Last week, I had a major issue with my PC so I brought it down to the technical center for maintenance. As I was sitting there waiting for my turn, I overheard two ladies talking about the new facebook profiles and how they are missing the old layout. One of them said that she is now having a hard time locating the tabs while the other is unable to keep up with her own status since it is no longer on top of her profile!

Can’t blame them, we are all in the same shoes after the new upgrade – adapting. Like it or not, it is coming to all personal accounts:

“We’re really excited about the new profile. We’re rolling it out gradually and plan to get it to everyone by early next year. You can upgrade immediately or learn more about the new features” – facebook official blog

People are not prone to sudden changes so when this happens, uncertainty kicks in and complaints took over most of  facebook blog comments. Although facebook prepares a brief intro about the new profile prior to upgrade, but fact is there are more one should know about the new profile, let it be good or bad:

7 Things You Must Know about Facebook New Profile

#1 A friendlier way to promote your profession and experiences

Users’ professional experiences and interests are highly emphasized in the new profile. Employer section has moved up to the highest point in Info tab, allowing friends a sneak peak of your professional and educational backgrounds above all else. So to prevent community page from stealing your hot spot, attach your official business page as your employer today. Great advantage if you are to promote your fan page on personal profile that way.

For each added ‘Employer‘, you may add in projects and tag friends whom you had shared the experience with. And if you want to be notified whenever someone tagged you in their profile,

Go to your Account -> Account Settings -> Notifications -> Facebook -> Tags me on their profile:

#2 Photo-tagging is a big deal – Control it!

Instead of your recently uploaded photos, facebook chose to have your most recently tagged photos to be featured on top of your profile. You should know by now there is no way to stop friends from tagging you, so if your friends are constantly doing that it’s important for you to have better control over who can view your tagged photos with privacy settings.

Another thing you can do is to mouse over the tagged photos and click ‘x’ at the top right corner to hide them or de-tag yourself from these tagged-photos, simply.

If you are the creative type, then you probably enjoy some fun tagging your ownself in order to setup a custom photo-collage as your personal billboard:

Ok, mine is not the best work but you’ll get the idea. It’s quite easy with each image approximately 97×68 pixels in size and arranged so the farthest-left image to be tagged first. But you do need to watch out so your friends won’t abuse its use and tag you for some practical jokes. One of the best way is to make sure the check box for ‘tags you in a photo’ is ticked at all times so you can respond immediately.

Go to your Account -> Account Settings -> Notifications and look for:

Updated: Great tip from one of the commenters, Lauren for introducing the Profile Banner facebook application – a non-technical way to add your own profile banner easily. Check it out!

#3 Less control over the facebook tabs

The default tabs are basically Info, Wall, Photos, Notes, Friends but their visibility will be controlled by your privacy settings completely. For example, tweak the privacy setting of your notes before publishing them:

And you can no longer drag and drop the tabs to rearrange their orders like you used to in old profile.

Where are the rest of the tabs?

• Events tab:

  Direct access: http://www.facebook.com/?sk=events

  Where is it:

  Home -> Events (at your sidebar)

  

• Links tab:

  Direct access: http://www.facebook.com/posted.php

  Here you can find links posted by your friends and yourself, including link subscription management.

  Where is it:

  Home -> Application listing (sidebar) -> look for ‘Links’ (or click ‘More’ to expand the list). The default view will be the links posted by your friends. To reach your own links: :

  http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=YOUR_PROFILE_ID

  

• Photos and Videos tab:

  

  Edgardo brought up a good question on the fan page the other day. We used to have photos and videos tabs separately. But now, facebook had merged them both in the ‘photos’ tab. You can access the latest photos/videos by you and your friends.

  Direct access: http://www.facebook.com/?sk=media#

  Where is it:

  Home -> Application listing (sidebar) -> look for ‘Photos’ (or click ‘More’ to expand the list)

  

  

#4 Application tabs listing – More about personal app management

In new profile, facebook application tabs are more about personal usage ever since facebook eliminated them from public view. You can now access all added applications through Home -> Application listing -> click ‘See all’. You can declutter your list by hiding the unwanted application with ‘x’.

You can undo this anytime with ‘See Hidden’ -> select the application and add it back to the sidebar navigation links.

