I’m really grateful to Are for he had posted a great question here. I haven’t actually wrote a detailed post about photo arrangements for either New Profile or the upgraded facebook page.

This week would be a great opportunity to go more in depth with both platforms! Truth is, we do need all the visibility we can get in facebook these days. Not to mention the ability to control which photos to show or hide from public eye.

Section #1 : How to Manage Your Photos in New Profile

It’s always important to check your privacy settings before applying any changes to your personal profile. For your new profile, all the photos appearing on top of your wall are photos been tagged by you or your friends. Make sure you are clear of the privacy setting that controls who can view your tagged photos at #2 of this post.

Now, let’s proceed with our photos arrangement in a new profile:

Creating a Profile Banner

In a profile banner, photo sequence is everything! There are many ways you can create a banner, some suggested to use app like Profile Banner but personally I prefer self-customization. I simply created a banner with the size of 485px x 68px and divided them into 5 photo strips. More about the photo size at Section #2 later, but once you got your photos ready:

1. First of all, upload your photos to your selected or newly created photo album in new profile:

2. When the photos are uploaded, you may choose to whether ‘Publish Now‘ or ‘Skip‘ it for later. I would go for ‘Skip’ as the news feed about your tagged photos will be updated anyway when we apply the tagging later.

3. Now in your album, identify your photo sequence and rearrange them if need to.

4. Before applying the photo tagging, do take note that the last photo you tagged will always show up at the farthest left on top of your profile. So if your photos are telling a story or been arranged to form a banner, make sure they are displayed so photo #1 is the first to be tagged, followed by #2, #3, #4 and #5 as shown below:

5. To tag a photo is easy, simply go to your album and tag your photos in proper sequence. Select the photo -> Tag this Photo ->Type or Choose your own name in the box -> click ‘Tag’ -> Done Tagging:

Solution: Unwanted Photos due to photo tagging by friends

Your profile banner can be easily disrupted once your friend had tagged you in another photo. Since there is no way to prevent people from tagging you, you can manage the unwanted tagged photos by:

i) Hiding tagged photo by ‘x’ (mouseover)

ii) Remove and untag photo from Wall

Section #2 : How to Manage Your Photos in (Upgraded) New Facebook Page

In the most recent post about enhancing your upgraded facebook page (some new tips were added at ‘Extra Tips‘ section in that post, do check them out!), the #1 advice is to make use of the photo row to attract fans attention effectively. Unlike personal profile, these photos are not only tagged photos of your facebook page but also:

• Your most recent uploaded photos
• Randomly arranged

Obviously a page banner is not possible for now since we cannot control the photo sequence. Even so, there are some easy, exciting ways you can use the spot for publicity. See how my friend, Nancy is smart on making sure her business messages are sent through via the photos on her page:

From what I see, this is by far the best way to present the photos until other methods come around. Without further ado, let’s see how we can learn from Nancy in controlling our photos on top of our fan pages:

1. Create and optimize your photo size to approximately: 97px (height) ×68px (width). (Photo sequence is not an issue here.)

2. Use photo editor such as Pixlr or Photoshop, even your very own Paint (Windows 7 version) to create the photos (more image editing app suggestions refer to section (b) of this post). Make sure the photos are striking enough to capture attention, better with a call to action like ‘Click Here’.

3. When you’re done designing your photos, upload them to your facebook page. Notice you can see them on top of your facebook page as soon as they are uploaded:

4. When your fan clicks at the photo, it will appear as a slideshow. Add image caption or URL that explains your promotion in details:

5. If you had added other photos after this, you can still grab the first spot on the left via tagging. Go to your album and select the photo you want to place #1 -> click ‘Tag this Photo’ ->Type or select your page name in the drop down menu -> click ‘Done Tagging’ :

6. Look! The tagged photo will appear just where you wanted it to be (so far only works on #1 photo from the left):

You can add as many photos you like to your facebook page and apply tagging whenever necessary. Of course, you can always ‘hide’ other photos you uploaded so only the default ones are showing on top of your facebook page. Most importantly, use your creativity and make sure each click-through is worth it for your fans.

Now Is Your Turn…

Have you discovered any smart ways to control photo arrangement on both your new profile and facebook page? What other ways you can suggest so page admin can make full use of their photos? Be sure to share your brilliant ideas in the comment below.

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Three days ago, facebook announced an exciting news about Page Upgrade! Some of the most desired features are finally included such as page notification, ability to comment as the page profile and many more! I can’t wait to share with you what I love about the new facebook page:

 

#1  Latest Photos Arrangement to Grab Attention

 

Clearly, the new profile launch was preparing us for this evolutionary change for facebook pages. Now your page is also featuring 5 photos on top of your page, displaying the most recent photos or the ones you’ve tagged your own page in. Fans photos are excluded here.

