Mari Smith - Facebook Timeline Cover Image

When you switch to the new Facebook Timeline, one of the first new features you’ll see is the ability to add a large “Cover” image. You’ll also be able to see the Cover images of all other Facebook users who have switched to the new Timeline. (After December 21st, everyone on Facebook will have their profile replaced with Timeline).

What is a Cover?

The Cover is the large image that appears at the top of your new Timeline. This is your place to get creative and let your friends and extended community know a bit more about you. Facebook states:

We’ve found that people have a better experience viewing your timeline when they see a cover that is as unique and individualized as you are….

An easy way to ensure your cover image is unique, is to choose an image from your life, like a photo from a wedding, day at the beach, or birthday party. If you want to use a photo to show solidarity or express support for a cause or organization, you can still post a status or a photo and feature it on your timeline.

Facebook seems to be dissuading users from showcasing anything other than a personal image. However, keep reading…

What are the ideal Cover dimensions?

Your Cover should be at least 720 pixels wide. If it’s any narrower, you’ll be asked to select a different image. I’m seeing various reports that the ideal dimensions should be 850px wide by 315px high. The profile picture is resized to 125px by 125px. Cover images tend to get pixelated, so it’s best to load a high-res image.

Who can see my Cover image?

Cover images are public by default – just like your profile pictures. This means ANYONE visiting your profile, whether you are friends or not, will be able to see your cover image. You don’t have to add a Cover image, but you may as well!

Is business-related content allowed on Cover images?

Now, the main purpose of this blog post came about after a discussion began with some of my friends on Facebook. It seems there’s some confusion as to what you can/cannot have on your new Timeline Cover image. I have scoured Facebook’s Help Center and Terms and have found nothing to directly indicate that it is not permitted to have any business-related content on your Cover.

BUT, the first time you go to upload your Cover image, Facebook may display the following message:

Image credit: Karen Clark

Clearly, Facebook want to prevent users from outright commerce on their profile/Timeline, and use of the Cover image for advertising. But outright commerce surely means something like users shouldn’t sell advertising space? Or, that we should have no commercial content? Hm.

The one rule Facebook has in its Terms regards how we cannot use our profiles commercially is this (Section 4.4):

“You will not use your personal profile for your own commercial gain (such as selling your status update to an advertiser).”

This rule has been around for several years. It makes perfect sense – users cannot derive financial gain directly from their profiles. That’s what Facebook ads are designed for. And, of course, Facebook (fan) Pages are the primary product Facebook offers for building a business presence.

I activated my Timeline back in September via the Developer route. Then, when my latest book came out in October, I put up a Cover image to share details about my book. This has been my Cover image for almost two months now and Facebook has not contacted me to take it down. See below (click to see full size). The lower left corner is where my profile image goes.

Mari Smith - Facebook Timeline Cover Image - Book

By the way, as part of my research for this post, I switched up my Cover image (to the sunrise pictured above) to see if any warnings showed up about what could/could not be featured on Covers… they didn’t, which is why I had to borrow the screenshot above from Larna Pittiglio (found on our mutual friend Pam Brossman‘s wall).

Now, let me digress for a moment to talk about the Subscribe option…

Facebook Subscribe Button

When Facebook introduced the Subscribe button, a noticeable shift occurred.

Subscribe is designed for those Facebook users who are journalists, celebrities, political figures, and other people too.

Allowing subscribers is a simple way to broaden your conversation on Facebook, while reserving personal updates for people you know well.

The way Subscribe works is any and all Facebook users can sign up to get the PUBLIC posts in their News Feed of any user who has enabled Subscribe. NOTE: Subscribe is optional. To enable Subscribe, if you haven’t already and would like to, go here.

Facebook is really pushing the Subscribe option (maybe to compete with Google+? Shh!). For Facebook users that have enabled Subscribe, the button now shows in the Comments plugin on websites, so you can easily find and subscribe to new people. Plus, Facebook recently introduced the Subscribe button plugin for websites, which you can see in action below. Feel free to subscribe to my public updates by clicking the button below!

