D-Day for Facebook page tabs March 11, 2011

Now that the launch of the new Facebook page design is out, Facebook have also gone live with iframes as the primary way to include applications into Facebook.

This means that on March 11, 2011 Facebook will no longer allow you to create or add static FBML applications. You might have been using this to display your Paypal donation button or newsletter sign-up in a tab on your Facebook page.

We have written a guide to help you set-up the new iframe tabs on Facebook.

Facebook are urging everyone to update to the new iframe method AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Probably because they want to remove Static FBML as soon as possible. If you wait you may find in a few months they simple turn off Static FBML tabs.

We have already updated the BullyingUK Facebook page to use iframe tabs, check out the welcome and share tab. Both pages are actually running on the BullyingUK server which means we can include ANYTHING we want to.

In this case we have used Facebook Social Graph code to add a custom like button to the welcome tab and an auto firing share window on the share tab.

Brand message

Note on the Share tab how the entire Share message has been pre-formatted using the open graph tags so every share reflects the brand message and call to action.

Facebook moving to iframes is great news as it will make it much easier to create basic landing pages or more complex interactive stuff without having to muck about with Static FBML.

Bottom line… if you can run it on your website you can now run it in Facebook, only now you can take easy advantage of open graph to integrate your page more closely with your site.

You can always tweet us on @SoMediaCharity if you would like to discuss this article.