Summer is the perfect time to work on your blog (or start a new one!). Most teachers are off for the summer and have extra time to browse blogs, network, and file away ideas for next year. Whether you’re starting a brand new blog or just looking for ways to spruce up and promote the one you already have, I’m starting a weekly summer series here on Ms. Fultz’s Corner just for you. I have several ideas already in mind for things I want to share with you, but you can also leave requests in the comments that I’ll try my best to work on too. First up… Facebook Fan Gates for Fan Only Freebies!
A fan gate is a tab on your blog that holds a freebie (or coupon, or whatever) that only people who “like” your page can see. Nonfans will be prompted to like your page before they can grab your content.
Installing a fan gate is easy, promise! I previously used Short Stack for mine, but it is only free for up to 2,000 fans so I’m recommending Woo Box now. You can use Woo Box in two ways, for your own single fan freebie or for a larger freebie hop that you coordinate with other bloggers. You might have seen the hop on my Facebook page this weekend, which was hosted through Woo Box.
To make it really easy for you, I did a quick video. The first three minutes show you how to do the Facebook hop on your own page only (no html code needed!) and the rest of the video will walk you through setting up a chain of freebies in a hop with other bloggers. You will need to do some code for that, but it will vary based on your image size. If it’s something many of you are interested in, I can work on making a generic template that you can all use when I get back from the beach.
**Update** to add more than one freebie to your fan gate, select the “html” option and paste this code in:
<a href=”GOOGLE LINK”><img src=”PHOTOBUCKET PICTURE”></a>
Then just copy that as many times as you need for each freebie. =)
I’ll be back next Wednesday for another Work Your Blog tip. Until then, you can visit my You Tube channel for several more blogger tutorials.
I’ve also started a brand new pin board with tips, tutorials, and resources just for teacher bloggers and sellers.
If you’re looking for a complete blog design, I do that too over at Design by Christi.
Is there something you’d like to see on an upcoming Work Your Blog Wednesday? Leave a comment and let me know because I’d love to help!
I just got a freebie from another blogger's fb page and thought to myself "I want to do that!" Thanks for sharing!
Brandi
Success in Second Grade
Christi, I wanna tell you I come here everyday to get help from your tutorials. I follow you by email and even have your button on my new blog. Your tutorials have given me so much help in setting up certain aspects of my new blog not to mention I've loved the products from you TpT store. The tone to your posts are so warm, friendly, and inviting that I feel this is the place to come get answers! My next step is to add add labels to my blog and learn how to add customized fonts onto blogger! Lots of work still to do! Thank you for making everyone feel welcomed and willing to share your knowledge!
Awe, thank you so much for taking the time to leave that comment. It is exactly why I keep doing what I'm doing. I have an upcoming Work It Wednesday all about using labels to make your blog more user-friendly. 🙂
Thanks so much for starting this series and for sharing your expertise Christi! I really appreciate the tutorials. I have a Facebook page (not a full account like my personal Facebook) for my blog and am not able to access any Fan Freebies although I have Liked them. Any idea how to fix this?
I love your blog designs too and will be contacting you shortly! 🙂
Jeannine
Creative Lesson Cafe
Definitely show us how to add the followers count on your bloglovin'! Thanks for the great tips.
Will do!
Thanks for sharing this tutorial! I am looking forward to seeing many more! You're right. Summer is the perfect time to update!
Amy
Eclectic Educating
Thanks so much Christi, I've been wondering how to do that for FOREVER! 🙂
~Jessica
Fun in PreK-1 is Having a Giveaway!
Love this! I just followed your new board on Pinterest, and I am so excited to learn new tips from you here! Thanks so much!!
http://thetallytales.blogspot.com
What a great idea!! 🙂 I am off to learn how to do this with your tutorial. I would love to know how to put a custom font onto my blog posts instead of having to use the ones that are already on there for users. 🙂
Sugar and Spice
I love your tutorials!! They are so helpful and easy to follow. I wanted to be able to add this to my Facebook page and now I will be able to because of your great tutorial. Thanks for sharing your expertise.
