On one of my earlier blog post, Facebook page ownership can now be changed, someone brought up a good point about Facebook Pages and admins. I started to answer in the thread, but it’s a pretty important question, so I decided just to do a new post about.
Here’s the comment this person had:
The real issue is that the page is still tied to the person’s Facebook account regardless of whether they administer the page or not. Thus, if they delete their Facebook page [profile] for any reason, the page will forever be gone.
I know the short-term answer, but I want to know the long-term answer. So, here’s what I did – step by step:
Set up a new profile – aka Jane.
Jane logged into her personal profile and set up a Facebook fan page.
Jane appointed me as an admin of the page.
I logged out of Jane’s profile and logged into my own to be sure I was set as an admin of the new page. I am.
I removed Jane as an admin.
I logged out of my profile, and logged back in as Jane.
I deleted Jane’s account.
I logged in again as myself, and the page is still there. I am now the only admin for the page Jane created.
Once a person gives up their admin rights (or has them revoked by another admin), it appears that they have no rights to that page.
However . . .
I need to follow up with this in 15 days and here’s why:
Facebook allows profiles to be deactivated or deleted – and they are two different functions.
Deactivation – This allows you to make your account inactive, which means your stuff is locked away and made secret but you can get it later if you want to. Facebook keeps all of your information in case you decide to reactivate it at a later date.
Deletion – This permanently deletes your account after 14 days. During that initial 14 day period you’re allowed to reactivate your account if you want to (just by logging in), but after that it will be permanently deleted.
So at this point, Jane’s account has been set for deletion and the page she created is now in my possession. What I want to know for sure is if that page will still be mine once her account has been permanently deleted. Or will it be deleted along with her account since she was the original owner? I’m fairly certain it will still be my page since she was removed as an admin, but I’ll check back in another 15 days to find out for sure.
UPDATE: It’s been more than 15 days since I deleted the Jane account and I’m still the admin for the page she turned over to me. So, it looks like if an admin turns over a page, then is deleted, that page will still exist and it will belong to whoever is the current admin
Now, in addition to clicking the Like button on Pages, posts, and other content on Facebook, now we can click a like button next to individual comments. Check it out:
Since first launching the “Like” feature in 2009 and the ability to comment on News Feed stories in 2008, we’ve seen these features become central to the way people communicate on Facebook. They’re two of the most heavily used features on the site and have proven to be a simple way to discuss posts and show appreciation for the content friends share on Facebook.
So like peanut butter and jelly, we realized these two features would go better together. Starting today, most of you will see a small “Like” button appear underneath comments. We’re rolling this out gradually, so if you don’t see the new button yet you will soon.
Whether it’s a witty remark, a great point in a discussion or a helpful answer to someone’s question, clicking the “Like” button within comments now makes it simple to show your appreciation for all types of content on Facebook.
Similar to liking other content, when you click “Like” on a comment the commenter will receive a notification. Other people who can see the comment based on its privacy setting also will be able to see who has liked the comment.
Just like any other activity you do on Facebook, when you click Like on a comment, they’re collecting more data about what I do the site. Honestly that doesn’t bother me at all. I just wish they’d give us a Dislike button!
One of the biggest complaints owners of Facebook Pages have had is that once a page is created, it was owned by that person forever. It caused quite a dilemma for a company that wanted to set up a fan page because it meant it might be owned by a person who would eventually leave the company. That’s changed.
Now, any administrator of a page can remove any other administrator. It means ownership can be transferred from one person to another – something many companies have wanted for quite some time. That in itself is a double edged sword, but there’s another bit of power that comes along with this change that even more troubling. Any admin can now delete a page.
What this means, is that before making someone an admin of your page, you need to make darn sure that person is trustworthy. You certainly don’t want to misjudge someone and end up with them hijacking your page!
I think Facebook is on the right track, but rather than giving all admins the same rights, I’d like to see a two-tier setup, with owners and admins. The owners would be the only ones with the rights to delete a page, but they could promote someone else as an owner as well. Then, if the original owner chooses to, she would be able to relinquish ownership to another owner. Yahoo Groups has this feature, and it makes more sense than the way Facebook has things set up at the moment. Hopefully this is just an interim change though, and they’ll be fine tuning it soon.
The bottom line is that if you work for a company and set up a Fan Page for them, you can later hand over that page to someone else if necessary. This is a huge upgrade!
If you don’t have a Google Profile yet, you may want to consider setting one up for a number of reasons. To see what one looks like, take a look at mine.
First, what is a Google Profile?
