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How to Receive Email Notification for Your Facebook Business Page

I have hoped everyday that Facebook will grant us the convenience to receive email notifications for our business pages updates. Unfortunately, it seems like facebook has no intention to incorporate this feature yet:

Bummer, pardon me for not being tolerate when it comes to business page notifications. There has not been a clear reason given why Facebook is hiding (or saving) this feature. Could there be a surprise for us in near future? Your guess is as good as mine.

It is not logical yet we have no choice, but to depend on external services and a few tricks to temporarily monitor our page activities. I have tested a few methods and now using 2-3 of them for my facebook page. They are not perfect, some have delays and no way to compare with Facebook’s very own notification system that we’re enjoying in our personal profile, but if you’re desperately needed an alternative, maybe some of the info here can help:

 

Email Notification for New Posts & Comments

1. Page Notifier – Facebook Application

 

Page Notifier alerts page admin new wall posts and threaded comments from fans. I have been testing this service for a day or two now and thrilled to say follow-up comments can be tracked easily and promptly. I get to respond and followup on questions immediately, thanks to the trial version provided (96 scans/day):

Here is how the email notification looks like whenever there’s a new post or comment on the Wall:

What I love about Page Notifier:<

Page admins are notified with follow-up comments regardless how old was the wall post. You can add multiple pages to Page Notifier as long you can get a hold of their page IDs.

Opps… BUT you should know:

I think this applies to all types of notifier – your facebook page must be public viewable (no age or country restrictions) otherwise this app cannot access your page to retrieve the updates. Also, after the trial your account will be downgraded to Free Version that allows one-time-scan per 24 hours unless you’re willing to purchase for more frequent scans and emails. To get 15 minutes/scan you need to pay up to $14.95/month. Yes, I wish this service is F.O.C too.

 

Email Notification for New Postings

2. Fan Page Notifier – Web Service

 

Similar to Page Notifier, you will be informed whenever there’s a new wall post from fans. Good thing about it is that not only you get to follow up on your own managed pages but your liked-pages too. It is optional to set either one or both notifications (admins and fans) as shown below:

What I love about Fan Page Notifier:

I have been using Fan Page Notifier for about a month now. For the entire August it has been right on time with new wall posts (scan frequently). No fee required so you can enjoy this service freely.

By monitoring liked pages, Fan Page Notifier actually works well as an alternative to a recent Facebook updating issue in News Feed, besides using facebook lists.

Opps… BUT you should know:

Fan Page Notifier does not collect follow-up responses in a post (only New wall posts) so you need to check back regularly, or utilize ‘like‘ option (Method #3) for a better page interaction. In early September, I had missed a few updates but after I re-subscribe, everything works fine again. Considering it’s a free service, I can tolerate a few β€˜misses’ as long it’s not overly done.

 

Email Notification for β€˜Liked’ Items

3. β€˜Like’ Option – A Manual Way

 

Many of you already know how β€˜like’ option can track follow up comments. Usually it works perfectly for manual posting in a facebook page. You can β€˜unlike’ a post to stop receiving upcoming comments (unless you have commented then there’s no way to unsubscribe). Make sure you have checked through your notifications especially for β€˜comments after you’ in a Note, Video, Link and wall comments for it to work.

The downside of this method is you need to β€˜like’ all your status updates manually. Not really convenient for scheduled updates and auto-published Blog RSS Feed via facebook applications.

 

A Summary of Page Notifications (at selected time)

4. NutshellMail – Facebook Application

 

NutshellMail is a managing tool for various social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and MySpace. By adding it to your facebook page, your fans can subscribe to your page updates when they go to Newsletter tab -> Click here to continue:

As a page admin, you can subscribe to Nutshellmail for a summary of page notifications. Customize the email delivery (time), sections and your managed pages:

Nutshellmail may not be an instant notifier when it comes to page activities, but I see it as a checking-list. I can set the delivery at regular intervals, make sure I have responded to all page comments as required.

