Recently a lot of Facebook users are asking the same question:

“I can no longer view page updates in my newsfeed. How do I add pages I like into my Newsfeed? ”

Technically, the page updates are still there in your news feed, just not as easily spotted comparing to before. We all know Facebook has their very own algorithm in deciding which updates to appear in our news feed based on our recent activities and how popular is the post/page according to our interests. Even so, we still might miss out a whole lot more information from the pages we love even Facebook thinks they had it all sorted out for us.

5 Simple Steps to Organize Your Pages News Feed in Facebook

Facebook agrees that ‘Lists’ is the optional way to organize what you wish to see in your news feed. Therefore, why not utilize it now to monitor on pages you really care about? Here is how you can make that happen.

1. In your ‘Home’ section, refer to your sidebar and locate ‘Lists’ -> ‘More’. Or, go to your custom lists here.

2.  At the upper section of ‘Lists’, look for ‘Create a List’ button to bring up a pop-up menu. Name your list and click ‘Create List’.

3.  Now you can start adding Pages (instead of ‘Friends’) to your list: look for ‘Manage List’ at your upper right corner. In the dropdown menu, select ‘Add/Remove Friends’.

4.  Another pop up box will appear and at its upper left corner, select ‘Pages’ in the dropdown menu –  all pages you liked are displayed in alphabetical order. Start selecting the pages to be included in your list.

Tips: It is overwhelming to go through the entire list if you have over thousands of pages. Therefore, use (partial or full) keywords to find the pages you might be interested. When you’re satisfied with your choices, click ‘Done’.

5.  Now you can manage your list by deciding the type of updates you wish to see in your Page news feed.

Voila! Here is your very own customized News Feed for Pages:

Extra Tips 1: Create several lists instead of One-List-For-All

I would recommend you to create several lists for Pages You Like instead of just one that covers ALL. It would be difficult to see ALL page updates even in real time mode. Besides, you can merge the lists into one whenever you feel like it. However, the process is irreversible and the chosen list will be deleted after the merge.

Don’t worry if you do not have all the pages you want in one-go. Customize your list as time progresses, follow up on your current news feed to locate the missed-out pages and add them to your list anytime.

Extra Tips 2: Add your Facebook Page Lists to Your Favorites

All those important lists should go to a more visible area, say, your ‘Favorites’? Click at the pencil icon next to your Page list -> Add to Favorites:

Add as many lists as you prefer. When you’re done, you can rearrange them according to your preference (drag and drop):

Time Consuming if over Hundreds of Pages?

This is the pitfall of ALL list-making, but even if you have 5000 friends, I believe you would go through the entire list just to make sure your status update is going to the right group of people, right? This could be a great opportunity to better-arrange the pages you like instead of getting them all piled up for nothing. While a better alternative is on the way, this is the least we can do to organize the information we NEED, not depending solely on Facebook algorithm.

Oh, and while we’re at it, can Social @ Blogging Tracker Page be included in your privileged list too?

Now Is Your Turn…

Do you like the new changes to our Facebook news feed (excluding Top Stories and Most Recent options)? Would you prefer to have a better control over what information to read on? Do you have a better method in following up on the Pages you like? Kindly share your thoughts in the comment.

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[UPDATED 25/12/2011] If you want to Insert your external Web Page as one of your Page tabs, now this can be done easily with ready–made custom iframe apps. This will also solve the Secure Hosting requirement for your custom apps to display properly in ‘secure browsing’ on Facebook.

Below method is ONLY useful for those who wish to create iframe application for other Facebook users to add to their Facebook Pages:

It has been almost two weeks since the official launch of iframe app, replacing the good old static FBML tabs on our facebook pages. For those who aren’t sure what is an iframe, basically it is a standard HTML tag to enable a HTML document to be inserted into another HTML page. The benefit of iframes over FBML is that it accepts a wide range of web coding (Javascript, CSS etc) that used to be non-compatible in static FBML to create dynamic content for our custom tabs. Best of all, you can even import your custom made web page to be included in your fan page! Imagine how convenient that would be for your promotional effort!

Since no more NEW static fbml applications can be added to our managed pages, it’s important to know exactly how to work from creating the app to adding it to your facebook page successfully. I will try to be as thorough as I manage:

How to Create and Add Custom iFrame Tab to Facebook Page

Firstly, you need to prepare a html page to be inserted into your facebook page. You may use Dreamweaver for the job and upload the html file to your web server so to be pulled into your fan page later. Or, we can do this the easy way with less complication via a wordpress plugin named Facebook Tab Manager. What I love about this tab editor is that it saves time and keeps the custom tab size limit of 520px wide so no resizing is needed afterward.

Add Facebook Tab Manager to your WordPress Blog

1.  Login to your blog and add Facebook Tab Manager to your plugins.

2.  Activate it and look for ‘Facebook Tabs’ at your sidebar -> click ‘Add New’. Notice that to create the iframe tab content is as easy as how you normally write a new post.

3.  When done, hit ‘publish’. New instructions will appear at the bottom of the post on configurations to register your content on facebook:

Customize Facebook Tab with iframe App

4.  Go to Facebook Developer and start setting up your new iframe app.

[UPDATED Image: 25/12/2011]

[END]

Note:

Some of you who are creating your facebook application for the first time, verification process may be required. If you had already verified your facebook account before this, you can bypass this step. Otherwise, you need to go ahead and select to verify your account with mobile phone or credit card. Or, if you are not comfortable with this step, add an admin who is already done the verification to work on the new iframe application.