Notice that the photos are randomly arranged after each click-through. It is difficult to maintain the photo sequence to create a large banner as how we normally do in new profile. However, since the removal of the ‘information’ box and latest status update on top of the facebook page, admin will need all the visibility he/she can get to grab fans’ attention. You should work out a method on how these photos can better assist in promoting your business without having to worry about photo sequence. This is something I intend to look further into.

 
Updated & Recommended to Read: How to Manage Photos On Top of Your New Profile & Facebook Pages
 

#2  Extra Length in Naming and Tab Descriptions

 

A lot of people see the new tab arrangement at the sidebar as a bad thing due to less visibility and click-through rates comparing to older design. After exploring them, I found there are hidden blessings within. Here are a few important tips about tab control:

a) Default Landing Tab STAYS
This could be the biggest concern of all, but good for facebook, this option stays for good.

b) Extra Spaces in Naming your Customized Tabs
Remember how we used to complain not having enough space in naming our tabs? Now you can have at least two rows of eye-catching description for your customized tab! That’s a welcoming improvement in tab visibility at the left column.

c) Edit and Hide Excessive Tabs
Unlike Merged pages, you can edit and hide your app tabs at will! Just click ‘Edit’ -> drag and drop the app tabs to arrange their order:

To have a less distracting sidebar, it’s advisable to keep only the important tabs in sight. Remove the unwanted tabs by clicking ‘Edit’ -> click ‘x’ next to the app to hide it:

Remember, sometimes less is more.

 

 

#3  Improve Page Interaction with Page Notification & Admin View

 

Wall Posts are no longer arranged in chronological order, instead two new filters are given for viewing: ‘Everyone’ or ‘your page name’ (posts by admin only). By default, ‘Everyone’ will show fans the most engaging posts on your page. The good side is fans are encouraged to participate often for visibility. The downside, new posts are struggling to reach the top. Even popular posts may lapse over time. For example, Christmas or new year wishes may stay on top of your page due to >100 comments by fans, but it doesn’t give much significance in value or info-sharing. This is another concern we need to work on in page engagement.

Page Notification:

This is remedied by the new page notification:

 

a) Email notification: Go to Edit Page -> Your Settings -> Tick the box for ‘Email Notification’ -> Save Changes. You can also change email settings for individual pages here :

 

b) Red on-site alert: You will have to ‘Use Facebook as Page’ (Logged in as Page Profile) in order to see them:

Then you can see page notification updates:

And it works for photo comments too! Hurray!

 

Admin View:
Page admin can easily view the ‘Most Recent’ posts and ‘Hidden Posts’ (Spam filter) via Wall -> Admin View option at the sidebar.

 

 

#4  Separate Business Interactions from Personal Profile

 

The upgraded page solves the biggest concern in separating personal life from business contacts. You can now do the following via identity switch between a personal and a page profile:

What you can do OUTSIDE managed pages:

• Post comment as your business page without status-tagging feature.
  

 

• A whole new section of news feed for your liked pages (or once known as ‘favorited pages’):
  

 

What you can do INSIDE managed pages:

• Page activities (‘recent activity’) are showing up on your page Wall
  

 

• Find out mutual connections (mutual fans count) between other pages and yours in Recommended Pages:
  

 

• You can even choose to post as your personal profile by Edit Page -> Your Settings -> Untick ‘Always comment and post on your page as Your Page Name‘:
  

 

#5  Effectively Build Relationship with Other Pages via ‘Like’ & ‘Feature’

 

A page can finally ‘like’ as a page itself. There are two ways you can do this:

a) When logged in as your personal profile: click ‘Add to my Page’s Favorite’, OR

b) When logged in as your page profile: click ‘Use Facebook as Page’-> go to another page -> click their ‘Like’ button on top.

Best of all, you can decide which of your favorited/liked pages are showcased at your page’s sidebar: Edit Page -> Featured -> Select the number of pages to be rotated randomly:

You can feature your own page admins too if like (but DON’T if you are separating business from personal life):

 

 

#6  Limitless Counts to Change Page Category

 

It used to be troublesome to request for a page category review from facebook. Now you can manually select the accurate group and category for your facebook page from Edit page -> Basic Information -> Category -> and see the immediate change after that:

And there is no limit of how many times you can change page category.

 

#7  Better Moderation to Reduce Spam via Moderation Blacklist

 

You can now add keywords in the ‘Moderation Blacklist’ to prevent spams from appearing on your wall or comments: Edit page -> Manage Permissions -> Moderation Blacklist:

 

It’s great to see facebook is learning from their lessons with New Profile and merged facebook places/fan page by allowing ‘Preview’ before forced implementation. Page admin can switch back to public mode anytime if not satisfied, but NEVER after confirming the page upgrade. All facebook pages will be auto-updated starting March, 2011. Might as well get adapt and be ready for it.

 

Extra Tip:

 

Not sure if you noticed but Managed Pages is gone from our profile account. You can still reach your managed pages via this direct link or via Discover Facebook Pages -> Pages I admin.