 

Email Notification for Discussion Board

This method utilizes Google Reader and Feed Notifier to track new responses in Facebook discussion board – it is explained in earlier post so feel free to give it a read. Process can be a little cumbersome but thanks to these external services, page admins can now deal with an active discussion board.

 

Why Email Notification Is Important for Page Admins?

It may be wishful thinking that I hope Facebook would see this, but as page admins, we need page notification :

  • to be responsive when dealing with fans requests.
  • to filter spammy and inappropriate content from wall posts.
  • instead of checking back the page once every few minutes, notification can be a real time-saver (avoid time-suck).
  • to deal with conflict asap to protect business branding & fans interests
  • to respond to offers and job opportunities immediately
  • to improve fans interactions and relationship-building

I could go on but I’ll save the rest for the commenters. It is our hope to enjoy this facility one day without relying on third party applications (reliability and ZERO monthly charges).

 

Now Is Your Turn…

How do you monitor your page activity for now? Are you willing to pay for receiving email notifications? Share your thoughts.

33 Comments

    1. Klaus,

      Nice choice. πŸ™‚ I have just been downgraded so looking forward to see how the notifications will match with other services. Sure is great to see you, Thanks so much for commenting.

    2. Agreed! It’d be awesome if they did it more than once a day for free, but I am totally okay with once. My FB pages go unattended during this growth stage. This will help!

  1. I tried Fan Page Notifier 5 days ago and it don’t work so I guess just like Klaus I’ll be signing up for Page Notifier πŸ˜‰

    1. Fan Page Notifier actually does work. Silly me forgot that the notifications were being sent to my Facebook email which isn’t my primary email address :-(. Anyway I’ve changed my facebook email address now so that I can be receiving my updates at my main email address.

      My apologies to the folks behind Fan Page Notifier. I clearly jumped to a dumb conclusion.

  2. Ching Ya you hit the nail on the head with this post. Till today I can’t have any way to track responses at my Facebook page (just visiting directly often) and I’ve answered slowly or worst I’ve received spam and was there since I visited the same again.

    The ideal application should be the first (I’d wish isn’t a trial) but I’ll check the others to see what can fit to mine.

    Thanks for sharing these tips!

    Cheers,

    Gera

    1. You’re most welcome, Gera. πŸ™‚ I have been searching for a better alternative but after weeks of digging, these are the best I can come up for now. There are actually more notifers outthere, but mostly not free so here are some I personally tried and find quite reliable.

      Glad could contribute and help out page admins in this. πŸ™‚ And thanks so much for sharing this in your page too! Hugs.

  3. Another great article Ching Ya.

    Since this option is not directly provided at Facebook it is really great to catch up with some work arounds. I am in for work arounds.

    Maybe then eventually Facebook will see the demand for this feature.

    Great job here Ching Ya.. πŸ™‚

    Cheers.. Are

    1. Thank you Are for the encouragement. πŸ™‚ Yes, I’m still hoping that one day Facebook will grant us this feature, I believe no notification system is as good as FB very own’s. Finger crossed.

      Hope the review helps. Thanks so much for visiting.

  4. Ching Ya this is great! I don’t have a Facebook page for my new blog yet – but I do have one for my best niche site, and I’m having to check it manually all the time to make sure I show appreciation to my commenters and “Like”-ers. Thanks so much for investigating these things for us! πŸ™‚

    1. You’re welcome, Christie. There are still much to be discovered and hopefully someone will come up with better alternatives along the way. πŸ™‚ We really do need the notifier from FB, wish they can grant us this tiny yet significant wish. Always great to see you here, dear friend.

  5. Great update thanks. I do it manually right now but as my page gets more engaged it’s going to be harder to keep track.

    I already use Nutshell so will look into that option. Of course Facebook Insights shows you the number of comments and likes but not the actual ones as they happen.

    I’ll check out Page Notifier too. Like this Facebook Social Plugin too – is that a WP Plugin or a FB one, FB I’m assuming?

    1. Hi Nataile, nice to see you here. πŸ™‚

      Page Notifier is a facebook app, but it’s not developed by facebook themselves. According to its founder, Brandon (from the message he left here):
      ‘Page Notifier is the only one that will email you with comments on old photos and albums.’