5.  The ‘About’ section consists of some necessary fields besides filling in your app name. Add image to your icon and logo so it’s recognizable.

[UPDATED Image 25/12/2011]

Edit your app icon: Settings -> Basic -> Edit icon:

[END]

Tips: Why icon/logo image is important?

‘Icon’ image will show up next to your app name when added as a new tab to your facebook page. ‘Logo’ image will appear in app directory, for example:  you can have a look at your ‘Edit Page -> App after you added it to your page :

6.  At ‘Facebook Integration’ section is where all the hard work landed. Here are some important fields that required to be filled correctly:

In Canvas Section:

• Canvas Page – the base URL of your application on facebook.
• Canvas URL – this is the URL where facebook pulls in your iframe content.
• Secure Canvas URL – the secure version of Canvas URL with ‘https’. Basically the same info you entered in your ‘Canvas URL’.

Complicated? No worries. Refer back to step #3 above and locate the ‘Facebook Integration Tab’ in your blog and copy/paste the links given to you, for example:

[UPDATED Image/Instructions 25/12/2011]

Go to Settings -> Basic -> Select how your app integrates with Facebook -> Save Changes:

To create and associate a new (community) page with your app, go to Settings ->Advanced ->Contact Info ->App Page (Create Facebook Page) (optional) :

[END]

Below is the example of how Canvas section is filled:

*Caution*:

If you are unable to see the iframe app after installed to your page (regardless if you’re in ‘http’ or ‘https’), leave the ‘Secure Canvas URL’ field BLANK. Your iframe tab should be able to work in ‘http’ (non-secured browsing) and in order to view that, you need to go to Account -> Account Settings -> Account Security -> UNCHECK Secure Browsing. This is believed to be caused by a known issue on how our custom app is not visible when viewed in secured browser (https) as described in this bug report.

The bug occurred in February and was said to be fixed in mid March, however it seems that the bug is back again recently and affecting some of my pages. Will follow up on this issue and if you know how to fix this, do share.

In Page Tabs Section:

The important parts are ‘Tab URL’ and ‘Secure Tab URL’. Both links are referring to the html file location including its file name -> Save Changes:

*Caution*:

Again, if your app tab is not viewable, leave the ‘Secure Canvas URL’ field BLANK until the bug issue for secured browsing (‘https’) is fixed.

So now, your new iframe app is created!

Add Your iFrame App to your Facebook Page

[UPDATED 25/12/2011]

Refer to the documentation on how you can add a page tab dialog, or the one near to the end of this post. Clearly there is no longer a view app profile page link available in Developers apps section. No idea why though. [END]

7.  Now go back to your ‘My Apps’ page and select ‘Application Profile Page’.

8.  Then as how you normally add application to your page, click ‘Add to My Page’ -> then Add to the page you want:

9.  See that a new tab is added at your page sidebar. Rearrange the tab [#2(c)] to a preferred location or set it as your landing tab.

*Caution*:

For some web developers who intends to import their external web pages to facebook pages, be sure to check if your page consists of any disallowed ad providers. Thanks to Kim for providing this info so not to violate facebook Terms of Use (refer to the part about ’9. Special Provisions Applicable to Developers/Operators of Applications and Websites’).

10.  You can rename your custom tab by going to Edit Page -> App -> your app name -> Custom Tab Name -> after edit, click Save:

So whenever you wish to create a new custom tab, you need to go through all the steps again to get it done. Time consuming isn’t it?

To make things easier, if I could I will try to find other alternatives or ready-apps so even facebook beginners could enjoy as much privilege without having to go through the lengthy steps. Be sure to follow close and don’t miss upcoming posts!

Updated Post to check out:
7 Free iFrame Applications to Create Welcome Tab (Custom Tabs) for Your Facebook Page.

Now Is Your Turn…

How is your experience with iframe app so far? Has it been more useful for your page or not? Do you have any special tips to add? Feel free to do so 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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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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It’s good to be home! For those of you who missed my last post, I was taking a short break from the net due to health reasons. Glad to start writing again, but I won’t be force feeding you with lengthy posts just yet. How about something light and easy this week with a few handy tips for your daily facebook experience?

16++ Facebook Tips You Should Not Miss!

#1 To Control Facebook Font Size for Readability

To enlarge: Press ‘Ctrl’ and ‘+’;

To minimize: Press ‘Ctrl’ & ‘-’

#2 To Bold and Underline your text in Facebook Chat

For Bold text –> *your message*

For Underline –> _your message_

#3 To Bypass 420 characters limit for Status Updates

Add a photo to your status update and enjoy the limit-free characters.

(Suggestion: use photo that is related to what you’re sharing, see here for the example)

#4 To Increase the number of Pages or Friends to appear in News Feed

At News Feed > Most Recent > Scroll down to bottom, click Edit Options > Increase the maximum number of friends (or pages) shown in Live Feed OR, insert your own selections of ‘Recommended Friends (or Pages)’.