It’s a personal page where you are able to share information about yourself on the various Google services, but it’s a lot more than that too. It’s a publicly available page you can use to tell people a bit about yourself and your business, and add links to your blog, website, Facebook page, Twitter account, etc.
Why should you have a Google Profile?
Think about it – it’s a Google product! Since they like their own stuff they’re going to make sure your profile shows up when people search for you. If you have a profile, and use your full name, it’ll show up at the bottom of the first page when someone searches for you on Google. (Search for me to see what I’m talking about – Therese Kopiwoda.)
Your Google Profile can serve as a holding page for all your stuff. Since you can add links to all your social media accounts and websites, it’s a great way to give people a snapshot of who you are. Rather than directing people to your accounts separately, you’ll give them the URL to your page on Google and they can go from there. Better yet, get your own domain and redirect it to your profile. It’ll be easier to remember than the default URL (and probably shorter). Mine is simply www.ThereseKopiwoda.com.
If you have a business you want people to find it, and since people want to know who they’re doing business with, your Google Profile is an excellent way to give people the info they’re looking for. In this way it helps build your total online presence – both for your business and yourself.
Anybody who’s looking for a job needs to have a Google Profile! Hiring managers will look for you online before they call you for an interview. If you have a well-crafted profile with links to some of your accounts, and even some recommendations, your potential employer will find it.
How to set up your profile
Google Profiles are super easy to set up. Go to their setup page and follow the directions. It’ll only take a few minutes, and you can tweak it as often as you’d like.
With over 400 million active users on Facebook, you know there’s a lot of spamming going on. A lot of Facebook spammers are looking for that small percentage of people who will fall for whatever sales pitch they put out. There are others though, who are making a real effort to use Facebook to market their business, make friends, or just learn their way around the most popular social networking website around. Unfortunately, they may not be aware of the fact that what they’re doing is getting them labeled as a Facebook spammer by the very people they’re trying to reach out to.
These five Facebook activities just might get you a big bad spammer label. If you’re guilty of any of them, you might want to rethink your Facebook strategy.
1. Your only activity is Friends, Groups, and Pages
Chances are, you’re trying to build up your friends list so you can blast people with your message – whatever that might be. As a result, the majority of the updates on your profile looks like this:
Joe and Mary are now friends
Joe and Andy are now friends
Joe joined the group We be spammers
Joe and Frank are now friends
Joe likes Marketers and Spammers
Joe and Michael are now friends
Joe likes I Love Spam!
Joe and Susan are now friends
Joe likes I’m going to sell you all sorts of stuff
Joe and Angela are now friends
Joe and Steven are now friends
. . . and the list goes on . . .
2. You should LIKE THIS!
You’re constantly sending page suggestions to all your friends – sometimes for the same pages over and over again. It’s fine to send a suggestion now and then, but when you send your friends suggestions constantly they’re likely to get tired of it.
3. You send friend requests to people you have absolutely no connection with.
You send a friend request to somebody you don’t know, and have no common friends. When the person you want to be friends with sends a message back asking if you know each other, you either don’t respond or you send a snotty reply.
If you really want to be friends with someone you don’t know, and have a good reason for wanting to do so, include a short note with the friend request. Just click the “add a personal message” and let the person know why you’re sending the friend request.
4. Using other Fan Pages and Groups to sell your stuff
You join Facebook Groups and Like Facebook Pages so you can post messages about your business. Recently someone became a fan of the PetsitUSA Fan Page and promptly posted a message that said
“PetsitUSA is now a favorite page of @my-facebook-page. Please make our page a favorite of yours.”
When I went to the Facebook Fan Page mentioned, I saw about 40 favorite fan pages listed, and each one of them had the very same message posted that was posted on the PetsitUSA Fan Page. Spammer.
Sure, we all know Fan Pages are quite often set up to help sell a product or service, but rather than giving a constant sales pitch, interact with the people who like your page. Remember, it’s called social media for a reason.
Doing some of these things may seem like the right thing to do to get business, but think about how you feel when someone is constantly trying to sell you something. It gets old real fast and tends to backfire! There are lots of people who will go out of their way to avoid companies that are use the “in your face” approach to selling their products or services.
Facebook is at it again. This week they’ve announced some pretty major changes in the way your personal information is used. One of these changes is how your Facebook profile will be integrated with other websites – currently Microsoft Docs, Pandora, and Yelp. They call it “instant personalization” and you may or may not like it.
The way instant personalization works is that when you are logged in to Facebook and then go to Yelp, for example, you will see what your friends are up to on Yelp. And, of course if you have an account your friends will be able to see what you’ve been up to as well.
