The incident with merged facebook page and Places has temporarily subsided, thanks to the much-requested ‘unmerge’ button. I didn’t get to explore how the Places page work but as much the Bing map looks attractive on the merged pages, there are numerous reasons why a business owner should think twice before merging.

Last Saturday, I had a light bulb moment when one of the page members wrote:

Although this has nothing to do with a Places page, but undeniably the idea of inserting a Google map into a facebook page is a great alternative! That way page admin can still use an interactive map to guide fans to their business premise without having to worry about page layout and losing landing tab setting due to the merge.

There are several ways to do this but personally I prefer facebook applications over manual HTML embed. I am anticipating for iframe app facebook promised to release in 2011 which will make dynamic content (like Google Maps) to be embedded a lot easier. Until then, here are some facebook applications you can use without having to worry about manual coding at all:

3 FACEBOOK APPS TO EMBED A GOOGLE MAP

#1  BlockWild Map

BlockWild Map lets you add a ‘Map’ tab indicating your business location within a facebook page. No HTML code required. All you need is to fill up your business name and address, the map tab will be up and running:

Notice that you can even announce local events for your business with details such as description, duration, image gallery etc. Fans can interact with you about the event via facebook comment box, or share it with their Twitter or Facebook friends (social buttons available). Since there won’t be any notifications you should check on new comments regularly. To access the complete map, fans can close the event box anytime by clicking at the purple-circled ‘x’:

I love how the tab is named ‘Map’ to suit perfectly for its purpose. However, if I have a customized Google map to highlight special routes or places nearby, I will need more control over the map and how it is displayed. That’s when Contact Tab comes in:

#2  Contact Tab

We first heard about Contact tab from my introductory about facebook page engagement tools (app #13). Back then I didn’t go deep with the Map feature but today, you will see how easy it is to embed a customized Google map to your Contact tab. I’m using First World Hotel, Genting Highlands as an example:

1. Learn how you can customize your Google map here:

2. Once your map is ready, look for the option ‘Link’ at the upper right corner and click at it for the HTML code:

3. Next, locate the ‘Contact’ tab on your page wall -> Edit Application:

4. Paste the HTML code you copied from the map and paste into the iframe box at the lower part of the Contact Tab -> Save Application:

5. After been asked to ‘click to view map’, your fans can use the tools (red-circled) to move around the map, or zoom in/out at will:

I love how Contact Tab is capable of adding a customized Google map, but if only other mandatory fields such as email, website and address can be opted out. The word ‘Contact‘ may not be obvious for fans in finding the map so you may like to mention/add a link to it from your Welcome tab or Info.

#3  Placewidget

Placewidget is also using Google map so if you had claimed your business on Foursquare, you can add this application to showcase the map. But unlike Foursquare main site, the map is non-interactive, merely an image file. A click at it will bring you to Foursquare where you can then explore the map thoroughly.

We don’t know how long we get to stay in the old page format, but until facebook team improvises the Facebook Places for merging, page admins will have some options to show their offices via Google Maps for now.

Now Is Your Turn…

Is adding a Google map or Bing map essential for your business page? Shall the settings for default landing tab and tab-positioning be maintained in the new facebook page layout? Love to hear your thoughts in the comment.

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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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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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