If you are a page admin, encourage your fans to add your page. But mind you, ‘popularity’ is another major factor that you need to be aware of: Facebook News Feed Settings – Random or Not, Biggest Secrets Revealed

#5 To Display extra Information on Facebook Page Wall with ‘Founded’

Go to Edit Page -> Basic Information -> Founded -> type not more than 247 characters for your (extra) business info.

#6 To Access your Application Settings directly from profile

We all know the Account -> Application Settings is no longer available. But you can still reach the application page easily via this direct link: http://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=applications Bookmark it if you’ll use it often.

#7 To Review your Invites and Imported Contacts

Invite History is an important link to track contacts you had invited to join Facebook. As an admin, I find this particularly useful when I’m sending email invitations to those who are yet to own a facebook profile but to co-administer my page. That way I can track their responses and send reminder to them if need to. Also, a good way to discover if the invited contacts are all set with a personal profile to be added as friends:

#8 To Remove all your Imported Contacts from Phone or Emails

If you’re a mobile user who had accidentally imported your friends from phone contacts or emails while authorizing an app, remove and protect their privacy (and yours) via this link so they won’t be exposed on Edit Friends -> Phonebook:

#9 Discover Facebook Pages to ‘Like’

Browse facebook pages you may find interest in based on categories or countries. Not only that, you can even discover what your friends and you have in common based in mutual ‘liked’ pages.

#10 To Browse Directory by Name

A full directory that contains public search listings on facebook – profiles, pages, applications, groups, you name it – all arranged alphabetically by last name. Numbers 1 to 26 contain non-Latin character names. If you do not wish to be found here, make sure to opt out by changing your privacy settings for Public Search.

#11 Download Your Facebook Information

A new feature introduced by facebook to back-up your personal data:

Go to Account -> Account Settings -> Download -> Learn More

It will take some time for facebook to generate all your data (photos, videos, wall posts, messages, friend lists etc). Once it is archived (in .zip format), you will receive an email notification to proceed with the download.

Your .zip files will not be containing photos uploaded by others, phonebook and friends’ email addresses, so if you’re in need of those data too, some recommended apps to download the missing data.

#12 To Secure your facebook account

To be notified when people hacked into your facebook account:

Account Settings -> Account Security -> ON -> Save to receive notifications for login alert via email from new devices. You can now login and register your computer with a name, then start tracking.

#13 To Download Facebook Videos

It is always easy to download a video hosted on Youtube, but what about those clips uploaded directly to facebook? This facebook video downloader may be able to do the trick. So far it has been working well for all public videos.

#14 To obtain facebook Info & Facts:

• Statistics
• Company Factsheet
• Facebook Timeline
• Facebook Press Releases
• Stories and experiences by facebook users

#15 To Get Practical with your Facebook Page:

• Enhance your facebook pages with Facebook applications, but be selective.
• Import blog feed to facebook page for site visibility.
• Improve admin and fans interactions with contact forms; setup page notifications for wall updates and discussion board.
• Improve profile- or page-to-page engagements with status tagging
• Secure your Employer Link with business page link on personal profile
• Protect your personal profile from business pages with privacy settings
• Social media integrations with selective tweets, status updates schedulers (with points to ponder) and multiple blogs import.

NEW! #16 To Change your Page Name

Great news for newly created facebook pages or business pages that have a small amount of fans, you can now edit your page name from: Edit Page -> Basic Information -> Name

Not all facebook pages are given this previlege and unsure how ‘few’ fans considered eligible for the name-change. But at least it’s a big step for facebook.

Now is Your Turn…

Why not share your special facebook tips and tricks? If there are enough contributions, I’ll produce a sequel for this article, along with a link love to either your facebook page or site, depends on relevancy. If you want more, be sure to follow my fan page’s discussion thread entitled ‘Collections of Facebook Tips’ for new updates.

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Updated 09/12/2010 for New Profile Layout workaround (below old profile workaround).

Updated 23/12/2011 for New Profile Timeline workaround (near to the bottom of the post).

Don’t get me wrong, I love facebook. But there are times that I wish users are given more control over things to share on their own accounts. Especially after facebook page was introduced, users who are excited to share their professional backgrounds are constantly brainstorming to break through on a few matters: separating business from personal account, receive notifications for fan page wall updates and most of all, how can we improve page visibility on profile effectively without being annoying?

Getting exposed – Employer Link!

The easiest and most unharmful method is no doubt the ‘Employers’ section in Info tab. But there’s one MAJOR problem with that – no option to place our very own official page link there, instead a community page be created for each field inserted.

Imagine the frustration for unable to showcase our brand correctly with an authentic page. But now a new found fix will change all that – thanks to a Firefox add-on named Web Developer, and you don’t even need to stick with firefox after this, only during the setup.

Web Developer – the magic plugin to fix employer link

If you do not own a firefox browser, Web Developer will give you enough reasons to install it for the sake of your business page visibility. This add-on is for firefox only but final result will work on all browser types. Web Developer adds a toolbar for web development purposes, but no fear as inserting a page ID will get things done with no coding complications at all.

How to Add Official Facebook Page Link to Profile ‘Employer’

Here comes the best part,

For Older Profile Layout (before upgrade):

1.       Firstly, install firefox if you haven’t and run the setup.

Special Note: Good news as Google Chrome also comes with the Web Developer extension and it works exactly the same way!

