The recipient of our TopTenREVIEWS Gold Award, High Impact Designer's Gold version of Social Page Builder offers a well-rounded selection of Facebook fan page layout templates and other features that are easy to modify and customize for your individual or business needs. Its multi-layer template designs help you build an attractive page tab without having to know HTML code or much about design techniques. Additionally, this online service has a wide selection of templates and is the only one we reviewed that provides a spellchecker.
Like all the do-it-yourself Facebook templates we reviewed, Social Page Builder has the challenge of educating its potential and existing customer base about utilizing not only its user interface, but also the technology and marketing tools that Facebook pages offer individuals, organizations and businesses. The tools are simple and yet powerful, so it is worth subscribing to Social Page Builder's frequent newsletter. The possibilities are endless as to how we can use this technology to promote businesses and individual causes efficiently and inexpensively.
Social Page Builder lets you develop and publish up to 15 different fan pages with 15 tabs each and unlimited fans. For example, in addition to the Wall and Info tabs, you may add tabs such as a photo gallery, YouTube feed, welcome page or seasonal promotions. Assign one as the default landing tab through the Facebook Edit Page options. Send emails to your clientele or customer base with links to tabs to advertise sales or organizational announcements.
Individuals and small businesses can now utilize custom Facebook pages like never before. Social Page Builder provides templates that encourage followers to share your messages with their friends and family. For example, you can offer a limited-time discount to followers' friends and family members who Like your page and then use it to access your website.
Through Social Page Builder, you can publish up to 15 tabs for up to 15 Facebook pages, and it lets you update them or delete them through its interface. You can also add eCommerce links to your website for individual products you sell or links to pages with information about upcoming events. You can even add Facebook comments to a tab that provides direct feedback about an article you've posted or an event your organization is planning.
Social Page Builder has a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) design interface that lets you preview your page throughout the building process to see how it will appear when it goes live. The interface also provides a tool for inserting HTML code if you have coded tables such as Contact Us forms that you would like to add to a tab.
We had a few problems using this service's design interface with the Firefox browser, so we recommend using the latest version of Internet Explorer for the best user experience. The WYSIWYG was not accurate using Firefox. Additionally, the interface is generally more user-friendly in Internet Explorer, where the toolboxes are larger and more colorful.
Take advantage of the user manual that you can access by clicking the Help button within your account. It includes step-by-step instructions for utilizing the web interface. We had to use the manual because the interface is not initially intuitive.
To add new images or change text within your template, you must double click on an image to open the Image Editor, which will access a new layer within the template. Make sure to also use the Image Editor when you want to override a whole section within a template. When we deleted a major portion of a template from the base level and inserted our own image, it somehow attached as a separate unit of the template and appeared just below the template design when it went live, even though it did not appear that way in the service's preview window. Also, the functions to crop or shrink imported images is somewhat faulty, leaving a lot of white space around your image. We recommend cropping your images in another application before you upload them into the interface.
Note that if you want to build a reveal page tab, which has a different appearance to fans versus non-fans, choose the My Reveal Tabs button on the left side of the Template Browser page when you first log in to your account. The reveal pages are stored in a different place than your designs are.
Once you select which template you want to use, you then choose a title for your tab. Although the service doesn't let you customize the name of your tabs, it gives you an extensive list of tab names from which to choose. It also has you identify the page to which you want to publish the tab. You can also customize the names of your tabs by clicking on Apps in the Edit Page functions within your Facebook page.
You're equipped with a full toolbox of fonts, point sizes, text alignments, and text affects. It also gives you a robust and easy-to-use color pallet, as well as formatting, editing and table features. We like that you can easily add Smart Elements which are images added to a third layer of a template that consist of shapes and text that you can place on top of images to add emphasis and character to your page. Choose from image categories such as bubbles and captions, buttons, dates and times, frames and sockets, seals and guarantees, masks and sale images.
We are impressed with Social Page Builder's variety of Facebook layouts that use multi-layer templates, but we will note that the designs focus almost exclusively on building advertisements for retail pages. You can still override the images, however, and upload images related to nonprofit causes.
The service offers fan-gate or reveal page functions and templates for inserting a photo collage or YouTube feed, but it doesn't provide many of the interactive tools of competing services, such as the ability to insert an RSS feed, Twitter feed, maps or background music.
In our review of Facebook template services, we gave particular emphasis on each service's ease of use for the general user. The more you know about HTML, Photoshop and design techniques, the better off you'll be when publishing tabs to your Facebook page, but Social Page Builder does a good job of providing templates that you can easily customize for your own needs without programming knowledge.
Publishing to Facebook applications through the service was seamless in our experience, but it took a few tries to get our design uploaded with all the pieces in the right places. Once we became familiar with the process, however, we no longer experienced problems.
We found that Social Page Builder has a helpful customer support team that responded to our email inquiries within 24 hours. The service, which is based in Cambridge, MA, lists its physical address, email address, toll-free phone number and fax number, as well as its business hours, on its website.
The website also includes a page with answers to frequently asked questions and tutorials, and it offers a free newsletter subscription to give you convenient access to its blog. The service also provides a user manual that we recommend reviewing when you first open your account.
In addition to Social Page Builder, its parent company High Impact Designer also offers Email Design Builder and Landing Page Builder design and web hosting services that provide services with comparable quality to Social Page Builder.
We like Social Page Builder's well-rounded offerings that make designing and publishing a Facebook Fan Page tab possible even if you don't know HTML code or lack design skills. However, it also accommodates users who do have some of those skill sets, and it is a lot less expensive than employing a custom Facebook page web designer.
We found that the service is geared primarily toward creating Facebook pages for retail stores, but you can override elements or whole pieces of its templates and design them the way you like. We did experience some hang-ups using this service with a Firefox browser, and we once again recommend using Internet Explorer for the best user experience. Overall, however, we are impressed with Social Page Builder's well-rounded offerings that equip a variety of users with easy-to-use tools that will give you or your small business a professional social media presence.
