profile picture is a small box with text that said “Write something about Your Page Name” click in this box and write a description. Remember this is one of the first things people look at – make it meaningful.

Post your new Facebook Fan Pages below.