2.       Next, install Web Developer to your firefox.

3.      Restart the browser as instructed and you will notice a toolbar appears on top of the browser.

4.       Now go to your official fan page and locate your Page ID.

If you already claimed your vanity URL or username, then retrieve your official page ID by mouse over ‘Edit Page’:

5.       Let’s go to your personal profile now : Profile -> Info tab -> Edit

6.       Select ‘Education and Work’ -> look for ‘Employer‘ field box (with ‘Add Another Job’ below it).

7.       Now at your browser, look for the Web Developer toolbar and select Forms -> Display Form Details

8.       Do not be taken aback by the scary looking codes displayed to you. Instead, try to identify the location of this code:

<input name=”work[employer][id][0]”>

Once you have found it, insert your page ID next to the grey box as shown below:

9.       Turn off codes by deselecting ‘Display Form Details’ on your browser and fill in the rest of the details -> Save Changes. You can add as many jobs as you prefer by repeating step #7-9.

10.   Go back to your Info tab and admire the result!

For New Profile Layout:

Updated (09/12/2010)

Now recently facebook had recommended their users to upgrade their personal profile to new layout. This method still works but with a slight twist at the Page ID insertion part. I would recommend you to change the employer link in the old profile first before upgrade to save the trouble. Or if you had done so, then follow exactly from Step 1 – 6 above, then continue the rest here:

7. Type in your Page Name in the Employer box, click ‘Add’ (your page name)’.

Sometimes facebook will load the correct thumbnail of your official page. When that happens, you can stop here and shout for joy! If instead of your page but a briefcase thumbnail appears (community page is created), then go on with the rest of the setups by going to your browser and select:

Forms -> Display Form Details

8. Again, try to locate the location of this code:

<input name=”work[employer][id][0]”>

Once you have found it, change the community page ID to your official page’s in the grey box:

Click ‘Add Job‘ (or ‘Save Changes‘ if you are editing) to confirm your change.

Optional: Sometimes if the page is not updated correctly, try to add details to your Job, for example setting the Time Period -> click ‘Add Job‘ (or ‘Save Changes‘). You can always remove them later after you had successfully added your official facebook page:

Your official page should be added correctly now.

For New Profile Timeline:

Updated (23/12/2011)

For the most recent upgrade to Profile Timeline, slightly different for where the employer link is located and the code as well. Refer to the instructions below after you had installed the Web Developer Add-on. I’m using Firefox 3.6.22 for this example:

1. Go to your Profile Timeline -> Update Info (or click ‘About’) to access your work and education details.

2. Add your work by typing the name of your business page. Sometimes instead of the Page’s full name, try its partial name so it will appear in the drop down:

3. When that’s not working, use the Web Developer -> Forms -> Display Form Details. Then locate the code <input name=”employer_id”> to insert your Page ID in the grey box:

Extra:

Major props to Jon for discovering the fix for old profile layout that saved our day! But there are a few things I came across during the setup as well – the ‘position’ you filled in Employer section will be directed to a community page (of course), just as how the employer link reacts before the change.

So make sure you select the best position title that describes your post. If needed, use the same method to control where the link is been directed to.

Now is Your Turn…

Does this method work for your employer link? Or do you have a better idea for a fix? Love to hear your thoughts.

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Ever came across a ‘Contact Us‘ form on some facebook pages that you wish you had one too? Look no more for today I am going to share with you some fascinating web forms that are compatible to be embedded in facebook page using Static FBML. No worries if you had never touched FBML in your whole life. All you need to do is to copy and paste the codes generated to your FBML tab and you’re good to go.

But before that, let’s take a look…

Why a Facebook Page Needs a Contact Form?

Simply put,

• to encourage inquiries about your work
• to contact page admin for urgent matters
• to allow interactions without exposing admin’s personal profile (separate page from profile)
• to deal with complaints effectively (brand management) through one-to-one communication
• to improve business / fans conversion rate
• to collect feedback about a particular subject or service

Fixing up a contact form is not compulsory, but it serves a great purpose in listening to individual thoughts and ensures two-way communication between page admin and a fan.

4 Online Form Builders for Your Business Page

Although these form builders are offering paid services, but here I will be highlighting on the features given to FREE account instead (everyone loves freebies, right?). If you wish to know more about their paid account, kindly refer to their respective Pricing/Plans.

Without further ado, let’s take a look at these web forms and their layouts:

(Note: Remember to add Static FBML to your page before embedding the form)

#1  Freedback

Free Account Features ~
No. of Forms: 1
Data Export (CSV/Excel): NO
Ad Link: YES
Pricing / Plans: http://www.freedback.com/features.php

Freedback was the first form I tried on my page. The layout is clean and the setup process is straight forward. Just add in your questions and adjust their positioning however you wish. You can set ‘Required’ for must-answer questions, but they will not be indicated in the fields (as shown in the example above). To avoid fans been redirected back and forth due to an incomplete form, it’s advisable to mark it yourself. All edits made to the form will need you to update the codes manually in FBML tab. Once there’s a submission you’ll be notified via Email instantly, along with a record kept in Freedback database (non-exportable).

