Facebook Pages: Odds and Sods

The first four posts in my Facebook Pages series
covered the basic concepts, setting up the Page, first steps, and adding applications. This final installment will provide some additional info and tips that should help you as you continue to work with your Page.

Adding other admins

I mentioned that, if you've set up a Page that isn't tied to your personal profile, that sometimes you'll need to make yourself an admin for specific purposes, such as adding certain applications. But you might also want to add other people from your business or organization to help you post content and respond to fans' comments. Here are the steps for adding someone else as an administrator for your Page. Other admins can do anything you can with one exception—they can't remove you as the primary admin.

Click Edit Page in the top left-hand menu.
Scroll down the Page and click the Add link in the Admins section in the right-hand column. A window will pop up.

If your Page is attached to your profile, you'll see a list of of your friends that you can make admins. If not, or if you want to add someone who isn't one of your friends, you simply enter their e-mail address in the second box and they'll get a notice that you've made them an admin.

Note: If they already have a Facebook account, they'll be able to perform admin functions the next time they log in. If not, they will have to sign up for an account first.

Once you have some fans signed up, you can also make one of them an admin by clicking the See All link in the fan box in the left-hand column on your Wall. A window will pop up that lists all your fans and each one has a Make Admin button beside him/her.

Getting a username for your Page

Once you have more than 100 fans, you're eligible to get a Facebook username. This is one of the things you can't do through your Page if it's not attached to a personal profile. If that's the case, make yourself an admin using the steps above.

Go to www.facebook.com/username.
If you don't have a username for your personal profile, Facebook will assume you want one and provide a screen that lets you do that. Be careful, because you don't want to fill that in and accidentally give your username to your personal account.
Click the link that says "Set a username for your Pages." The page will expand to show you a dropdown box of any Pages you administer. When you pick one, it will display a box where you can enter the username you want.
Enter a username and click the Check Availability button. A box will pop up to let you know if the name is available and, if it is, give you a whole bunch of warnings before you click the Confirm button. Remember, you won't be able to change it later, so do make sure you're picking one you'll be happy with.

Once you've set your username, you can go to www.facebook.com/[YOUR USERNAME] to quickly get to your Page.

Now, if you can't get the username you want because it's not available or you don't have enough fans yet, here's another idea. If your business or organization has a website, you can create a personal URL that redirects to your Page. For example, I have created www.techforluddites.com/fb that redirects to my Page. (I would have set it to /facebook, but I already use that URL to go to my Page of posts related to Facebook.)

To be honest, I'm actually starting to think this is a better strategy for developing a URL that you can promote elsewhere because it makes your brand the main site, and Facebook just becomes another link from it. Something to think about anyway...

Importing blog posts automatically

If you have a blog about the same topic as your Page, adding those posts to the Page can be a good way to keep fresh content coming (and drive people back to your blog and/or website, if that's one of your goals.

The Facebook Notes application lets you import an RSS feed so that every time you post a new blog entry, it becomes a separate note on Facebook and gets posted to your Wall (and, therefore, your fans' home pages) automatically. You'll notice that my Tech for Luddites Wall is almost exclusively blog posts using this feature. (Clearly I could be doing more to add value to my Page than that, but anyway...)

Here are the steps for implementing this feature.

Click Edit Page, then scroll to the Notes app, click the pencil icon, and click Edit.
Click Import a Blog.
Enter your blog's URL or feed URL, check the box, and click Start Importing.

Facebook will show you a preview of your blog entries. When you click Continue, you'll be taken to your Notes page that lists your blog posts interspersed with any other Notes you may have written.

They'll also appear on your Wall.

Note: This feature only lets you import one blog. If you want to bring in postings from additional ones, a good application to use is SSocial RSS, which lets you add up to five feeds to your Page. I mentioned it yesterday as well as a way to import your Twitter feed. I'm going to write about this app in a separate post in the near future.

Sending fan updates

Most of the time, you'll be passing info along to your fans by updating your status line. But, of course, depending how many friends a fan has and how often they check their home pages, they may miss some of them as they get bumped down the list. If you have something you really want them to see, you can also use the "Send an Update to Fans" link at the top left of your Page. You can target your update based on location, age, and gender as well.

Your note will appear on their Updates tab in their Inbox.

There's still no guarantee they'll see this if they opt out of getting your updates or don't check them regularly, but there's a better chance they won't get lost in the noise.

The bugaboos

It wouldn't be a post about Facebook if I didn't mention a couple of things that don't make sense, now, would it?

The first issue is that there's no way to be notified if a fan posts something on your Page, whether it's a Wall update, a photo, or a comment on one your posts. I have no idea why Facebook refuses to add this feature (it's been requested by many administrators over a very long period), because it's so obvious. The important takeaway, though, is that you should check on your Page at least daily, even if you're not posting anything, so you can see if you need to answer a question or remove something inappropriate.

The second issue is that there are some really random things you can't do, for example:

You can't comment on photos that your fans upload
You also can't comment on videos they upload, even though there's a box for you to add a comment
You can't delete a link that a fan uploads
You can't publish links from other Facebook pages to your news feed—they'll show up on your Wall but won't appear on your fans' home pages

There's probably more, but that's enough to show you that Facebook can be just as flaky with Pages as it is with personal profiles. Most of these things have been reported to the powers that be time and time again with no results so you'll simply have to live with them for the time being.

Well, that's it for this series on Facebook Pages. I hope you found it useful. If you end up using some of the info on your own Page, feel free to send me a link to it and I'll be happy to post the link and invite more people to become fans. And, of course, if you have any questions, please shoot me a note and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.

Did this post help you? Share it with others!