      I didn’t get to confirm that yet but if so, then it’s quite impressive. ^^ Worth a try even just for a trial period. I’m now relying more on Fan Page Notifier and Like combination after Page Notifier (if only it’s free that’ll be superb).

  6. Pretty interesting stuff, Ching Ya. I pretty much just assumed I would have to wait for FB to finally change something. Might have to give one of these a go.

    By the way, it’s driving me nuts; just what is the dessert you’re holding in that picture above?

    1. lol! It’s ice cream, I forgot what flavor was that, strawberry? πŸ™‚ Speaking of which, I haven’t been visiting that ice cream parlor for awhile now. Should do that again sometimes.

      So great to see you here, Mitch. Thanks a lot. ^^

  7. This has been a major problem for me. I reply late for HBB Facebook Page queries. πŸ™

    Will try the apps you mentioned, hope they will reduce the work for me, I used to visit the page now & then for finding new comments! πŸ˜€

    1. Pradeep,

      Should give either #1 or #2 a go, I’m sure these apps can help. πŸ™‚ I too, am visiting my page quite frequently but whenever I’m occupied with clients work, these apps can be great helpers.

      Thank you so much for commenting.

  8. I’ve been checking by hand too – I signed up for “Page Notifier” a few hours ago and within minutes got an email saying they hoped I’d enjoyed testing PN and now my page would only be scanned once a day! So I’ve not received any actual scan results yet … hopefully it will be useful once it kicks in.

    1. Hi Ricky, great to see you here. πŸ™‚

      There should be a subsequent email heading your way about the 15minutes scan soon. Hope you’ll get to test out the feature, think you’re gonna enjoy it. ^^ Keep us updated with your PN testing too. Love to hear your thoughts.

      Thank you so much for visiting. Hugs.

      1. Perhaps I hit a bug? I initially got an email that said my page would be scanned every 15 minutes for the rest of the day, then immediately afterwards (without any scan results) a message saying they hoped I’d enjoyed my day’s trial and that I’d been downgraded to once-daily scans. Still haven’t actually got any scan results!

        I’m willing to wait though, my page isn’t so busy that I actually need to check it more than daily, luckily.

        1. @Ricky,

          I’m the developer of Page Notifier.

          I set it up with a “test drive” period that’s really just based on midnight Central Time… so it sounds like it was just bad timing for you.

          If you’ll hit me up using the “contact developer” link at http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=103658203021179 I’ll get you taken care of.

          Anyone else that may have “issues”, please do the same.

          Also, it’s probably a good idea that you become a fan of the app so that you get any notifications and updates regarding changes that I make.

          Thanks much!

  9. Hey Ching Ya,

    As always informative article here. Thank goodness there is a solution to the notification issue… Option 2 appeared to be my preferred choice but thanks to the feedback and comments have just installed Page Notifier.
    Let’s see how that goes.
    Thanks Loads

    1. Appreciate the visit, Deidre & glad you find the article helpful. Let us know how you feel about the service. πŸ™‚

  10. Great post! I just launched my Page and was stressing about missing posts. I’ll probably try Page Notifier.

    Also, just found your blog and will subscribe as you have great info!

  11. Hi there!

    Great post!

    I’m in the process of testing out some of these apps but I am wondering if anyone else is having problems receiving notifications after manually liking or commenting on each post. I’ve got all my settings as they should be to receive the notifications that way, but for some reason they never arrive. Even after I comment! Strange, right?

    I wonder if you have an idea of why this might be happening? I can’t figure it out for the life of me!

    Thanks for this great post and all the wonderful info on your site! I will certainly be back.

    All the best,

    Sezin

    1. Hi Sezin, welcome and it’s nice meeting you here.

      I do have this problem and I was wondering whether the ‘Like’ method is still 100% working or it’s a temporary glitch. Still observing though. It was definitely working the time before, let’s hope fb will get it working again unless they plan to roll out the notification system for page admins, that will even be better.

      Thanks so much for your visit, I really hope to see you here again. πŸ™‚ Happy new year!

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