Careful Now! Facebook Timeline
February 29, 2012 at 5:04 pm
Facebook introduced timeline today for Pages and already people are having some troubles. Here are the top things to watch out for:
- Don’t flick the switch! If you are an Admin and you’re in your Page, tread very carefully as some smarter people than you have been caught out and have flicked the switch and are now stuck with the new Page without having tested it.
- If you have Apps that are fan-gated, you may find that they won’t work as they should. This is probably the biggest one and definitely one to check with your reputable Facebook App Developer.
- If you are a Place, you might find your description box being replaced by address details.
A solution that was shared by Betapond to this:
First go to the newly merged places page, click Edit info, and delete the address completely and save your changes. Then go back into Edit info again, and there should be some sort of dialogue underneath where the address used to be that says “Disconnect this page from a street address” or something to that effect. Hopefully soon Facebook can figure out how to have multiple locations linked to one fan page.
Tags: Facebook page, timeline for facebook pages, tips for facebook pages
Tips For Facebook Fan Pages
March 5, 2010 at 9:48 am
A friend asked me recently for some advice on how to make her new Facebook fan page for her business go with a bang and not be crap. I thought it might be helpful to share my thoughts – if you have anything to add, please comment below:
Start off by getting the vanity URL: http://www.facebook.com/username/.
Click on that and choose your name. It’s better to have a name, eg. facebook.com/successcoaching than a numbered URL that’s hard to remember.
Then use this url when you’re promoting the page. Don’t forget to add it to your email signature, skype thought bubble, Twitter biog if you’ve got one, everywhere. Make it accessible to all.
Make a content plan for your page – decide on a frequency you’re going to give people stuff (eg 2 or 3 times a week) and make a plan of what you’re going to give them. Create a spreadsheet with months in it and fill in the slots based on seasonality and what’s going on in the business. Eg. In July you’re coming home – so you may want to write a piece on top tips to prepare for a long vacation in June.
Tone: be personal and individual not corporate.
Back to the content plan – it might seem laborious to try and fill 3 times a week with content. But images and video work really well. So spend a pleasant Friday afternoon scouring Youtube for inspirational videos that would be relevant for your page. Then all you have to do it post the video. **If you’re being really whizzy you can set up your WordPress blog to automatically update your FB page whenever a post is made. Then you can pre-load all your vids setting them to go live at dates in the future which means even less effort on your part!
People are more likely to comment on videos and images than just text. And, just like with a blog, it’s important that you acknowledge each and every one of them. Check the page daily and if someone has made a comment on your wall, in a discussion, or elsewhere, acknowledge it.
How to make your content interesting? Well the golden rule is to always write about me me me. Spin the tone of your text so it’s about the user and not the business. Keep it short – short sentences, short words, no multi-syllabic ones as our brains find it hard to process these online. Use bullets, but no more than 5 in a list. Don’t be afraid of headings, sub headings, bolding, and other formatting devices to make your text easy to read.
The big news is that no-one actually reads online: they scan. So you’ve got to present your text in easily scannable chunks. “How to…” , “The top 10 reasons for…”, “Do’s and Don’t's..” are all good styles to use to grab people’s attention. I think they work because they imply that they’re short, so people don’t mind giving you a piece of their attention.
Go off now and enjoy the insights that Facebook will give you about your business, it’s fans, and what kind of things interest them.
Tags: tips for facebook pages
