I recently redesigned two of my Facebook Fan Pages using an app called FanRx. I really like it because it is simple to use and offers an array of modules to enhance your page. These features of FanRx which I will talk about give your page a nice, distinctive look that will make a good first impression with visitors.

FanRx allows you to use banner images with large height as well as formatting HTML, which are two limitations of the default Fan Page template. It does a very nice job of formatting HTML, however I did have an issue with the HTML “textarea” tag. This may have occured because I tried to use it with some advanced parameters that FanRx may not have recognized. Otherwise, it seemed to do a fine job. Here is one of the Fan Pages I redesigned with FanRx. As you see, this page is quite lengthy. I actually had trouble getting the default Fan Page template to save this after I copied and pasted it into the “Description” box under the “Basic Information” section of the “Manage” dropdown option. I got it to work after 2 or 3 tries, but it was nevertheless a struggle. FanRx saved it easily.

The FanRx app does have a size limitation on the file size of the banner image you can upload — 500 Kb. The banner in the above mentioned FanRx page was originally created as a 3.62 Mb JPG image. I had saved it as a GIF image and then resized it downward to get the file size just under 500 Kb.

FanRx has an easy to use, friendly interface for building out the page. At the top is a tool bar encompassing “Preview”, “Appearance”, “Settings” and “Promote” features. The “Promote” button reveals the URL of the FanRx page which you can easily copy and paste into other resources. Below this tool bar and to the left is a section called “Add Modules” that includes an array of modules you can integrate into your FanRx page. These include the following:

Banner Module

Video Player

Audio Player

Email Collection

Upcoming Events

Info Module

Twitter Updates

Contest Module

Store Module

HTML Collection

Comments Box

Live Streaming

Recommended Pages

Immediately to right of “Add Modules” is “Manage Modules”. This is a list of the modules you have added which are integrated components of your FanRx page.

For my own purposes, I have used the “Banner Module”, “Info Module” (this has listings for your website, Twitter id, etc. that displays just under the banner), and “HTML Content”. The HTML formatting is especially important for me as I need to position content that is coming from promotional web pages I made for LinkedIn. Although the Twitter module is a real nice feature, I have decided not to install it because some of my Tweets are not of a business nature. If all of them were then I would utilize it because of this reason. Some of my LinkedIn postings are sent to my Twitter account. These are then “pipelined” over to my Facebook wall because I installed the Twitter app on Facebook. The “Twitter Updates” would allow me to leverage this incoming stream of Tweets so people who view my FanRx pages could also see the LinkedIn originated Tweets that are coming over to Facebook.

One last little thing. The other night I had a strange problem with the vertical scroll bar. It wouldn’t scroll the full length of the FanRx pages I made. I emailed FanRx technical support that same night. They responded quickly the next morning, but somehow the problem had corrected itself. I don’t know if the snafu was with my computer or perhaps it was server problems. Otherwise it has been fine since then. I haven’t used FanRx for very long or made use of the full capabilities of this fine Fan Page customization tool, but from what I’ve seen so far it is a keeper!

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