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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The new facebook upgrade has given page admin better opportunity in securing their profile from facebook pages. Please refer to #4 in this post ‘7+ Major Tips in Enhancing Your Upgraded Facebook Page’.

So now, if you have associated your personal profile with a Facebook page, don’t mind using both platforms to boost your business brand and visibility, Facebook is doing you a huge favor with its revolution. But what if we are to separate private network circle from business profile? Is that even possible?

We can modify our privacy level and adhere to several precautions, but there is no 100% satisfactory when it comes to separating the two. A few clients have approached me with this issue, therefore I decided to divide this subject into two sections. This week we will emphasize on privacy settings while the next, discuss the important measures to be taken while handling both apps.

Part 1: How to Protect Personal Profile from Facebook Page

The only way you get to separate a fan page from any personal profile is to create a business account.:

Advise for New Users –

To create a business account:

• NEVER sign up a new profile or click ‘create a profile’ while in the fan page
• NEVER create more than ONE account on Facebook. If you already have a personal profile, DO NOT create a business account or you may violate facebook terms of use.

Updated-1 (11/09/10): It seems like to create a business account without associating to a personal profile is no longer possible. Following a discussion we had at our fan page which confirmed by this post later on, a business page will be needing a personal profile for administration purposes.

Updated-2 (29/09/10): Business account is back again (tested on 28/09/10), the option that requires us to ‘log in’ has been removed, replaced by its previous business acc registration form.

Advise for Existing Users –

If you have connected both sides, be informed there is no way to separate a fan page from a personal profile with a different login. Here are some ideas on what you can do to tighten your profile visibility and manage contacts accordingly:

Limit Profile Visibility

#1  Hide Profile from Facebook Search

The highest level of security is to hide your profile completely from Facebook Search, shield off all possibilities for business contacts to find you via Friend Finder:

Go to Account > Privacy Settings > Basic Directory Information (View Settings) > Customize ‘search for me on Facebook’.

#2  Select a Unique Username or None at all for your Profile’s Vanity URL

So you cannot be found on Facebook Search, your business contacts may still able to locate you via Username – ‘http://facebook.com/yourname’ just may give you out. Do not set one for the profile or modify it if necessary. You only have one chance to edit the profile username before the option will be hidden from you so use it cautiously:

Go to Account -> Account Settings -> Username -> Change to other username

Limit Profile Info-Sharing

#3  Protect Profile Information from Public Viewing

There are several information you can hide from strangers. Modify them properly as instructed by going through your Account -> Privacy Settings -> Basic Directory Information > View settings:

a. Hide your Friend List

If you are to protect private contacts such as close friends or family members, customize your Friend List to ‘Me Only’ or ‘Friends Only’. Be alerted that your business contacts may still reach out to your real life friends so advisable to tighten the option as suggested.

b. Hide Your Education/Work; Hometown

Unless you are using personal profile to enhance your fan page networking with other facebook contacts, otherwise better to protect the info or not fill up your Info tab unless really necessary.

c. Hide Your Interests & Other Pages Joined

If you have liked a page, most likely you will be displayed as a fan on the page via random thumbnail display. You can delete or unlike the fan pages anytime via:

Info Tab -> Edit (Likes and Interests) -> Remove.

If you insist on following these pages, hide them from you Info tab.

Sharing on Facebook:

d. Hide your Contact Information

Go to Account -> Privacy Settings -> Sharing on Facebook -> Customize Settings-> Contact Information, set the visibility to ‘Friends’ or ‘Me Only’.

Note: If you have set a vanity URL for your username, it will appear in Contact Information and there is no setting to hide it.

e. Hide your Birthday and other Personal Information

Check through the settings:

Go to Account -> Privacy Settings -> Sharing on Facebook -> Customize Settings-> Things I Share

And Info Tab -> Edit

#4  Limit Contact Ability to Your Profile

Below options require you to be selective in whom you are friend-ing on your profile.

a. Send Friend Requests

The highest level of security is ‘Friends of Friends’. It is an option set so to encourage friends to find one another. Strangers will not see the ‘Friend Request’ button until they become friends of your friends first.

b. Send Messages

The highest level of security is ‘Friends Only’. Strangers won’t be able to contact you individually.

#5  Limit the ability to be tagged or shared by friends

You cannot control what your friend is sharing, but you can certainly avoid been tagged by going through the below settings. This will prevent your profile link been exposed to public while making sure no outrageous videos or images attached to your profile:

Go to Account -> Privacy Settings -> Sharing on Facebook -> Customize Settings -> Things Others Share

Your friend my still able to use status-tagging on you, at least you can remove the tag as soon as you found it on the wall:

#6  Check and Remove Unnecessary Facebook Applications

Make it a regular habit to check on your Facebook Applications. Remove the game apps by clicking ‘x’ to avoid intrusion or hacking. Be skeptical in all games and quizzes sending your way. Ignore or block the apps for good so they won’t appear on you Wall posts. Go through each section as most of them are opt-in by default:

Go to Privacy Settings -> Applications and Websites -> Edit Your Settings

a. Game & Application Activity

To prevent your recent activity been shown on the app’s dashboard, customize the visibility to ‘Only Me’.

b. Info accessible through your friends

You can set which information you allow to be shared by applications/games/websites when your friends use them. For the info you preset as ‘Everyone’ in the Privacy Setting, the app can automatically obtain the info unless you remove or turn off the platform applications.

c. Instant Personalization

Untick the checkbox if you do not want to be included in the relevant information shown to your friends when they land on Facebook partner websites and vice versa. If you still wonder why we make such a big deal out of this, read this article ‘Facebook’s Instant Personalization Is the Real Privacy Hairball’.  

d. Public Search

This involves Public Search where things you have approved to be shared with ‘Everyone’ can show up on and off Facebook, this including showing a preview of your profile as search results (see below). Do not conflict this option with the ‘Facebook Search’ in Basic Directory Information, synchronize them both.

