Creating a Custom Tab on Facebook Pages Securely

Written by be3designs | posted in Facebook | 0 Comments

Photo [Right]: Soapbox Booths features custom Facebook tab by BE3Designs

The Rundown

Many users have come across broken content on various Facebook Pages in the last few months; this is due to a change that Facebook implemented back in October of last year. Around the same time that you started noticing your URL change from http:// to https:// or your game-playing friends opted to turn off secure browsing altogether in favor of becoming Zynga’s POTY, Facebook began requiring page owners and developers to maintain their app’s content on a secure server of their own.

What Makes it a Good Thing

What might seem like a pain in the ass initially is in reality, them trying to make a more secure browsing experience for YOU, the user. You ‘like’ a Facebook Page, lets say its a product you enjoy purchasing on a regular basis. Its a well-known site, it gets a lot of traffic – it gets hacked and the data being pulled in to the Facebook Page is now ‘contaminated’. With the amount of users and pages being added to Facebook every minute of every day, it takes a streamlined project such as this to make the most grandeur of efforts.

Most everyday users opt to use a third-party app, which typically is a major corporation that was all over https:// to begin with or made the conversion. Most developers read up on material that made them aware of the impending doom.

Wah Wah Wahhhh

Not everyone is as savvy or can be that savvy all of the time. Not every update or migration made it in time and now a lot of content is unavailable to view unless the Facebook user accepts to browse without secure browsing enabled; and lets face it – now that the general public is aware of the difference, why would they choose not to?

Fix It or Make It Happen Right

As mentioned earlier, you can opt to use a third-party provider which will take most of the sting out of programming it yourself. We thoroughly enjoy using and recommend our friends over at Pinpoint Social but we’ve also included some links below to help you take a look at what’s out there. Remember though: free services usually mean that you must feature their company logo/link within your content. Expect to pay a fee to a third-party or designer/developer to make sure you get solid, custom content the way you want it to be displayed.

Links to Create Custom Tabs on Facebook Pages:

• PinPoint Social
• Pagemodo
• ShortStack
   

DIY

If you want more control over your custom content on Facebook, your alternative option is having the content hosted on your own server and signing up to create a custom app on Facebook as a developer. For more information about developing for Facebook, check out developers.facebook.com

Depending on your hosting provider you may already receive access to a shared SSL address that you may use to store your Facebook Page content on. You will need the https:// URL of your page to insert into the area you require within the Facebook Developers area. If you do not have a free, shared secure URL to use, you will have to purchase yearly SSL certificates for your domain which are typically $60+/yr.