Freedback allows you to set a landing page after the form is submitted. There may be a delay while waiting for the form to be submitted, advise fans to wait for it then click ‘Continue’ to proceed to the landing page.

I find Freedback very similar to Response-o-matic. If you’re interested to know about the setup, kindly refer to Kim’s write up on how to setup Response-o-matic for a facebook page.

#2  123 Contact Form

Free Account Features ~
No. of Forms: 5
Data Export (CSV/Excel): NO
Ad/Brand Link: YES
Pricing / Plans: http://www.123contactform.com/serviceplan.html

123 Contact Form has a slight advantage with 5 forms for free account. Plus, it shows the ‘Required’ field clearly, along with a verification field built within the form itself instead of a new page (spam control is a common feature for web forms). During sign up, page admin requires to fill up (extra) mandatory fields such as Website and Country. It supports non-English forms as well. Here is the overview of the form editor and form manager:

#3  Allforms

Free Account Features ~
No. of Forms: Multiple forms (with limit)
Data Export (CSV/Excel): NO
Ad Link: NO
Pricing / Plans: http://allforms.mailjol.net
Advantages: Low Price for paid account, Live Support, Form interface

Despite with a congested setup interface, Allforms has quite a few attractive features: no ads display, low cost and comes with a form interface (see example). It supports non-english forms. Page admin can either use existing form layouts provided or import their own forms to be processed and further customized (advantage to those with CSS and HTML knowledge). You can adjust the color, form size and field positioning easily:

The cost for Allforms is so much cheaper comparing to other form builder with only $10.72/year. Frankly, there are not much difference between paid and free account except on data storage (365 days vs. 30 days) and the availability to remove spam control for paid account. Overall, Allforms is highly recommended when it comes to functionality (free account) and cost effectiveness (paid account).

#4  Jotform

Free Account Features ~
No. of Forms: Unlimited (max: 10MB)
Data Export (CSV/Excel): YES
Ad Link: NO
Pricing / Plans: http://www.jotform.com/pricing
Advantages: Full features as in paid account (limited by space), Sub-header, Drag and drop interface

How can anyone not like Jotform?:

a) Does not Cripple Features on Free Accounts
Page admin can enjoy all features as paid account: data-export, no advertisement links, unlimited forms, auto responders etc. The only thing that separates paid from free account are the account size and amount of submissions per month. Fair enough.

b) Drag and Drop Interface
Enjoy its sophisticated canvas with drag and drop – user friendly when it comes to adjusting form style and setups.

c) Account Status at the Sidebar

A monitoring tab is given so you can keep an eye on your submissions and upload space to plan ahead. Maintain the space within 10MB by deleting your data after exported them (if you are to maintain in free account). If you feel like the space is not enough, upgrade it to meet your submission requirements then downgrade back again once you don’t need it. Super convenient.

d) Customizable Thank You Page
I love this! Different from other online forms, you get to personalize your very own Thank You page with images, font styles and many more options provided by the editor.

e) Export Data as CSV or Excel
By far the only form builder I found with data-exporting feature for FREE account. This is the major attraction for Jotform and enough to win me over. Simply amazing!

f) Embed Code for Facebook Page
Once the form is ready, you can embed it to your facebook page through either one of the steps below:
- Share Form > Advanced Options > Social Network > Facebook
- Source Code > Advanced Options > Social Network > Facebook

#5  Others

There are of course, other form builders that may work similar, for example, Formsmarts is said to be allowing form-embed for fan pages but I have no luck to review it:

Now Is Your Turn…

Do you use Contact Form for your facebook fan page? If not what other ways do you communicate with fans besides wall and discussion board? Love to hear your thoughts.

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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 ‘misses’ as long it’s not overly done.

Suggested Read: 2 Excellent Facebook Page Apps to Get Email Notifications (2011)

Email Notification for ‘Liked’ Items

3. ‘Like’ Option – A Manual Way

Many of you already know how ‘like’ option can track follow up comments. Usually it works perfectly for manual posting in a facebook page. You can ‘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 ‘comments after you’ in a Note, Video, Link and wall comments for it to work.

The downside of this method is you need to ‘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.

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This is a guest post by Srinivas Rao, the editor in Chief of Flightser. He writes about personal development at The Skool of Life and is the host of BlogcastFM, a podcast to help you take your blog to the next level.

Two months ago the CEO of our company asked me to take the lead on launching and growing a brand new travel blog. Flightster, is currently functioning only as a blog and will eventually become a fully functional flight booking engine within the next several months. Starting solely as a blog has shown us the tremendous power that a blog can have in building brand awareness.

Objectives:

• Build Brand awareness
• Leverage social media to Connect with the Online Travel Community

Building the Blog

#1  Budget

One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen companies make is to assume that the social media is “free.” Social media should be treated just as other marketing channels are. It should have a budget allocated for it. Our industry is heavily driven by extremely high PPC costs that can get up to 6 figures a month. My boss allocated $2500 a month for me to run the Flighster blog, which is an extremely small percentage of the overall marketing budget. However, $2500.00 is a substantial budget to run a blog if you know how to stretch it.