Updated:

#7 Avoid Tagging and Exposing your ‘Places’

Facebook has announced a new geotagging feature called ‘Places’. By allowing integrations with other location-based services such as Foursquare, Gowalla etc, it enables facebook friends to tag and check in for each other. It may be a good feature to discover interesting places and claiming business premises, even so you should know there are several privacy settings that could protect you from unwanted exposures.

Go to Account -> Privacy Settings -> Sharing on Facebook -> Customize Settings -> Things I Share, and look for below settings:

• Limit visibility of Places you checked in;
• Prevent your profile from showing up with other checked in users;

Go to Account -> Privacy Settings -> Sharing on Facebook -> Customize Settings -> Things Others Share

• Disallow friends to check you in without consent.

Suggested Read: A Field Guide to Using Facebook Places

Quite a lengthy procedure in protecting a personal profile right? Precautions can save you from major headaches. Watch out for the next post in which we will be discussing part 2 of separating business pages from personal profile – 11 Things You Should Know when managing them both.

Other Suggested Read : 7 Facebook Changes You Must Know in New Profile (about profile-tagging in Employers and other privacy/application settings for added features)

Now Is Your Turn…

What is the Major issue you faced when managing a facebook page connecting to a personal profile?

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This is a guest post by David Smith, a conversion rate optimization consultant working for ConversionRate.net.

Every day, a growing number of companies are jumping on the social media bandwagon. They’re blogging, Tweeting, Facebooking, YouTubeing, and creating custom social media campaigns so they can connect with customers and “join the conversation”—whatever that means. In fact, this year alone, companies will spend about $900 million on social media marketing. By 2014, social media spending is estimated to eclipse $3 billion a year. It’s one of the fastest growing channels of marketing.


But what exactly are companies getting out of their social media marketing efforts? From what I’ve seen, not much. Most companies are blindly navigating their way through the new social media landscape one meaningless Tweet at a time. In short, they’re going nowhere fast, and they’re wasting a lot of time, money, and resources doing it. That’s because too many companies dive into social media marketing without a plan. And like the old saying goes, “He who fails to plan, plans to fail.”


The first step to creating a plan for your social media campaign is to set realistic goals. What do you want to achieve through social media marketing? Here are 5 realistic goals you can strive for.

1. Improve Search Engine Rankings

Social media marketing can be a powerful tool for increasing your organic search engine rankings. Social media sites like Digg, ReddIt, StumbleUpon, YouTube, and Twitter can do wonders for boosting your search engine visibility as Google weighs links from social media sites and even ranks those social media mentions to help you take up more space in the SERPS.

Additionally, whenever you promote your content through social media, you can earn more links as more people will begin to link to your content on their blogs and websites, creating a viral effect. Of course, the more natural back links you have, the better your search engine rankings will be.

To maximize the SEO benefits of social media, you need to create relevant content on hot topics that your audience cares about. Having strong, linkbait-style headlines can also go a long way to driving more traffic and earning more back links.

2. Increase Brand Awareness

One of the great things about social media marketing is that it levels the playing field by giving small businesses a voice. Small businesses that blog and interact with their target audience on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites can raise awareness for their company, letting customers know who they are and what they do.

A word of advice: Don’t treat social media like a typical advertising medium. Rather than shouting your offers to your Twitter followers, focus more on being personable and building relationships and trust with your audience.

3. Increase Positive Brand Mentions Online

Social media has given consumers a voice. Now, customers share their experiences with companies—good and bad—on Twitter, Facebook, review websites, forums, and more. There’s a good chance that your company has been mentioned already.

By creating a strong social media presence, being aware of what’s being said about your company, and reaching out to your customers, you can work to minimize negative brand mentions and earn more positive mentions. Reach out to those who say negative things about your company to see if there’s anything you can do to rectify the situation. And also, encourage your satisfied customers to review you online.

4. Improve Overall Customer Service & Satisfaction Ratings

It’s interesting to see how social media has turned into a customer care medium for many companies. For example, AT&T recently decided to start using social media to reach out to customers who are having problems with their service.

This is a great way to connect with customers and solve their problems quickly. However, if you plan on using social media as a customer service tool, make sure you train employees on how to do so properly. Also, don’t get rid of your other customer service mediums as not everyone wants to talk to you online.

