So this post is more of a transparent pat on our own backs at nuCloud, but we have successfully taken our interactive mapping software and are able to embed it on a Facebook Page! We are excited because we feel this is a big deal for colleges and universities. As recent data has shown 99% of 18-24 year olds are on social networks. As you all know, for most institutes of higher education this is the target audience for at least undergraduates. Also with Facebook now flaunting over 350 million active users it’s an obvious location in which to place one of your strongest recruiting tools.
Facebook has personal pages and groups, but for an interactive campus map the best page on which to include it is your school’s fan page. This is accomplished through using what Facebook calls FBML (Facebook Markup Language). We’ve gone the extra mile to create the embed script for this FBML inside of the nuCloud user interface so all you need to do is follow the three simple steps outlined below.
Steps for adding your interactive map to your Facebook fan page
1. Setup FBML on your Facebook fan page
a) Login to your Facebook fan page and select “edit page”
b) Find and install the “Static FBML” application to your fan page
c) Back in the fan page editor, find FBML and go to the “Application Settings”
d) Remove “Box” and add “Tab.” Click Okay
e) Choose “Edit” under FBML
f) Enter the title of your map tab under “Box Title”
2. Copy the FBML embed code from nuCloud and paste it into your FBML block
a) Open your map through nuCloud’s map editor
b) Choose “Get Facebook Code” from the Actions panel and copy the Embed code
c) Paste the FBML embed code into the FBML box and save changes
3. You should now see a tab on your fan page for your interactive map.
Check Out Live Examples
That couldn’t have been much easier, could it? Want to see exactly what this looks like in Facebook? Here is how two of our customers are taking advantage of this feature. Please check out the Belmont Map and USC Upstate Map.