#5 Location for friends and page requests

We used to be able to access all requests sent to us from the top bar. Now that is reserved for friend requests only. And recently, a lot of people are complaining about the missing page suggestions sent to them by friends after receiving facebook email notifications. If you’re one of them, try look them up: News Feed -> Request (right column sidebar):

If not, you can access them all here with this direct link.

#6 Feature meaningful friendship or facebook lists / groups

A smart implementation similar to Twitter lists except it does not have the ‘follow list’ feature. I have yet gone into making public lists but my friend, Cindy King did a fantastic job with her Social Media Examiner Writers’ list on her new profile. If you want to create the lists or upload an existing one (even facebook groups!) to your sidebar, try this link or from your Info tab -> Feature People -> Create new list or Add an existing list or group.

As usual, you can customize the privacy setting for your friend list:

Go to Account -> Privacy Settings -> Connecting on Facebook -> View Settings -> See your friend list:

Let’s say you’re not into list-making, then the random friends displayed at your sidebar are those whom you most interacted with via wall posts, comments and other non-private interactions (excluding private messaging and chats).

#7 Account Protection via Secondary email or mobile number

There is a new reminder option to strengthen your account security. You will be asked to add a secondary email address and confirm a mobile number for your highest account security level.

Be sure to add a valid email address that has never been used by other accounts and make sure the loading is completed before you navigate away from the security setup. Otherwise your email address will be lost in limbo and no way to reclaim it for your account.

One thing I learned from facebook is to ALWAYS check your privacy settings whenever there’s a new change or upgrade. Although facebook said no alteration will be done on them but what if there is a new check box added without your knowledge? For instance, I wouldn’t have noticed the security email I added would be given a new privacy option if I hadn’t check. Hence, make sure you customize its visibility if need to:

Updated: #BONUS: Facebook Lists & Status Updates Relocated; Re-emerge of ‘Pages’ option; Facebook page’s Questions tab

There is a lot you can get from the above image. First of all, in new profile the locations for ‘Facebook Lists’ and ‘Status Updates’ are relocated. You can no longer see them at the sidebar but inside the drop down box of ‘Home -> Most Recent‘. What surprised me the most is the ‘Pages’ option – at first I thought it’s back! But then, it’s different than the one we had in ‘Account -> Edit Friends‘ before where you can see your entire ‘liked’ pages in alphabetical order. This is strictly for displaying your liked-pages’ status updates only. It’s still a ‘friendly’ effort from facebook for trying, but it does make users slightly confused with the ‘same’ name used.

I wish there is more I can say about the ‘Questions’ tab for new facebook pages. Till this day, I am still blocked from accessing Facebook Questions and there is no way for me to verify that. Even so, if you have a better luck than me, try to access your page’s questions tab via the link (insert your page username at the assigned area): http://www.facebook.com/YOUR_PAGE_USERNAME?v=questions . Let me know what you get?

Updated (01/03/2011): Security Browsing

Recently a security option is added. You can secure your facebook browsing with ‘https’ by ticking the box for ‘Security Browsing’. Also, make sure you are subscribed to email notification for each new device login to your facebook account:

I wouldn’t be surprised if more changes are on the way, our job is to be ready. And frankly, I do miss the old wall options where I get to inter-select whom posts to view and some handy settings without going through the privacy settings:

But life goes on, so does facebook.

Now Is Your Turn…

Do you have anything else to add apart from the seven changes given? What do you think of your new profile thus far? Share your comments below.

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I hope you had a blast fine-tuning your blog with testimonials last week. It’s really encouraging to hear that some are trying out the methods, can’t wait to receive more feedbacks on that! In the mean time, I will be sharing few more practical ways to display testimonials (and portfolio) on your LinkedIn and Facebook Page! Now there are definitely limitations comparing to working on a self-hosted blog because application is the main key. Not the best of plans but hopefully you can be inspired by this post  and work out creative ways to promote your brand:

Testimonials (Portfolio) on LinkedIn

1.  LinkedIn Recommendations

LinkedIn is well known for its business-oriented social network  among the professionals and experts. Due to that, ‘LinkedIn recommendations’ plays a major role in strengthening your business network by allowing others to know your unique skills and talents when collaborating with a client. There are two things you should know about LinkedIn Recommendations:

a)      How to request a recommendation?