5. Earn More Sales

One of the biggest criticisms of social media is that it’s not a viable tool for driving sales and improving the bottom line. I disagree. Sony recently said they made an extra $1 million in sales thanks to Twitter, and Dell said their Twitter presence earned them $3 million more in sales. Some companies are even combining social media with other forms of marketing like direct mail to help spread the word about their offers and earn more sales.

You can also take advantage of the new group buying concept found on websites like Groupon and BuyWithMe. These websites allow you to create special offers that customers share via social media, earning you more sales and increased brand awareness.

Do you have any set goals for your social media campaign?

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Online content theft is not a new problem. We are so used to it that sometimes we chose to be ignorant of it. Can you imagine the time and effort we could spend on dealing with scrappers? Endless. Even so, does that mean it’s ‘okay’ to let it happen?

So obviously I have a good reason to blog about it again. It’s not the first time my article was scrapped by someone or autoblogs, but this time it has gone a little too far! I’ll explain why in a minute.

How Did I Found Out About the Content Theft?

Two ways, basically. Coincidentally I was running a duplicate-content-check of my post about 16 Facebook Applications to Boost Popularity of Facebook Fan Page, interesting finding:

1. Google Search


- I posted a random paragraph on Google Search and found out a site that ranks higher than mine in the results (possible more popular too):

2. Copyscape


- Copyscape is a free duplicate content detection software that helps to monitor and check for duplicate entries. I double-checked the results and they matched, of course.

More Detection Software to choose from: Detecting & Dealing with duplicate content

Now How is This Particular Case Upsetting?

It is not an autoblog and particularly ‘well-planned’. Despite the fact that I had spent the entire week working on the post, what upsets me the most is the lack of ethics from this scrapper – he sent in the stolen content as a Guest Post! This is serious, not only he jeopardizing his very own image but threatening the other site’s reputation as well! He modified the title, relocated the facebook app sequence and replaced my graphics with his. He removed all the backlinks to my site which is why I was unable to found out earlier. After all the ‘effort’ he left the sentences as they are, word for word. So, need I say more:

• No notification to re-use the content
• No link back or credit given to the original content
• Assuming the article belongs to him based on the way he responded to comments
• Getting link love and credit for his own site and service with stolen content
• Hurting another site’s reputation that published the stolen content

What to Do After Found Out about the Content Theft?

1. Inform/write to the site owner who published the content

Several ways to reach :

a. Email
b. Contact Form
c. Comment Section
d. Social Media Profiles

I wrote an email to the site owner reporting the case and requested for post removal. I had a good look at the site and the services it is using, so just in case the site admin decides to ignore me, I will know whom shall I report to.

2. Request for Opinions from Friends

I had requested opinions from fellow bloggers and friends, most of them agreed on reporting this and standing up for justice. I’m on their side 100%, and it’s a relief to see people are still valuing original content in the internet. Some suggested to request for credit instead of removal, that has to depend on how the discussion goes afterward.

Join us for the discussion at the fan page if interested, we’ll be happy to see you there too.

3. Write to Google and Inform about the Duplicate Content

a. Spam Report – Google Search Results
Request Google to remove the specific web page from appearing on the Google Search results with the keywords used. Stating your content is the original.

If you own a Webmaster account, you will receive a sent report to be followed up if needed.

b. Google AdSense DMCA Complaint Form

This is particularly useful if the site is using Google Adsense. By filling up this form Google Adsense will be notified about the suspicious act and review the troubled site whether their account should be blocked or fail to meet the requirement as a trusted site for publishers’ ads.

4. Other DMCA complaint form/methods for your reference:

Search Engines:
Yahoo: http://info.yahoo.com/copyright/us/details.html
Bing: http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyrtInfrg.htm

Blogging Platform: Blogger

More DMCA Contacts: Hostings, Social Media Sites, Hostings etc (some info may require updating)

What is the Situation Now?

From the Site Owner:
I received a response from them, requesting to grant a few days to sort things out. No specific date given but I hope they will look into this matter seriously and asap.

From the Scrapper:
Just out of curiosity, I ‘visited’ the scrapper’s site and after I ran a check on Google, no surprise he also scrapped from other sites for his own posts as well. Unsure if he is aware that scrapping is harmful to both his site and his service, which brought me to another major concern about:

Autoblogging: NO WAY to Build Brands & Provide Value

If you’re a new blogger, avoid automated blogging at all costs. Blogging is not a get rich scheme where you can trash other people’s work for own benefits and it will eventually hurt your site and own reputation in long term. If you cannot respect people’s work, how do you expect people to put trust in your service as well? Same as in real life, why would you steal to gain publicity at all? That’s not right and not worth to risk for it. Hesham has very good points stated in his post about Automated Blogging Plugins are no way to create a successful blog, and how it will destroy the value of internet. If you need more confirmation, kindly refer to these 6 reasons why you should avoid automated blogging tools.

Do Not Stop Caring about Content Theft

Yes, there is no way we can stop our content from being scrapped/stolen, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore this completely. Continue to report, inform your blogger buddies if you ever came across their work on other sites. If you decide to let them be, at least request for a link back with a mention to the original author. People say there is no more originality in this world wide web, but I do think it’s necessary to respect other people’s work after all. It’s about ethics, asking for permissions, respect and care about Copyright Infringement issues.

