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How to Add a Suggest to Friends Tab on a Facebook Page

Facebook is rolling out some major changes to how Pages work. Some are good, some not. The good changes include the new layout of facebook Pages with the tabs on the left sidebar instead of at the top, and, starting March 11, 2011, the ability to use iframes, HTML, Javascript and CSS without the FBML App! This is going to totally change how you can develop facebook Pages! Party time!

One of the recent changes in the “not so great” category is facebook’s decision to remove the “Suggest to Friends” link on facebook Pages. Admins of a page can still access this feature in the Edit Page area, but fans cannot. So, we’ve been flooded with requests to add an Invite Friends Tab to facebook Pages.  Here are the steps for how to create the Invite Friends Tab on a facebook Page, but keep in mind that as of March 11, 2011, facebook will be deprecating the FBML App.

  1. Go to  Static FBML App and click on Add to Page in the top left corner of the page. You will then see a list of your facebook pages. Click “Add to Page” to add the application.
  2. FBML is now added to your page.
  3. Go to the facebook Page you’re working on and click Edit Page.
  4. Click on Apps.
  5. Click on the FBML Apps and click on Go to App.
  6. Give the Tab a title like “Suggest to Friends.”
  7. Copy and Paste the below code replacing illuminea with your organization.
    Important! The action URL on line 3 of the code MUST be http://example.com and NOT http://www.example.com. No WWW welcome at this party.

    If you don’t follow these rules, you will get an error that says “Sorry, your request could not be processed. Please try again.”
    [html]
    <fb:request-form
    method=”post”
    action=”http://facebook.com/illuminea”
    type=”illuminea”
    invite=”true”
    content=”Connect with iluminea
    <fb:req-choice url=http://www.facebook.com/illuminea label=’Go’ /> “>
    <fb:multi-friend-selector actiontext=”Invite your friends to connect with illuminea” rows=”3″ cols=”3″ showborder=”true” />
    </fb:request-form>[/html]
  8. Save Changes.
  9. Go to Edit Page > Apps > Click on the Suggest to Friends App you created > Go to Edit Settings and click “Add” where it says Available (see screenshot).
  10. You can see this in action on illuminea’s facebook Page.
  11. When your friend receives the invitation it says “Friend has invited you to “Static FBML”. Not so pretty so for now make sure your message text is really good! I hope there will be a better solution for this.
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Rebecca Markowitz on February 17, 2011 • Short URL: http://illum.in/hxbGBg • Category Social Media • Tags: , , , Comments (33)

33 Responses to “How to Add a Suggest to Friends Tab on a Facebook Page”

  • Comment by Jackie Goldstein on Feb 17 2011 at 6:43 pm

    I could not get this to work – not with your my page and not just copying and pasting your code into my page. No error message either.

  • Comment by Thomas Euler on Feb 17 2011 at 7:03 pm

    Hi Illuminea-Team,

    thanks a lot for this very helpful hint! Yet, I tried using your code and as soon as I open the tab (which isn’t a tab anymore), nothing will happen – no fancy suggestion box as on your tab.

    I tested if the app works in general by inserting a sentence of text in front of the fbml and this appears without any troubles.

    Do you have any clue what could cause this problem? I would really appreciate your help!

    Best regards,
    Thomas

  • Comment by Miriam Schwab on Feb 17 2011 at 10:36 pm

    Thomas, I believe the problem was that WordPress had turned some of the quotes into curly quotes, which will break the code. I’ve inserted the code in a format that retains quotes as they are. Please try again with the code above, and let me know if it works.

  • Comment by Thomas Euler on Feb 18 2011 at 12:33 am

    Dear Miriam, thanks a lot! It’s working fine now! I saw this messy formating as well and tried to fix it, yet it seems you did a better job than me :)

    Best regards,
    Thomas

  • Comment by Miriam Schwab on Feb 18 2011 at 9:25 am

    Jackie, the problem was the code formatting. I’ve fixed it, so if you copy the code now it should work properly.

  • Comment by Jackie Goldstein on Feb 18 2011 at 10:22 am

    I also tried fixing the quotes, but must have missed one. Now it works great – Thanks Miriam !

  • Comment by will on Feb 18 2011 at 8:55 pm

    But there are with the invitation, the invited person sees “Youve been invited to Static FBML” and theres a button called “Go To Static FBML” , when this button is clicked, it disappear and shows a couple of messages, one of them is “Block user who invited you” other is “Block all invites from this user in the future”

    Messages are not exactly like that, but thats what they mean…

    So even if you click on “Go To Static FBML” it will not take you to the invited page.

    But thanks a lot for the good info.

  • Comment by Rebecca on Feb 20 2011 at 11:52 am

    Hi Will, I fixed the Button problem. Thank you for pointing that out. Try copying the new code in the post. As for the “you’ve been invited” I wish I could change that text but at the moment, don’t know of a solution.

  • Comment by Rehan on Feb 22 2011 at 7:32 pm

    Hi its not working for me.. i get the Following displayed on the FBML

    ”
    http://facebook.com/illuminea” type=”illuminea” invite=”true” content=”Connect with iluminea

    ” I changed it to my personal page noting.. thn i just pasted your Code still the same issue..

    Can you help me out please ?

  • Comment by olivia on Feb 27 2011 at 7:39 pm

    I tried it, and it worked. There are two problems, one is the FBML invite sound odd. The second is a question as to why you can only invite 8 people at a time?

  • Comment by Rebecca on Feb 27 2011 at 7:53 pm

    Rehan, it might be an issue of the quotes getting turned into curly quotes in facebook.

