Here’s how to get started:

- First, login your Facebook account, and then access your company fan page and click on the Edit Page button (see example below).

Next, click on the Resources menu, and then on the Use social plugins link (see example below)

From here you can select the Facebook plugin that you’d like to use on your site (see example below)

You can then fill in any variable to get a desired appearance and then click on the Get Code button (see example below)

Once the code displays, you’ll want to copy both sections (see example below)…

…then you’ll want to paste the code into a Written Content area on your DC site where you want to the plugin to display, make sure that the Web Editor Preference for the Written Content area is set to Basic HTML (see example below)

There you have it…your Facebook plugin should be displaying on your DC website, make sure to Publish your changes to have the plugin display on your live site. Click here for more Facebook tips for your DC website.

INTERNAL FACEBOOK INTEGRATION

This message above now appears on the main internal DC page if a user is also logged in to Facebook. Clicking No, thanks will set a preference that removes this message from the home page.

Steps to enable:

1. Log in to your Facebook.com account and then log in to your DistributorCentral.com account.

2. Click the Link my Facebook Profile button and  you will be taken to a FB page to request permission.

2. Once you allow the connection you are returned to DC and this message will show:

Gradually, Facebook profile pics will start appearing in correspondence, order summary, product editor, and other places.

WEBSITE FACEBOOK INTEGRATION

If you are hosting a website and a domain name in DistributorCentral, you can enable a preference to allow your customers to “Like” and “Share” the products on their Facebook walls.

Enable this new Facebook Integration section in website preferences.

Under this there are three preferences that are related to each other.

The main preference turns the Facebook “Like” button off and on in the catalog. The other two are supporting information for the Like button.

To enable this preference:

1. Go to Websites Menu> Add/Edit Websites
2. Edit your website
3. Click on Website Preferences
4. Click on Facebook Integration
5. Select “Yes” under “Show the Facebook Like button on your product pages?“
6. Then enter your Facebook user ID in the second box. Click on the “Find your FB user ID here” link to get the ID number.
7. Save your changes
8. Publish your website.

When the “Like” button is enabled it shows up on each product page.

When the “Like” button is clicked it creates a fan page inside your Facebook account. This will enable distributors to start collecting information about popular products, plus market to the people who like them.

The Send button allows customers to send a private message with a link to the web page.

Like and Send buttons on a DistributorCentral website:

Wall Post in Facebook:

Using an App ID (the last preference) will also let advanced Facebook users to  programmatically market to all webpage likes.

Here’s how:

1 – Create a Fan Page for your Company in FaceBook
- Skip these steps below if you have already created a Fan Page in FaceBook
- Login to your FaceBook account, and then click on the Ads and Pages tab
- Next, select the Create Page link
- From this point, setup and customize your FaceBook fan page to your liking
- Click here for further information on creating FaceBook fan pages

2 – Add the Application to your FaceBook Fan Page
- Next, while logged in to both your FaceBook account and your DistributorCentral account, click or go to the URL below
http://apps.facebook.com/distributorcentral
- Then click on the Click here to add this to your Facebook page link
- On the next page, click on the Add to my Page tab (see image below)
- Then click on the Add to Page button in the pop-up window

3 – Add the Application to your FaceBook Fan Page.
- While still logged in to both your DistributorCentral and FaceBook Account, go your fan page for your business, and click on the Edit Page button in the upper right portion of the page (see image below)

- Click on the Apps tab on  the left side of the page
- Scroll down the page until you see the DistributorCentral application, and then click on the Go to App link (see image below)

- Next, click on the dropdown menu on the following page which will show all of the available website pages that you have created in you DistributorCentral account (If it does not show this, then make sure you are logged in to our DistributorCentral account while in this are in your FB account)
- Select the page that you would like to display, and then click on Save (We suggest that you select a website page that you are featuring products on, see image below)

You will now have a Products tab on your FaceBook Fan Page that will display the content on the website page that you have chosen to advertise (see example below).

Here’s instructions on how we suggest to setup a page on your DistributorCentral website to use the FaceBook application:
- Go to your Websites menu and select Add/Edit Websites
- Edit your website, and go the Add/Edit Pages area
- Select to add a Custom Page to your website
- Name the page, and select to not have the page link display on the website (see image below)

- Next, setup blocks to use the Feature Products tool
- We suggest using the 4 across block layout and using the featured product tool in the first three sections, leaving the fourth section blank (see image below)

- When using the Featured Product tool, select “Small” for the image size and indicate to have the Width set to 20% (see image below)
- Repeat this process to add as many featured products as you like

- Finally, publish your website, and then follow the steps at the beginning of this blog entry to add this page to your FaceBook Fan Page. The products page on your FaceBook Fan page should then look similar to the example below.

Here’s how to view them: 

1. Click on the Browse link in the Email Blast section located in the lower left portion of the Home page in your account (see example below).

2. Once you have conducted a product search within your account, click on the Email Blasts tab. This will then display the Supplier email blasts that pertain to the search criteria that you have entered (see example below).

 Click here to see an example done by TradeNet Publishing

 When creating your template, you’ll want to keep the design fairly basic and simple, so that distributors can easily modify and customize the website template.

 Call DistributorCentral at 888.516.7401 or email info@distributorcentral.com for more details.

They are from Microsoft Small Business but there are some great unbiased tips available here:

http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/resources/marketing/small-business-advertising-branding.aspx#marketing,advertisingbranding