Also, always be careful with guest posts from unfamiliar senders. Check them thoroughly to avoid becoming the victim.

Now Is Your Turn…

Did you ever encounter content theft? How do you normally deal with such issues? Kindly share in your comments below.

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What is Status Tagging on Facebook?

Tagging is a method to ‘nudge’ someone, most commonly used when alerting someone who’s in a picture or video. When we tag someone or a facebook page in our status update, our message will be visible on their Wall if permitted.

Why Tag Someone or a Page in a Post?

Tagging can be a networking tool for acknowledgment and bonding. You can share extremely useful information while rewarding free publicity to the original contributor. Your fans can visit his/her profile and interact. At the same time, your profile or page would also gain some visibility out of tagging, probably a friendship from the page admin too – a win-win situation for all.

What Can You Tag in a Post and How to do it?

You can tag both people and items in a post:

• fan pages and groups you loved / joined,
• your friends,
• events you’re attending
• facebook applications you’ve used.

To tag a profile or fan page is simple, just type in the magic symbol ‘@’ and you’ll notice a description box appearing underneath the publisher.

Continue your sentence for more name selections:

Once you found the page (which then appears as a link when published), click Share:

How to Ensure a Status Tagging that Works?

Two months ago, Debra and I were testing fan page tagging from our respective personal profiles. For some reasons, her post was no where to be found on my page and no luck in discovering why then.

Puzzling enough as it was supposed to work. My facebook page had received several ping backs from other pages after that. But how come even my personal profile was unable to tag my very own facebook page too?

Then yesterday the mystery was solved (well, at least for my part)! It was the Publisher privacy setting that hinders my tagging to Social @ Blogging Tracker – it should be set to ‘Everyone’ in order to post  (My option was set to ‘Friends of Friends’ as default).

But I had to be sure so I ran a test:

Example 1:

Privacy option: ‘Friends of Friends’.

End result: Status tagging failed to display on Social @ Blogging Tracker fan page.

Example 2:

Privacy option: ‘Everyone’.

End result: Status tagging worked like a charm!

In order to post your status message successfully on targeted fan page, there are several factors you need to check on:

1. Your posting privacy is set to ‘Everyone’ on publisher.

Optional: To make sure your selection is permanent without having to change back to customized option everytime you post an update, go to Account> Privacy Settings > Things I Share (Posts by Me) > Everyone.

2. You need to connect with the page via ‘Like’ (be a fan first) in order to tag it.

Same as personal account, you need to be friends with that someone in order to tag the person.

Other Reasons Why a Status Tagging Fails to Display on Page Wall

Sometimes a tagging failed because of the viewing option preset by the page admin. Let’s say if the page is set to view Page Posts only, their fans won’t be able to see your tag unless they tweak the below options:

Also, if you are blocked by the page admin, you won’t be able to tag that page as well.

For a Facebook Page to allow status-tagging, it needs to:

• Allow ‘All Posts’ for default view for Wall.
• Make sure Posting Ability for ‘People Who Like This Page…’ is ticked.

Suggested Read : look for #6 at How to Separate Facebook Personal Profile from Business Page (pt.2)

Now Is Your Turn…

Did you experience any tagging problems with facebook pages in the past? What else would you like to know about Tagging? I would love to see tagging works within Comments too, you think?

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The distinctive difference between Facebook personal and fan page is to separate private lives from business ventures.

What I love about Facebook personal page is that it can either go public or private. Some people are precise in protecting their inner circles, completely shield off the outside world; while some are interconnecting it with fan page to enhance online presence. It is important to identify the type of personal account you are maintaining now because Facebook privacy is getting vulnerable.

Shall We Combine Personal Account with Fan Page?

It goes back to the core reasons why you setup a personal account in the first place. How Darren Rowse defriending some people on his Facebook personal account months ago was a reasonable act to clear the line between work and leisure. I would suggest you to examine all the people in your friend lists and people who liked your page:

• Who are they?
• What are their behaviors?
• Are they interrelated from one page to another?

If there’s no way to tell, dip your toes in the water with a brief business update and see how your friends reacted. Indirectly bring to their attention that you can be the go-to person if someday they ever felt like using your service. It’s about making your digital name card visible, even on personal account that can be helpful in two reasons:

• people in your inner circles know what you are doing and capable of handling;
• introducing you to their colleagues or friends whoever needed the service;

Curiosity is a good thing. When they are wondering what you are doing, it’s an opportunity to educate. It doesn’t have to be business-oriented all the time, instead bringing a new information to your inner circles and help them to understand. I was among my closest friends who are the first to quit my job and go for freelancing, they know some of my work from my Facebook updates and basically calling me the go-to person for ‘blogging or internet thingy’. Although none of them needed any of my service now, but I had a couple of them who introduced me to their colleagues for blog setups so that’s a really cool and unexpected way to expand the business.

Now here comes the big question: How Can We Indirectly Promote Our Fan Page Without Pissing People Off?