#2  Writers

Putting together a team of writers was my first order of business once I was put in charge of starting the blog. Initially, I reached out to writers from other well established travel blogs in the hopes of getting them to write for Flightster. I got no responses except one letting me know that the writer had been locked into an exclusive with another popular travel blog. After that I decided to tap into my personal network. This is where the power of having my own blog became very apparent. If the person in charge of your corporate blog has his or her own blog and it has a following, put that person in charge of your company blog. The greatest asset that person brings to the table is a network of contacts with an established online presence.

My boss gave me the go ahead to allocate $75-100 per post for contributions, so I reached out to the best writers I could find in my network. I looked at people who I had interviewed for my podcast and those whose blogs I read on a daily basis. Below are the main criteria I looked for in a team of writers:

• Good writers with established audiences who loved them
• Blogs with Roughly 1000 Subscribers
• Bloggers who were very active on Twitter

I reached out to a popular location independent blogger as my first step and I recruited the remaining writers based on his referrals, with only one exception who I hand picked after reading his blog. One simple way to look at this was “If I wouldn’t subscribe to their blog myself, then I wouldn’t hire them as a writer.”

#3  Editorial Policy

Prior to the launch of Flighster, I spent several months looking at many corporate blogs. When I compared them to the individual blogs I read on almost a daily basis, I noticed a major difference. Individual blogs had an interesting voice and sounded human. They were filled with comments and they kept readers coming back for more. Most company blogs sounded like a marketing brochure and they were incredibly boring. My solution was simple, a very loose editorial policy. If what made my writers popular on their own blogs was their writing, then I saw no reason to place many restrictions on them. I knew this would allow them to write the most interesting content possible.

#4  Timeless Content

I was given only one restriction from our CEO and that was to produce content that was timeless. You’ve heard this phrase “content is king” over and over again. By producing content that is “timeless” we could significantly increase the amount of time people spent on the site looking at our content. Timeless content is what gets shared over and over again. For many bloggers it’s not uncommon to have something popular they wrote over a year ago shared on twitter or Facebook, so I recommend companies take this same approach to content.

Marketing the Blog

After assembling the writing team, I started to think about the most efficient ways to market a blog. Growing my personal blog had taken over a year before it was really on anybody’s radar. With Flightster, I was determined to do this much faster so I decided to narrow my efforts down to 3 channels.

Channel 1 : The Audiences of the Writers

When I started the blog, I assumed that the audience that the writers brought with them would my greatest source of traffic. Part of my thought process in hiring them was that the marketing was already built into the content since I assumed their audience would follow them. As a result, we decided to sponsor the Way Below Status Quo Tour, a road trip across America where 3 bloggers were going to meet all of their readers in person. In exchange for the sponsorship, we asked for 3 posts a week on the Flightster Blog about the various destinations they were visiting. The cost was $100 per post. Given that their readers that they were meeting were also bloggers and people with an active online presence it provided yet another way for our message to spread. While it did give us a, nice initial kickstart, I knew that it was going to take a bit more to make the blog grow.

Channel 2: Facebook

With a budget of $2500 a month, the cost of a Facebook ad would go up very quickly and I wasn’t convinced that it would provide the most effective ROI. But I knew that a Facebook fan page would be essential at some point. So, I set up the fan page and allowed it to grow somewhat organically. The Facebook page is still a bit of a work in progress.

Channel 3: Twitter/My Personal Network

Given the budget I would require to get the most out of Facebook I decided to focus my efforts on Twitter. As a blogger, I noticed something about the audiences of Twitter and Facebook. They didn’t seem to have much overlap when it came to the everyday internet user. However, anybody who was a blogger seemed to be extremely active on Twitter. This was the group of people who could make a message spread. Additionally, I had my personal network of bloggers on Twitter who I have interacted with almost daily over the past several months.

A Campaign to Hire a New Writer

After staffing the blog with 4 writers, I decided to hire another writer. Rather than ask for writing samples and picking the one I liked best, I wanted to use the hiring process as a viral marketing tool. I asked the potential writers to do the following:

• Write a Blog Post About Anything Travel Related on their own blog: I asked them to write on their own blogs because I knew it was something they would already be doing at least a few times a week. The thought process was to make it as as easy as possible for people to participate.
• Link to Flighster in the Post: The goal behind this was simply to generate relevant inbound links from other travel blogs. My SEO knowledge is pretty limited to what I’ve read on various blogs, but I felt that this would also help get the word out about Fligtster among other travel bloggers.
• Tweet the blog Post with the hashtag #FLIGHTSTER and follow us on Twitter: This allowed me to not only build a following amongst travel bloggers, but also stay engaged with all the participants throughout the course of the competition. Additionally, it proved to be a great tool for building awareness of the Flightster brand.
• Get our Attention: In an effort to keep the engagement level with participants up, I gave them freedom to get our attention in any way they felt they could. The result was video submissions and a consistent sharing of their own content with the hashtag #Flightster.
• Voting for the Next Fligthster: After allowing the contest to run for two weeks, we narrowed it down to 10 finalists. We then setup a poll enabling the readers to vote on their favorite writer, and encouraged the contest participants to promote their participation in the contest in order to get as many votes as possible. The result was a signficant jump in traffic.