Shelly
Smiling and Shining in Second Grade
Your post is really timely for me. I would like to start a blog to reflect on changes I'm making in my practice and share my ideas with other teachers. There's SO much to learn about putting my blog together, so I'll be following your tutorials. Thanks so much for sharing your expertise!
Ilona
Christi,
Thanks for your tutorial! I used it on my FB page! You rock!
-Sarah
A Rocky Top Teacher
Your blogs stuff is purely enough for me personally.
Free Stuff
Hi Christi! I love your tutorials and I can't wait to use this once I get my FB page up and running. In your video, you talked about HTML code. Can you do a tutorial (if it's not too difficult)on how to create the HTML code you talked about for the Freebie Hop?
I can't wait until next Wednesday !
Thanks,
Verena
Thank you for the great tutorial. We are amazed at all the wonderful blogs that are willing to share their knowledge. We are real newbies to blogging and would love to invite you to visit our blog and follow us.
Thanks again,
Martha
2 Smart Wenches
Thankyou!
I really love the way you discuss this kind of topic.youtube Likes
Hi Christi! Thanks for this information, but I have one followup question. Is it possible to create a "fan-gate" of sorts directly on my BLOG? I would like to give access to a freebie to those who follow my blog. Is there a way to do that?? Or does something lik that have to be done through Facebook?
Deb at Crafting Connections
http://www.crafting-connections.blogspot.com/
You'll need to do it with Facebook. Sometimes I do link a freebie only on my blog, but anyone on the web who stumbles across it will have access, not just those who follow.
Hi Christi! Did you run into any problems with the size of your images? I can't figure out how to enable the wide (810 x 1200 pixel) setting. Thanks for the great tutorial!
~Jessica
Fun in PreK-1 & Kinder
I didn't, but some of my friends said the size limit was 400kb so they had to reduce the quality/resolution of their pictures a bit. .JPG files also take up less space than .PNG.
Do you happen to know with Woo Box why I can't sign up with them through the blog's FB – it only wants to go through my own personal FB account?
Your fan page is "nested" under your personal Facebook profile. After you accept, it will let you choose which profile/page you actually want to put it on.
Now-a-days, most of the businesses have created their fan pages on Facebook and now your tutorial was perfect done..
Thank you so much for sharing..
Buy Facebook likes
I just wanted to say thank you sooo sooo much for this! It is so nice to come across someone so helpful and giving! I really appreciate you taking the time to do a tutorial for this. I feel there are all these secrets out there about blogging that I don't know about. I have seen people with more than one product in their fangate. Do you know how to do that?
Thanks again!
Amy
3 Teacher Chicks
I'm happy to help so I'm glad it's appreciated. 🙂 You'll use the "html" option for your fan gate. Upload your freebie (google docs, wherever) and your pictures (photobucket, wherever). Then you'll post in a code for each one of your freebies. I'll update the original post with it because Blogger doesn't let me put it in comments.
Hi Christi!
Thanks so much for this tutorial! It really helped me to set up my tab- I actually wrote a post about it to spread the word! http://creatingathoughtfulclassroom.blogspot.com/2013/09/how-to-set-up-facebook-fans-tab.html
I appreciate your help, along with everyone else!
Thanks,
Karli
Creating a Thoughtful Classroom
I will have my freebie up for fans as soon as I get it finished up, it will take me ten times as long to create my freebie as it will to add the app with your great instructions. Just what I was looking for and you even have a VIDEO. Fabulous! Thank you!
I love the idea of your summer blog focus. It would be great to get some info on how to edit the sidebars with backgrounds, "flashing" pics, and the TpT scroll box. Your page is so clean cut and pretty- I love it! Great creativity 🙂 Thanks for posting this info, it truly helps.
Brittany
For some reason I'm having a really hard time adding another freebie to my fan page. I tried your html advice and I couldn't get it to work. Do you have any other suggestions, or a tutorial for how to add multiple freebies to your Facebook fan page? Thanks so very much for being a teacher for the teachers!!!
Warmest Wishes Erin from Kindergarten Dragons
Amazing information about facebook. Thanks for sharing….