5 Ways to Promote Your Facebook Fan Page on Personal Account

There are ways to not be annoying but keep that fan page visibility alive on your personal account. Again, these methods are not to create controversy but to help those who are in need of extra opportunities. Do not force yourself into doing this if you’re not comfortable with even putting 1% of business info in your private page, no pressure. For the rest of you, here are some suggested methods:

#1 Info Tab

Facebook recent modification of our Info tab into a fan page linking extravaganza forced us to reconsider our online exposures with Facebook. The ability to add extra information to our Info tab is no longer available for any Facebook applications. Therefore, start filling up your work information and Bio all over with extra details about your job scope. Fill up these sections in Info Tab by including your fan page address(es):

i) Contact Information > Websites

Tips: Claim your Facebook Fan Page vanity URL here: http://www.facebook.com/username

ii) Likes & Interests > Other (You need to ‘Like‘ your fan page to have it listed)

Suggested Read : How to Add Official Facebook Page to Your Profile Employer Link; 7 Facebook Changes You Must Know in New Profile

#2 Information and Personal Message

The information tab is actually fixed according to what you listed in the ‘website info‘ of Contact Information. Make sure the box is ticked to have them displayed underneath your profile image. Another good idea is to put personal message below your image, making sure you are using every space possible for indirect publicity especially when these two spots are the most visible areas of your sidebar.

#3 Fan Page Badge or Special Announcements

**Kindly take note that custom/app boxes are no longer available on Wall but only on tab instead, refer here for details.**

This is my favorite method by far. Customize and place a fan page badge at one of the box tabs won’t hurt. Make sure its position is highly visible, preferably below your friend list or among the tabs. You can have different ways to embed the images and messages to raise their awareness of your fan page. Some people prefer to use contest, announcements or free promotions to draw attention. It’s a good alternative besides sending a personal message to inform them about your existing Facebook fan page. Here are a few Facebook applications you can use to customize a fan page badge that fits right for Facebook tabs:

i) Extended Info

I’m using Extended Info to publicize my fan page badge, along with a brief message. What I love about Extended Info is the variety of ways you can share a fan page message. There are various patterns and styles to choose from, but you do have to take note of the sizes for different tabs. Make sure the image size is properly optimized.

ii) My Info

It’s a pity we cannot customize the title of these tabs like Static FBML does in fan pages. If you are looking for a more personalized name ‘My Info’ can be a good choice. It works the same as any other HTML embedding applications, but the downside is there are advertisements about the application showing up above or below your info. If you don’t mind that then it is a good suggestion for you.

#4 Create A Like Badge

**Kindly take note that custom/app boxes are no longer available on Wall but only on tab instead, refer here for details.**

If you are less prone to create a self-promotional badge, a Like badge is a good choice. Instead of saying ‘Come join my page’ directly, you can simply acknowledge it with ‘(your name) Like (fan page name)’. A friendly way to recommend your page to fellow friends. To do that :

i) My favorite Facebook application for the job: Profile HTML

ii) Add it to your fan page and have it authorized as instructed.

iii) Go to your fan page, look for ‘Promote with a Like Box’

iv) Copy the code and paste it to Profile HTML code box. You may need to modify the codes a bit so the image can fit in properly.

Here’s the end result:

#5 Tagging & Sharing

Sometimes you can tag yourself from the fan page, or share the acknowledgment that other friends have given about your work or fan page. This is an extra publicity but not to be overdone. I apply ‘do this ONLY when necessary‘ principle to keep myself from bringing too much noise into my personal page.

Suggested Read : How to Use Status Tagging Successfully on Facebook Pages/Profiles

So there you go, some indirect methods that can help to promote your Facebook fan page even within your personal account. You must be wondering what about ‘Suggest to Friends‘ option in Fan Page? This is a good feature but requires delicate use. I don’t wish to mass-promote it or else its efficiency may be misinterpreted as a spamming tool. Use it when you think the time is right and not periodically with repeating invitations.

Now Is Your Turn

How do you promote your fan page from your personal account? If not, then how do you promote it outside Facebook? Would love to hear your thoughts.

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This week we have another honorable guest on board – my good friend, Rajeev Edmonds who will share with you an useful Facebook tip today about how to create a private discussion board. Take it away, Rajeev!

Whether you’re an individual, a non-profit organization or a business entity, Facebook is one of the most important social media channels to connect with more people. It’s an excellent medium to let other people know what you’re up to. However, there are circumstances when you selectively want to club a group of people on facebook and want to keep the ongoing activities of this group completely private. It can be a family group, a social media group, a company’s elite members group or just a gang of friends. Whatever is the case, facebook let’s you achieve this very easily via Private Groups, that inherently supports private discussion boards.

Facebook provides an option to create private ‘family groups’. Though the name suggests it can only be used for binding family members, you can use it to include anyone who is on facebook. These groups are like normal facebooks groups with the exception of being completely invisible to non-members. So let’s get started and see how to create our very own private discussion board.

How To Create A Private Discussion Board On Facebook

Step 1: Head on to ‘create private group‘ registration page and fill in your group name. Make sure you add yourself as a member.

The registration page gives you an option to add more members either by their name or through e-mail addresses. If your potential group members are not on facebook, enter their e-mail addresses separated by commas. I’ll strongly suggest you to avoid writing names in the first step. Later on, you can add members via friends list to make sure you make no mistake and inclusion is fast and easy.

Step 2: Update group picture and basic information. This includes assigning a relevant category and providing helpful description for the group.