 
Updated 01/03/2011:

We can now change ANY app tabs to our desired names. Go to Edit Page -> App -> select the app you wish to rename, click Edit Settings -> notice a new option ‘Custom Tab Name‘ is given! Key in the name and ‘Save’.

 

Some page comments may appear in GREY, which means they had been marked as spam by facebook and visible to page admin only. Release the legitimate comment by clicking ‘x’ -> Unmark as Spam so it is visible to all.

 
Updated 02/03/2011:

You’re gonna love this! Facebook is giving us back the ‘Most Recent’ posts option on our pages! Hurray! The previous ‘Admin View’ is now switched to ‘Hidden Posts’ (also known as Spam filter).

 

NOW IS YOUR TURN…

 

So I’m eager to hear what you think about the new upgraded page? What is the biggest gain for you and what previous options you’d like to keep unchanged? Share your thoughts in the comments.

 

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It has been four months since we talked about how to receive email notification for facebook page updates. Up till today, this feature remains unavailable on facebook. Apart from regular checking, page admin can only rely on third party applications to monitor upcoming posts and comments from fans.

I had previously introduced Page Notifier and Fan Page Notifier to monitor page activity (read this post to learn more about them). Page Notifier’s free version provides one-time-scan per 24 hours. As much I’m satisfied with its results, I longed for more scans in a day. As for Fan Page Notifier, the last time I got an email notification from it was end of December 2010. Not sure why it stopped. I went back in and updated my subscription recently, we’ll see how it performs few days later.

It’s absolutely fair to have limitations when using a free application, I understand that. In fact, I appreciate the app developers for trying to make our lives easier with these nifty facebook applications. Still, it never stops me to source for better alternatives, which is why I’m thrilled to introduce you these two new, free facebook applications that made my page monitoring a lot easier starting 2011:

#1 Hyper Alerts

Hyper Alerts won me over with its tag line ‘The Feature Facebook Forgot’ (how true is that!). It’s currently in public BETA (FREE) so definitely worth a try. The setup is almost instantaneous, start by registering yourself with an email:

Then, decide how you wish to add your facebook page to be monitored:

Option (1): Add Alert by URL
- All you need is to type in your facebook page URL -> Add, and you’re set. You don’t need to add this app to your facebook page at all! Plus, you can even monitor other fan pages you like but not under your administration.

Option (2): Add Alert from your Facebook User
- This option, on the other hand, requires authorization to access your facebook account. The purpose is to retrieve all facebook pages you are currently managing with your profile so you can select multiple facebook pages at once.

Normally I would go for option (1) since no strings attached (less privacy concern). But in order to receive instant email notification for new posts and comments, I was requested to connect my facebook page with the app anyway with option (1) :

So bottom line, you have two choices based on your alert frequencies:

• If you refuse to allow Hyper Alerts to access your facebook account, you need to settle with either one of these alert frequencies: Hourly, Daily, Weekly or Monthly.
• If you prefer to receive email notification ‘as soon as possible’ for new posts and comments,  it’s a must to add Hyper Alerts to your facebook page (authorization required).

For now, I don’t think HyperAlerts is capable of notifying new photo comments (within photo albums) but only updates from the page wall:

What I love about Hyper Alerts:
It’s always a courtesy to ask if user wants to add the application to their facebook account. Even if we are not ready to allow access for Hyper Alerts, it still gives us other options – that’s thoughtful. I love how a user can opt-out of ‘Own Content’ so only fans posts or comments are notified, reducing the noise in our inbox. Not to mention, the ability to monitor other pages we like is a bonus!

#2  MediaFeedia

MediaFeedia is actually a facebook management tool and ‘fan page notifications’ just happens to be one of the offered features. Similar to most web applications, you need to register (either via facebook connect or email address). Then, you will be asked to import your facebook account to select the pages:

Once confirmed your page selections, go to Fan Page Notifications -> Start Monitoring -> type in your email address to receive page alerts. The maximum number of email addresses you can enter is three:

This is how mediafeedia email notification looks like in your email:

Mediafeedia includes updates from the page admin him/herself. By clicking at ‘Comment’ you will be redirected to your facebook page to reply and view the complete conversation:

What I love about MediaFeedia:
I have started using MediaFeedia since early January, I must say this application is exactly what I was looking for to improve my page monitoring with Page Notifier. The scan results are very similar to Hyper Alerts’ but with extra features such as post scheduling and email invitation to other admins.

Hyper Alerts and MediaFeedia are both showing profile thumbnail in their email alerts. I find that a significant ‘visual’ improvement for page notification apps, also a good way to get familiarized with who our fans are via their profile image.

Now Is Your Turn…

How do you monitor your page updates? If you have been using other facebook page notification apps, how would you compare them with Hyper Alerts and MediaFeedia? Kindly share your thoughts in the comment.

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