In addition to you and your friends seeing what you’re all doing, instant personalization allows the partner websites (Microsoft Docs, Pandora, Yelp) to access any information on your profile that you’ve set as viewable to everyone. This includes your name, profile picture, gender, where you live, friends list, and pages.
By default, Facebook has instant personalization set to be on but if you’re concerned about having your information carried over to other websites there is a way to opt out of it. There are a few steps involved in opting out though – it’s not as easy as just checking a box. You can uncheck the “allow” box in your privacy settings, but doing that doesn’t stop your friends from sharing your information. (You didn’t really think Facebook would let you out of it that easily did you?)
The folks at Electronic Frontier Foundation have put together a good step by step video on how to opt out. The thing to remember is that you’ll have to opt out of each website individually. And because Facebook intends to partner with more websites you’ll need to go through the process in the future if you want to opt out of each one.
Here are the links to the applications so you can block them:
When someone comes to your Facebook Fan Page will they know immediately what your page is about?
Clicking onto a Facebook Fan Page can be like opening the door to a party that’s already started. You walk in and see groups of people chatting away about various subjects. At any one party, a small group of people may be talking about an upcoming charity event, others may be exchanging ideas on how to make a better spaghetti sauce, and still others may be talking about the weather.
If the person holding the party is a good host, he or she will greet you at the door, welcome you in, and maybe even show you around a bit. If the host isn’t all that great you may walk into a party where you don’t know anybody and feel a bit out of place. You might even leave without talking to anybody.
A Facebook Fan Page can be a lot like that party, with your wall as the main gathering place. It can be a bit confusing to newcomers if it’s not crystal clear what your fan page is about. When people land on your wall, they’ll see all the conversations going on but that doesn’t guarantee they’ll know exactly what your page is about. If people are talking about cats and dogs, they’ll get the idea that your Fan Page is probably centered around pets, but will they know for sure that you’re a pet sitter and that you take care of pets in Indianapolis, Indiana? They’ll probably catch on sooner or later, but wouldn’t it be great if they knew as soon as they got there exactly what you wanted them to know about your page and why you’d like them to become a fan?
This is where a custom landing page comes in.
Your custom Facebook landing page serves the same function as that host (that would be you!) at the party. Since you can’t be there every single minute to welcome visitors and tell them what’s going on, your landing page does it for you. You can explain exactly what your page is about, let people know you’re happy they came, and give them a call to action. You might want them to download a free report, join your mailing list, or simply write on your wall. And, in order to write on your wall, that person is going to be required to become a fan of your page!
Unlike the standard info page on Facebook (which you do want to fill out), a customized landing page can be eye catching and include graphics, videos, and more. In fact, some people even use them as mini websites – sort of like a satellite office to their website.
Adding a custom Facebook landing page isn’t that difficult if you know html. You’ll create your page in something like Dreamweaver, install the Static FBML app onto your page, and then put the html code into the fbml.
See a few of the Facebook landing pages I’ve designed to get an idea of what I’m talking about.
One of my pet peeves is how often people forget to say thank you. I know we’ve all been there. Maybe you sent a quick email to answer a question, did a favor in the real world, held a door open for someone, or any number of things. After all is said and done, the person goes their merry way and we’re left wondering why there wasn’t any acknowledgment. It’s not that people should bow down and pay homage, but a simple little ‘thank you’ can go a long way. Honestly, it doesn’t take long to type or say the words but oftentimes it goes unsaid.
It happens online and in the real world. We just aren’t as polite and respectful as we once were. So, when I went to listen to Peter Shankman, founder of Help A Reporter Out, speak at SXSW, and heard him talk about this very same thing, I loved that he was calling us all out about it. It may seem like a little thing, but it’s not really.
The bulk of Peter’s talk was about how smart self-promoters aren’t out there spamming people with the all too common “I’m great I’m wonderful, I can save your life” type talk. Instead, they’re willing to help others, and as a result they become the type of person who’s looked at as a resource – an expert in their particular field. They respect people enough to understand the 24/7 sales pitch is a real turn off.
Peter also talked about saying ‘thank you.’ It’s all part of being respectful and having manners. It doesn’t take much energy to type out ‘thank you’ and hit the reply button. And it takes even less time to say thank you. So why don’t we do it? Laziness? Disrespect? Too absorbed in watching the world revolve around us? I’m not entirely sure, but we sure as heck don’t do it enough.
With this in mind, I thought I’d try a little experiment – I set up a Facebook page where you can say thank you. You may want to thank your first grade teacher for opening up the world of reading to you. Or maybe you want to thank the guy who let you squeeze into traffic this morning. It doesn’t really matter, just go thank somebody! My hope is that it’ll spark something in each of us and remind us just how important those two little words are, and we’ll all start showing our gratitude a little more often. If we do it enough it’ll become a habit, and what a great habit saying ‘thank you’ could be for all of us.