You can update this basic information via ‘Info’ tab. Along with basic information, you can also update the contact information which includes, website link, address, city and zip code.

Note: Updating contact information is optional.

Step 3: Now comes the real part of configuring a private discussion board for group members. That’s pretty easy and requires a few clicks. Go to ‘Edit Group Settings‘ link and uncheck all the options except ‘Enable Discussion Board‘. Save your settings and you’re done.

After applying these settings, group members will be able to access discussion board and all other parts will be read-only for them i.e, they won’t be able to write on wall, they won’t be able to post videos, photos and links. Now, I don’t think you’ll ever want to exercise such strict policy for private group members. The above settings are only for demonstration purpose to show the possibility of creating a private discussion board on facebook.

CAUTION: Be careful while using ‘Events‘ in your private group. Events are either visible to your friends network or to the entire facebook community.

Rajeev is a pro blogger who shares his expertise in blogging & social media tips. He is the founder of mintblogger.com and you can find loads of insightful articles regarding the mentioned topics at his blog. Don’t forget to follow him on @mintblogger!

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This post was inspired by one of our Facebook supporters:

I think Radhika hit the jackpot with her question – unsubscribe.

I don’t know about you, but to follow 200+ Facebook Fan Pages and 400+ friend updates daily without group management can be overwhelming. Last weekend, I spent half day tidying up my Facebook Lists, but never once in my mind I thought about ‘unsubscribing’. Why should I unsubscribe when I could join up to 500 fan pages, right?

I did not pry why Radhika wanted to unsubscribe from a fan page (hopefully it’s not Social @ Blogging Tracker) but her question alerted me: what seems to be a harmless ‘Become a Fan’ feature now has the tendency to worn us out bit by bit. Gaining back our focus and be in control of the news feed is the cure to social media overwhelm. Speaking of which, I eliminated some unwanted noise in Facebook, mainly applications and the hard work paid off! I’m having a better week in capturing page highlights and improving Facebook engagement with other contacts.

How to Declutter Your Facebook News Feed

To answer Radhika’s question about ‘unsubscribing’ from a fan page, we need to firstly identify our commitment:

1. To Stay as Fan but:

• eliminate unwanted noise
• pause and take a break from receiving updates

OR,

2. To Unfollow a Fan Page, completely.

To Stay as Fan but Eliminate Unwanted Noise

Some fan pages prefer to integrate Twitter updates as their wall posts. If you have already followed them in Twitter or FriendFeed, reduce the noise by removing the  Facebook application used to broadcast these updates in your news feed. Beware though, whoever is using the same application will no longer appear on your news feed until you retrieve the app.

1. Locate the fan page among the news feed. Hover the mouse over to reveal the Hide option. Click it.

2. You will be prompted with below selections. Choose whatever that’s applicable to you:

Here we will be turning off the Twitter application to increase visibility for other page updates. To bring back the application (or contact/fan page), look for Edit Options at the bottom of your news feed and click Add to News Feed as indicated:

Caution: Some page admins are actively responding to their Twitter comments in Facebook, so be sure to check the overview of the fan page first before you’re missing any chance to engage.

Secondly, the updates that sent to you via ‘Send an Update to Fans’ feature. Some may not realized but bulk-sending will direct this message to ‘Updates’ – a subcategory of Messages. I can’t thank Facebook enough for separating that from our private inbox. Joining 214 fan pages myself, I can easily receive 50 updates from page admins daily. Now you can have the option to unsubscribe from the hyperactive fan pages. It will remain your membership, just no more updates bugging you afterwards. Of course, the process is completely reversible.

To Unfollow a Fan Page

To quit from being a fan is easy, all you have to do is look for ‘Remove me from fans’ option at the bottom of the fan page itself. So when you hit the 500 mark for fan page limit, you’ll know what to do then.

“Wait, I heard about Facebook Lists?”

Bingo. If you’re not in the mood to decide or quit any Facebook fan pages just yet, why not monitor it over Facebook Lists. Similar to Twitter Lists, you can categorize your most-watched Facebook contacts and fan pages into assigned niche/names so you can easily navigate to check out their latest updates. That’s what I’ve been doing all along and here’s how:

1. Go to Account > Edit Friends

2. Click Create New List > Name & Group your Friends/Pages accordingly via selections

For Page Admins: Shall We Bother?

When a fan decides to pull the plug from our fan page, shall we bother? Some say it’s no big deal to lose just ONE fan. Besides, it’s a self-cleaning mechanism for a more focused fan base – he/she who cares, stays!. Sounds logical, but what if he/she WAS a loyal fan? Are we sending out wrong messages, pissing potential visitors off without consciousness? Plus, there’s no way to tell how many of our fans are opting us out from their Facebook lists or news feed due to (info) force-feeding. Yes, we should bother but not over-panicked. Review your fan page progress periodically can help to strategize your next move.