The thought process behind the campaign had a few components. First I wanted to kill as many birds with one stone as possible. That is why I made connecting with us in all of our channels a component of the contest. Another thing that we wanted to do was to give the participants a sense of control over their participation in the contest. Many of the various contests have winners that are chose at random, thus reducing the incentive for people to participate. The result of this kind of contest is a “what are my chances” mind set. By allowing people to gather votes to become our next writer, we put them in control. Another interesting byproduct of the contest was that we facilitated an ongoing conversation between participants. Contestants commented on each other’s blogs and followed each other on twitter. We served as a connector.

The Results:

Bloggers Who Participated: 24

Finalists in the Contest: 8

Traffic During the Contest

Traffic During the First 2 Months of Flightster

As you’ll see above, the results were decent for a brand new blog that nobody had heard of prior to its launch in early July. Without a doubt the campaign to hire a writer was the most effective tool we had in our arsenal which is what caused the biggest spike in traffic. The cost of running this campaign: ZERO DOLLARS.

Lessons Learned:

Engagement vs. Numbers:

One of the things that might surprise some people is that this was all done with roughly 300 followers on twitter and only 130 Facebook fans. If you have thousands of followers who don’t interact with your brand, then you are really missing the point of being on Twitter. Out of the 300 followers, our engagement was focused primarily on the participants in our contest. You need followers who are actually engaged and interacting with your brand. Otherwise it’s like standing on top of a table in a crowded restaurant, wearing a ridiculous outfit and hoping people will want to talk to you. This might seem the like the slower way to grow on twitter, but it’s just slower when you start out. In the long run this approach will make you grow much, much faster. Just ask Scott Stratten, a guy who nobody knew last year and is now this years keynote speaker for Blogworld.

The Power is in a Network:

I can’t underscore how much my personal network played a role in this. Given that I have my own blog and a personal network, getting the word out about this contest was simply a matter of emailing all the bloggers who I had relationships with and asking them to share our post about our contest with their followers. Given that the post was about getting paid to write for a blog, it made complete sense for them to share it with their networks and I got no resistance at all. So, my advice is find out who in your company already has a network in place.

The Tipping Point and The Rule of 150:

A few weeks back I was listening to Malcom Gladwell’s book, the Tipping point for the second time and I came across a concept known as “The Rule of 150.” The basic idea behind this rule is simple. The highest number of social relationships we can effectively manage is 150 and it takes roughly 150 people to make an idea spread. This was the driver behind how I decided to approach building the Flightster following on Twitter and in my own personal brand. With my personal brand I have seen a significant jump in traffic and subscribers to my blog. What this all comes down to is one simple fact: Social media is building a “social” relationship with your brand.

Now Is Your Turn…

How do you build your blog from scratch? Does Social Media plays a big role in your blog-building plan? Share with us your story or if you have anything to ask Srinivas, do so in the comments below.

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Since the past few weeks I have received a lot of requests about photo-tagging in business pages:

It was a good question from Adam. There used to be a simple option to tweak the settings but ever since facebook had modified the photo tab and its layout last month, the option was completely invisible:

Good news is, after a long search within my own fan page, I managed to dig it up again. Basically there are two ways you can locate it:

Method #1 – Convert Photo Tab to Boxes

We all know Facebook had made clear that Boxes are going away for good after 23rd August 2010. Even so, facebook has yet to implement the change on all facebook accounts at once so lucky for me, I can still see my boxes tab lying comfortably on my Wall. If you can see yours too then here’s what you can do:

1. Go to Edit Page, look for Photo -> Application Settings.

2. In Profile, click ‘Add’ next to Box.

3. Now your ‘Photo’ will appear inside the Boxes tab. Click at ‘Edit Settings’ to reveal the photo-tagging setup:

Voila! Here it is!

Method #2 – Replace Page ID to Access the App Settings

Now here’s another scenario when a business page was already receiving fans photos before this. The ‘Edit Settings’ will be hidden from view as shown below:

In that case, there is one way you can bypass the hassles and go straightly to the app settings. Just replace ‘xxxxxxxx’ with your own Page ID inside the link below will do (2305272732 is the application ID for Photo app):

http://www.facebook.com/pages/edit/app_settings.php?id=xxxxxxxx&aid=2305272732

How to Locate Your Facebook Page ID?

If you have not created a vanity URL for your business page, you can easily obtain the page ID from the default link – the number at the back as indicated:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Social-Blogging-Tracker/106236190962

Once you have claimed your business page username, the page ID is no where in sight. What you can do is hover over ‘Edit Page’ then look for your page ID underneath your browser. Copy that and insert the numbers into the link as explained in Method #2.

Pretty simple right? Make sure to bookmark this post just in case you wish to make modifications to your fans’ photo tagging (or adding) in future.

Now Is Your Turn…

Do you allow fans to add and tag photos in your facebook fan page? How effective do you think photos can help in improving your facebook page engagement with fans?

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Since the new page upgrade, there is a good chance you can better separate your profile from facebook pages, kindly refer to #4 in this post ‘7+ Major Tips in Enhancing Your Upgraded Facebook Page’.