Do you have nightmares about your Facebook profile going away and losing your friends, photos, profile and wall status updates? You’re not alone!
If you were on Facebook at all this past weekend you may have experienced a certain level of panic as things got wonky (prompting some good subject matter for that nightmare.) They were having some server problems that seemed to take forever to get fixed. Strangeness was the norm. The wonkiness kept people from posting status updates, wouldn’t allow people to post on their friends’ profiles or to join fan pages, and even made some fan pages disappear for a while. If you spend much time at all on Facebook, you know this type of thing isn’t new. Unfortunately, it seems to be part of the whole experience.
If you’re looking for a little peace of mind to help keep your profile safe, Social Safe may just be the solution. It’s a downloadable application that backs up your Facebook friends, photos, profile and wall status updates. So, rather than just having all of your data on your Facebook profile, it’ll be safely stored away on your own computer where you can access it at any time. It doesn’t download your friends’ contact information, but you’ll at least have access to who they are. Should you need to restore your entire profile in the event of a catastrophic Facebook episode, you can at least be sure you’ll know who to get reconnected with. (Trying to remember a few hundred Facebook friends if my profile went bye-bye would drive me nuts!)
SocialSafe isn’t free, but it’s pretty darn close at only $2.99. It is well worth the money – and super easy to use. You’ll download SocialSafe, login to your Facebook account with Facebook Connect, and click on download. Once it’s finished you can view your Facebook profile content on your own computer.
Right now SocialSafe is just for personal profiles – it doesn’t backup Facebook Fan Pages yet, but the folks at SocialSafe are working on it. Hopefully they’ll get that worked out soon. And, of course Social Safe is on Facebook.
Yes! There is a difference between a Facebook profile and a Facebook Fan Page.
Facebook profiles are for people.
Fan Pages are for businesses.
I cringe every time I see someone set up a profile in their business name. Here’s why:
People vs. business
Profiles are intended for people, not businesses. It’s actually against the Facebook terms to use a profile for a business. If the Facebook gods find your profile set up like this, it’s possible they may delete the entire profile. So much for all your hard work getting friends!
SEO
Your Facebook Fan Page can be a part of your Search Engine Optimization strategy. Why is that, you ask? It’s because Fan pages are indexed by search engines. Profiles are not.
If you’re like most business owners, you want as many people as possible to find you online. If you set up a profile in your business name, you’re not maximizing your exposure. Sure, your Facebook friends will be able to see your page, but new people won’t find you all that easily.
Fans vs. Friends
Fan Pages can have an unlimited number of fans. Profiles can only have 5,000 friends. If you’re trying to build your business, why limit yourself? It only makes sense to choose the option that allows you to have more people get on your bandwagon.
One profile – many Fan Pages
You can have multiple fan pages, but only one personal profile. This is important for people who want to promote different businesses or groups. I have my personal profile and fan pages for PetsitUSA, The Pet Food List, and Austin Pet First Aid, which are businesses I own. I also have one for Wishbones for Pets – a pet sitter charity I operate with the founder Janet Depathy, of Under My Wings.
Keep in mind that you can still connect with people on a business level through your personal profile. I use my profile to keep in touch with family and friends, but I also connect with quite a few people due to business reasons. Since people like to know the person behind the business, this is a good way to interact with them. It’s also one way for me to create my personal brand. Note: Before using your profile in this way, get clear on the type of content you want to post on your profile. (More on that in an upcoming blog post.)
When someone comes to your Facebook Fan Page will they know immediately what your page is about?
One of my pet peeves is how often people forget to say thank you. I know we’ve all been there. Maybe you sent a quick email to answer a question, did a favor in the real world, held a door open for someone, or any number of things. After all is said and done, the person goes their merry way and we’re left wondering why there wasn’t any acknowledgment. It’s not that people should bow down and pay homage, but a simple little ‘thank you’ can go a long way. Honestly, it doesn’t take long to type or say the words but oftentimes it goes unsaid.
With this in mind, I thought I’d try a little experiment – I set up a Facebook page where 
Like me, Like my Facebook comment!
by Therese on June 16, 2010
Now, in addition to clicking the Like button on Pages, posts, and other content on Facebook, now we can click a like button next to individual comments. Check it out:
Here’s what Facebook has to say about the new Like button for comments:
Just like any other activity you do on Facebook, when you click Like on a comment, they’re collecting more data about what I do the site. Honestly that doesn’t bother me at all. I just wish they’d give us a Dislike button!
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