Now Is Your Turn…

How do you declutter your Facebook news feed currently? If you’re a fan page admin, kindly share with us how you moderate info-sharing to prevent suffocating your fans? In the mean time, would you help me out with this poll by voting (perhaps a Retweet as well?). Appreciate your support:

I’ll leave you with this video from Gary Vaynerchuk who’s not happy when somebody dropped an irrelevant wall post on his fan page recently. Visibility doesn’t mean opportunity anymore, right? You be the judge:

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It has been a year since I last modified my Twitter background. While inspecting my own social media sites for improvements recently, I couldn’t help but noticing how cheesy and uninformative my Twitter background was! It was created when I wrote about personalizing Twitter background with Free Twitter Designer. It’s time for a change!

#1: Why Should We Personalize Our Twitter Background?

Understanding why we need to personalize our Twitter background is vital. It is not about decoration but to:

i)   Manage Personal Branding

People will visit your Twitter page from your social media links and search engines. Be ready to impress at first sight.

ii)  Maximize Exposure with Limited Background Space

Blend in your intro with relevant background design. Provide social contacts for others to reach you.

iii) Show your Brand & Personality

An unique background attracts, it should say something about who you are, your passion and niche.

Another good reason is you might get a free promotion from a post about Twitter background, exactly like this one! (Good for @mashable and @marcome)

#2: How to Personalize Your Twitter Background?

After knowing the purpose, now it’s time for the real challenge – to personalize a Twitter background. Here are some options you can choose from:

a) Use a Twitter Background Generator

For those who are not into crafting their own images, tons of template selections can be found from Twitter background generators. Some setbacks are the duplicate designs and their brand name on your wall. Usually a minimal payment is involved to modify, for example, $4.99 to remove Twitbacks brand while Twitrbackgrounds will charge $9.99 for personalized backgrounds. Login is required for both services.

Tweetbacks, on the other hand offers free templates for modification (.psd). Personalized your information and photo before upload it to Twitter page.

Another service I love is Free Twitter Designer – a background generator and image editing application. A Twitter stream box is given so your design will not run off on the actual page. You can tweak the image settings, blend in the effects and colors, view the final results in different resolutions:

b) Personalize Twitter Background with Image Editing Application

My favorite method so far as it gives you:

• Full control over designing and positioning.
• No distracting brand name on the background except your very own.

Photoshop:

I created my second and third Twitter background with Photoshop. The dimension for the canvas size is preferably 1600 px x 1200 px so it will fit in fine for most screen resolutions. Keep the important information close to the left of Twitter stream. As of right, use non-essential designs as mostly they won’t be visible on regular screen resolutions. Apply Twitter Background Checker to monitor your background designs:

Resize the image to less than 250kb to optimize page load time (maximum file size: 800kb).

I created a blank template to fix for resolution 1280 x 1024. You can tweak its opacity level to adjust text/background image freely. If you interested claim it via the contact form and I’ll send you the file in .psd format.

Suggested Read: Twitter Background Design How-To and Best Practices; Build Twitter Background with Adobe Fireworks

Gimp & Pixlr:

You can download Gimp (for MAC & Windows) or try the web application Pixlr to customize your background image:

PowerPoint:

Not my top-pick for complicated designs but Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 is competent to create a simple and colorful Twitter background. Save your final result as .jpg to be uploaded as your Twitter background. PowerPoint is not a designing program so there will be limitations, such as cumbersome process with measurement and positioning:

Extra Tools:

Some amazing tools to assist your background designing:

• MeasureIt – A FireFox plugin to measure width and height for a web page.
• Peekr -  On and off feature that gives you a clear overview of the entire Twitter background without the stream, control panel etc.
• Twitter Background Checker – Twitter background viewed in high and low resolutions.

If personalizing a Twitter Background is too time consuming for you, you can:

c) Outsource to Professionals and Graphic Designers

Everyone’s definition of ‘quality’ may differ in art. Understand your own needs is important before finding the best designer that fits you. Make sure you are providing enough information so the designer knows about your expectations. Be communicative and respectful for both sides.

#3: How to Upload Your Personalized Background to Twitter?

Let it be a picture or a neatly designed template, it’s time for the final results. To upload it:

1. Log on to your Twitter account.

2. Go to Settings > Design > Change background image

3. Browse to locate the image file you’re ready for.

4. Click Save and see the magic appears before your eyes.

#4: What Makes a Good Twitter Background?

Last week we had a discussion over at the Facebook Fan Page about my second Twitter background. Ricky’s commentary about the font visibility brought my attention of how ignorant I was about my Twitter background.

I did not take the design seriously so instead of just the font, I changed the whole Twitter background. I prefer a non-business-like, harmonious background with nature elements. It may not be my best design yet but I’m happy to keep it for awhile.

For a Twitter background to serve its purpose, we need to refer to why we need one in the first place. Following these designing guidelines will be an added advantage:

• Make sure the background is none distracting for your main info.
• Clear and readable fonts (for example Arial, bold). Avoid spindly text for important messages.
• Use contrast colors for text & background.
• Make full use of the blank areas. Ensure main info are visible regardless low or high screen resolutions.
• Complex does not mean elegant. Keep the K.I.S.S principle in mind unless you have a different purpose for your background design.

There is no right or wrong, but the impression and friendliness you would like to portray to others. Think of it as your name card, but with personality.

Now Is Your Turn…

When was the last time you personalized your Twitter background? What makes a presentable Twitter Background in your opinion? Share it all in the comments below.