Go to Profile -> Recommendations -> Request Recommendations

I would suggest you to only send recommendation requests to people you know that could give an in depth commentary about your working ethics. Don’t send it to 500+ contacts on your list but be selective to whom you chose. If need to, communicate with the person before you send the request. This is NOT a popularity contest with the most recommendations wins. Remember ‘Quality over Quantity‘.

b)      How to backup your recommendations periodically?

One of the best features I love about LinkedIn is the backup facility. Users can backup profile details along with their client recommendations in .pdf format (with presentable layout). You can send this file to your potential clients, especially those who yet to own a LinkedIn account or unable to access your full professional data. Simply thoughtful!

2.  Creative Portfolio Display – LinkedIn Application

Creative Portfolio Display is an application that allows creative professionals (graphic designers, photographers etc) to showcase their art work on LinkedIn. With just a click your contacts can view your complete portfolio and even rate it! This application is powered by Behance and I had been using it to showcase my facebook page customization work. Go ahead and see how the full Behance portfolio looks like. Maybe you can rate it too since you’re there?

3.  Add Video Testimonial or Portfolio – LinkedIn Profile

Slideshare makes it possible to publish video on Linkedin Profile. It supports .flv, .avi, .wmv and more formats can be found here. You can make it so to display your monthly client video testimonial (refer to point #6 in this post) or a compilation of the work you’ve done with dynamic content that is memorable and shareable.

The procedure is not complicated at all. Just upload your video to SlideShare or do so from your LinkedIn SlideShare application. Once your video is uploaded, fill up your video details and wait for the conversion to finish. When it’s done, go to ‘Your Slidespace’ -> ‘Your Presentations’ to check on your video status. Here is a video example I made for my facebook customization work:

Testimonials on Facebook Page

1.  Reviews – Facebook Application

You can request your fans/clients to review your service or company products via Reviews tab. Clients can update their reviews anytime, re-rate the service or delete their comments. They can even comment on other people’s feedback. As an admin, you can neither edit nor delete the content. It is an irony between getting fair reviews from all parties and the headaches when dealing with spammer/troller.

2.  Custom Testimonial tab with Static FBML

If you prefer to have control over what have been said about your company service or website, why not personalize a Testimonial tab with Static FBML (iframe – coming soon)? You can customize and design the layout as you pleased with texts or images (non-editable), just as how I did for a client of mine:

If you are not familiar with HTML, try a subtab instead from these ready-made facebook applications for custom tabs.

To Collect Testimonials on a Facebook Fan Page

There are many ways you can acquire testimonials from clients or fans in a facebook page. Besides on your wall comments, why not setup a Testimonial form from one of these contact forms? Here is one I set up using Jotform:

3.  Facebook Comments for a Custom Tab – Social Plugins

Facebook comments can be inserted in a custom tab to encourage responses about your service. For example, set a portfolio tab then embed the facebook comments to generate discussions and fans feedback. Best of all, you can have control over the comments by eliminating spammers with ‘Delete’or ‘Report’. That’s a plus comparing to Reviews tab.

4.  Other Feedback Applications – Under Observations (as Reference)

I was actually quite impressed with ‘Feedback Application’ but unfortunately it had ceased to operate since 1st December, 2010. Comparing to Reviews app, Feedback app gives admin extra advantage in feedback management, where bad ratings or hate comments can be hidden from page view. I was using it for a few weeks so worth a mention here.

I was looking for a replacement, that’s when I found User Voice. As you can see on Hootsuite’s facebook page it is performing rather well for fans to post suggestions, vote and comment on them. But still, it is more of an idea-collector tool instead of a rating app. I had been waiting for their beta invite for facebook tab embed since few weeks ago but no replies thus far. Not much to comment for now.

5.  Import Twitter Testimonials to your Facebook Page

If you are collecting Twitter Testimonials, you may import it to your Facebook page wall via selective tweets, TwitterFeed or Hootsuite. That way you fans can be updated as soon as your twitter followers had endorsed your work. Refer to this post on how to get it done.

Now Is Your Turn…

Have you been using any of the methods above to promote your brand? Or do you have a secret ‘testimonial’ recipe of your own? Enlighten us in the comments, love to hear from you!

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