  • Comment by Rebecca on Feb 27 2011 at 7:54 pm

    Olivia,
    I know – not pretty. I’m still searching for a way to remove the FBML invite text. About the 8 people limit, I wish I knew, but that’s how facebook plays their game.

  • Comment by will on Feb 28 2011 at 5:07 am

    if only we could figure out how to change the “you have been invited to static fbml” it would be huge :)

  • Comment by Jman on Mar 01 2011 at 8:35 am

    I keep getting the same error message in red:

    “Sorry, your request could not be processed.

    Please try again”

    Here is my code, what am I doing wrong?

    <fb:request-form
    method="post"
    action="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jones-Levenson/193566240675502?ref=ts&quot;
    type="Jones Levenson"
    invite="true"
    content="Connect with Jones Levenson
    “>

  • Comment by Sophia on Mar 08 2011 at 3:25 am

    THANK YOU! I’ve been looking for a fix for the “Sorry, your request could not be processed. Please try again.” error! So happy right now.

  • Comment by Talha on Mar 15 2011 at 4:01 am

    I got the same error message saying request could not be processed.

  • Comment by Rich on Mar 25 2011 at 3:50 pm

    this is just not working for me. What am I doing wrong? Is my code ok?
    <fb:requestform
    method="post"
    action="http://facebook.com/sizzlestrapz&quot;
    type="sizzlestrapz"
    invite="true"
    content="Connect with sizzlestrapz
    “>

  • Comment by Beth on Mar 31 2011 at 4:37 pm

    I’m wondering if it’s possible to have more than 1 fbml page? I’ve seen other people do it, I just don’t know how :) Thanks for this great tip!!!!!

  • Comment by KristAlbreceta on Apr 29 2011 at 8:18 pm

    hey i did what you said and when i send request it show to the person i send that i have send him a static … ?! what does it mean ?!

  • Comment by Sally on May 12 2011 at 10:15 pm

    Hi, there.
    Your post states “Admins of a page can still access this feature in the Edit Page area, but fans cannot.” I do not see this feature on any of the many pages I admin in the edit area. Where, very specifically, would I find it?
    Thanks.

  • Comment by Illuminea Team on May 15 2011 at 8:27 am

    Krist, yeah, it’s not the best, but it was the closest we could get to the original suggest to friends feature. Facebook recently changed how the Suggest to Feature works for admins as well, so that the person you’re inviting doesn’t even get a notification anymore, and the notification in the sidebar only shows up sometimes. Basically, Facebook wants you to buy ads to promote your site. Stinks.

  • Comment by Illuminea Team on May 15 2011 at 8:27 am

    Sally, take a look at this screenshot: http://illum.in/luVxs8 the Suggest to Friends for admin appears in the right sidebar of your Page Admin.

  • Comment by Sally on May 15 2011 at 11:55 pm

    No, it doesn’t. But that’s where it would appear if it was available. : ) Thanks.

  • Comment by Illuminea Team on May 16 2011 at 9:09 am

    Sally, weird. I guess it’s only there for some admins?! I don’t get it.

  • Comment by Sally on May 16 2011 at 4:15 pm

    Yes, I spent a few hours researching this last week, reading the FB forums, other websites and message boards like yours and have reached the conclusion that the Suggest a Page feature is only available to some Facebook admins. I administer six pages and this feature it not listed on any of them – the pages are all relatively new so maybe some people got grandfathered in when Facebook dropped the feature back in January? For more details, see my post: http://www.somisolutions.com/2011/05/12/the-mysteries-of-facebook/

  • Comment by tomerF on Jun 16 2011 at 11:34 am

    i got the code into the tab anf it says
    “You may only select 3 friends”

    why, please advice

    this is the code i pasted:

    <fb:request-form
    method="post"
    action="http://facebook.com/pages/IPHONE1/282624255141?sk=wall&quot;
    type="iphone1"
    invite="true"
    content="Connect with iphone1
    “>

  • Comment by hmisousa on Aug 26 2011 at 3:13 am

    I´m trying to use this code but it only gives me a blank page, without any error.

    Is it normal?
    Regards,
    HS

  • Comment by Illuminea Team on Aug 26 2011 at 3:54 am

    @hmisousa, unfortunately Facebook doesn’t support this feature anymore since they phased out fbml.

  • Comment by hmisousa on Aug 26 2011 at 4:29 am

    Thanks for the fast comment, but I’ve checked your facebook page and some others that has this suggest to friends working…

    Is there any other way to get this running at our page?

    Regards,
    HS

  • Comment by Barbara on Oct 10 2011 at 6:45 pm

    I just want to add a friend. I can’t figure out how to do this. It used to say “Add as friend” and send a request to the person. I found the person I’d like to add as a friend, an artist, but don’t know how to become his friend. Can anyone help? I don’t use facebook a lot, but will be using it a lot less now. I can only “add as friends” the facebook suggestions. I do NOT want any of their suggestions!!!

    Please help if possible. BYW I didn’t know any of the terms you used and don’t have access to any APPS. I am a dinosaur, so your article did not help me. I didn’t understand it. Sincerely, BJS

  • Comment by Marvelique on Nov 29 2011 at 12:37 pm

    Hello

    The code works just fine.
    But it says I can invite only 3 friends at a time.
    And am not even able to invite 3 friends.

    I get this error msg

    “Sorry, you have run out of requests to send with this application. Please try again tomorrow.”

    Regards
    MQ

  • Comment by Dejan on Dec 06 2011 at 4:07 pm

    It’s work for me but you can only invite 3 friends per day. It’s kind of pity :( but thanks anyway

  • Comment by jinoy on Jan 11 2012 at 4:05 pm

    I cant Invite Friends,

    Getting Error Msg that, “Sorry, you have run out of requests to send with this application. Please try again tomorrow.”

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