Last week we had covered a major subject about Facebook privacy settings and how each customization can protect your personal profile from Facebook page (How to Separate Facebook Personal Profile from Business Page – pt.1). Today we will be exploring further in terms of profile and page management, along with several practical ways you should know in avoiding clashes between the two facebook platforms:

Part 2:

11 Things You Should Know about Profile and Facebook Page Management

#1  Separate your Business and Personal Contacts with Facebook Lists

A MUST if you have mixed both business and personal contacts in your ‘Friends’ list. Not just for the sake of following up easily in News Feed, but to better control over what to be shared to specific group of people when updating your Wall (will explain later). Follow the steps in decluttering your news feed via Facebook Lists to group your contacts based on requirements.

#2  Control Posting Visibility WITHIN the Profile via Share-ability

Facebook List enables you to hide sensitive information, friends and even real time Wall posts from appearing on some people’s news feeds. Use the Privacy setting in the Publisher as shown below, select whom to block from the info or limiting the update to specific group of people only. For instance, if you about to post a personal update to real life friends, select ‘Customize’ prior sending out the update:

i) Customize your privacy settings to allow only ‘Buddies’ to view it (list name consisting of all your best pals who are invited to the barbeque) OR,

ii) Block list containing your business contacts only:

#3  Tighten Up Privacy Option for ‘Friends of Friends’

The reason I am emphasizing on ‘friends of friends’ is because your business contacts may reach out to your friends for friendship. No way we can prevent that so if you have set ‘friend of friends’ for certain profile information, try to restrict its visibility further via:

i) Custom Privacy: If the person is in your ‘Friend’ list.

ii) Block: If the person is not in your ‘Friend’ list:

Or if you can’t find the user via ‘Name’, just block from his/her profile instead:

#4  Hide Wall Tab from Business Contacts Completely

Another alternative to separate business contacts from personal is by hiding Wall tab from them via ‘Things I Share –> Posts by me’. By doing so, you are only allowing close friends/family members to access your Wall tab, whereas business contacts will be blocked from viewing your account activities and real time updates completely. That way you can still message to business contacts, showcasing them other necessary tabs on your profile without disclosing Wall posts at all!

#5  Page Admin Can Only Represent Him/Herself Outside Business Page

Whenever a page admin tries to comment or post on other facebook accounts, all responses will be seen as coming from the admin’s personal profile that connects with the business page. If your business page has no profile, you won’t be able to comment or join any page at all. Therefore, if you are planning for external networking to boost fan page visibility, a personal profile is needed.

#6  Network with other Fans or Pages via Status Tagging

Status Tagging can be, by far, the only possible way to showcase your business page without giving out your personal identity. But in order to tag, page admin will need to ‘like’ another page with his/her personal profile beforehand (you can hide Liked Pages from Info tab). Even if your profile thumbnail may show in ‘People Who Like’ list, page admins won’t have access to your full profile thanks to the Facebook privacy settings we talked about earlier. Also, make full use of your page’s ‘Custom’ setting whenever necessary:

#7  Assign a Sub Admin for Event Invitations

Another feature that we crave for in a facebook page – able to send personalized invitation to fans for page events. Unfortunately, private invitations can only be done through a personal profile. If you are not comfortable to expose your profile link, temporarily promote a trusted PR or collaborator for this task. Since all email invitations will be going through him/her, be sure to select someone who’s trustworthy for the job.

Extra Tips:

• Share – use the ‘custom privacy’ settings to target business contacts in your ‘Friend’ list.
• Public Event – an event created from a fan page is ‘Public’ by default so by sharing the link elsewhere, anyone can join. (Only events created by personal profile can be made secret)
• Update Fans – like any other updates, it will be kept in the ‘Message -> Update’ folder. Remind your fans to check for it.

#8  Inter-Posting between Personal Profile and Facebook Pages with Social Aggregator

The ease to control what and when to post updates without messing up both business page and personal profile is via social aggregators such as Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, MarketMeSuite or Ping.fm. Instead of inter-switching between browsers, you can have the status delivered in matter of clicks, or even scheduled.

#9  Ability to ‘Share’ as your Page Profile

‘Share’ is another key influential option for personal profiles. The only workaround for a fan page to ‘Share’ something is to re-post the item on your page Wall and give credit via status-tagging.

When sharing, it’s suggested to do it manually so:

• Can personalize the status
• Post excerpt available with image thumbnail preview (if a link involves)
• To make sure status tagging with @mention works

#10  Mobile Users: Update to Business Page and Personal Profile with Different Emails

For mobile users, a unique email will be given to each profile and business page RESPECTIVELY for updating/media file uploading purposes. Set the email correctly so not to mistakenly post to either one of the platforms. Profile will have its own email ID, while page another.

Facebook Page: Edit Page -> Mobile:

Personal Profile: go to this link http://www.facebook.com/mobile -> look for ‘Upload via Email’:

And last but not least,

#11  Knowing that ‘Privacy Setting’ is not Invincible

Not to be a party pooper but it’s important to be self prepared. Do not post what you don’t want others to find out. Moderate your messages, photos, videos and status updates so that even if there may be security loopholes you’ve got nothing to hide or worry about.

What Do You Think?

Some tedious work isn’t it? As I explained earlier, the idea of this post is not to offer you the ‘best’ method but suggestions that one may find helpful in managing his/her facebook account. Facebook will continue to evolve. No matter how far we go, always remember we are responsible for our online presence and branding. If you do not bother about it, nobody else will.

Did I miss out anything? Share your ideas in the comments. If you missed out part 1 of the story, check it out here.

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