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Google Buzz has created a lot of Buzz in the social web since its big launch. We all familiar how the story went when something as sacred as our email contacts to be handled publicly without our consent. When Google apologized and willing to tweak the privacy settings, my frustration subsided a bit. Everyone deserves a second chance, right?

What I Learned from Google’s Big Flaw?

My biggest concern is to lose control over what to be shared publicly for my social accounts. There may be no secrets out in the open web but users should hold the key for privacy authorizations, not the service providers. Nevertheless, Google Buzz had my attention even though we started off on the wrong foot. Now I’m more keen than ever to discover how it can be a ‘helper’ instead of a troublemaker for my social network benefits.

How to Optimize Google Buzz for Social Network Benefits

While Chris Garrett enlightened us with tips to start your Google Buzz, I’m going to share how I utilize Google Buzz as my network booster:

#1 Google Buzz – My Public @ Inner Network Circles

Initially, Google Buzz auto-connected us to people we have corresponded with in Gmail. I wouldn’t want to waste the list so the first thing I do is make sure the contacts are properly grouped- People I Know, Bloggers, ex-Colleagues etc. This helps to keep certain discussions visible and focus to particular group. Also, a good precaution if Google Buzz ever gone public in Google Search. Now is the best time to manage your stream and reputation.

Suggested Read: Manage your Settings in Google Buzz; Filter Google Buzz Updates from your Gmail

Caution:

Be extra careful for the group you’ve picked for your last update. It will remain to be the default receiver unless you manually change it before posting.

#2 Google Buzz – My Discussion Panel & Feedback

Probably what I like best about Google Buzz – no 140/420 word limit as in Twitter or Facebook. Furthermore, it involves your trusted network (correspondence) so definitely can be of some use. I can post a question, include links manually or integrate several social media sites for feedback:

For additional site integrations, follow the below methods:

a)   Your Very Own Blog(s)

1. Sign up for a Webmaster account.

2. Add your blog to Webmaster and verify ownership by inserting the codes given.

3. After the verification is done properly, you can now click at ‘ x connected sites’ to retrieve the newly added blog. Click ‘Add’ to include.

You can add as many sites as you prefer as long you have the access to place the verifying codes.

b)   Other Blogs

Can be imported by Google Reader.  Just subscribe to these sites and include Google Reader in ‘connected sites’. You can manually ‘Share’ any posts with or without comments.

c)   Facebook & Social Bookmarking Updates

Obviously there are no easy options to integrate Facebook in Buzz. However it doesn’t stop us to do so with the big help from FriendFeed. You can even import your updates from Stumbleupon, Delicious, Disqus and many more as long the services are covered by FriendFeed:

This is how Facebook updates been transmitted to Google Buzz:

Extra: To send Google Buzz to your Facebook personal acc, try Google Buzz Sync. (thanks Hartley for this valuable info)

Caution:

• The updates may not be instant, some took minutes while some hours to publish.

• New FriendFeed account holders may experience difficulties to import updates from certain social media sites.

DO NOT simply delete your social media profiles on FriendFeed to prevent glitches. I fail to re-connect my Stumbleupon account as FriendFeed is unable to retrieve my username. Facebook can only allow Links & Notes to be imported to FriendFeed, not status updates. Seems like this issue was brought up since May 2009. However, there is still a possible way to do so although it’s not perfect. I’m still working on improving the method, hopefully good news is on the way.

d)   Selected Twitter Updates

This method only works for those who remained their older Facebook configuration in FriendFeed that’s still able to import Facebook status updates to date. If you can, Do Not Refresh your Facebook configuration. (All imported tweets will be treated as ‘Facebook Updates’, not links.)

If you prefer to keep Twitter moderated so not to flood the Buzz streams, sending selective tweets to Buzz can be done based on the idea of Twitter->Facebook->FriendFeed->Buzz integration. Have a read of how you can fix up the configuration with 3 Easy Ways to Share Selective Tweets on Facebook Pages, even auto-scheduling.

#3 Google Buzz – Discover New Contacts & Content

You can do so by:

• Following your friends, discovering who they are connecting with and participate in the discussions;
• Search for niche discussions using Google Buzz search or Buzzzy advanced feature;
• Have a look at ‘Suggested’ contacts provided by Google Buzz.

I’ve found some people to thank who shared my posts on the Buzz stream,

discover new contacts,

and even had a good laugh.

Google Buzz may not be your #1 place to meet people, but it’s an additional platform for Google devotees to mingle. You can extend the new friendship elsewhere anyhow you’re comfortable with.  Especially when Google Buzz is yet to be a front runner, it’s best to get involved and noticed by your targeted contacts easily with a little bit more effort. Not to mention, it is giving your Google Profile more page impressions.

Google Buzz is not for everyone, but it will work for some

I loved this article – It’s about the people not the tools. There is no right or wrong. No disputes required to prove how effective is Google Buzz. When it comes to which applications you should use, go back to your root: who and where is your audience? How do you plan to utilize social media in reaching out to them? You are the deciding factor.

Now is Your Turn…

How is your experience with Google Buzz? Feel free to express your thoughts and extra opinions on how you plan to optimize Google Buzz for your social network benefits.