Though it would seem the Subscribe option is designed for public figure types, a large number of Facebook employees, for example, have enabled his/her Subscribe button. And, clearly, many folks are following suit whether they consider themselves a “public figure” type or not. (See your Subscription suggestions here).

In addition, Mark Zuckerberg himself was one of the first public figures to MERGE his fan page into his personal profile, thus having only one presence on Facebook. (Of course, Zuckerberg owns Facebook and has many business pages too!)

At the time of the Subscribe launch, Facebook approached several “power users” to see if they too would like their fan pages merged into their profiles. (For the record, I was not one of the folks approached – and I’m, quite frankly, more than happy to maintain two very different channels on Facebook. I’ll expand on this in a later post. Or, you’ll find my article on why I love the Subscribe feature in the next issue of the fb & Business magazine).

There is demand for the fan-page-to-profile merge; it’s not available as an option to anyone who wants it yet, though.

So, back to the topic of this post…

Public Profile with business-related content?

Given Facebook offers users a single “public profile” presence with Subscribe option enabled, it’s perfectly feasible that such public figures may wish to have business-related content on their Cover, yes?

What are your thoughts? Is it important to you to be able to feature something related to your business on your Cover image? Do you think personal profiles (now Timelines) should be strictly personal? Or, are you one of the folks eagerly awaiting the option to merge your fan page (likes) into your profile (subscribers). Share your answers in the comments below! And, of course, if you know the definitive answer as to what users can/cannot feature on Timeline Cover images, do share below too!

Helpful related posts:

• How to Master Facebook Timeline in 5 Quick Minutes (wired.com)
• Facebook Timeline: The Complete Guide (mashable.com)
• New to Facebook’s Timeline? This is what you need to know (thenextweb.com)
• Timeline: Now Available Worldwide (facebook.com)
• Facebook Timeline: 9 things you need to know (usatoday.com)
• How to Use Facebook’s New Timeline Feature (and Hide Your Embarrassing Old Posts) (lifehacker.com)

Join my fan page for helpful Facebook tips, links, resources, Q&A and support from my community:

Facebook recently changed the way users interact with content on fan pages: any user, including non-fans, can now post on fan page walls and like/comment/share fan page content. In other words, a Facebook user does not have to first like your fan page before they can interact with your content. This is a good thing!

Since this change, the emphasis has shifted slightly from gaining more likes (fans) to increasing the number of shares on each piece of content. When you craft your fan page updates in a manner that naturally inspires fans and their friends and visitors to your page to share with their networks, you set in motion ripples of viral visibility. Basically, free additional exposure.

Over the past several weeks, I’ve been observing which posts from fan pages and from personal profiles (with Subscribe enabled) garner the largest amount of shares. I also recently asked my Facebook fans and friends for examples of great posts with large numbers of shares. Following are seven tips I’ve compiled for you that seem to help create the most shares:

1. Use an eye-catching image.

Your photo should make people laugh, cry, or go “awww!”

Photos on Facebook have always gotten a slightly higher EdgeRank score, which means better visibility in the News Feed. But, don’t necessarily use an image on every single post; keep it interesting by mixing in links, videos, questions (app), and text only updates.

A fun example is this “social network flowchart” by Breaking Copy – shared on Facebook by “Caribbean King” on October 20th that garnered a whopping 14,642 shares – see screenshot below. (Hat tip to Susie Daniels for the link to the post).

Example Facebook post with over 14,000 shares

The only narrative with the image was a smiley face “:D” – but, given the humor and relevance of the chart to pretty much anyone who saw it, the image gathered huge momentum. Currently, though the Caribbean King has just 673 fans (likes), his “People talking about this” number is 5,002. For most fan pages, to have a “talking about this” number over 7x greater than the number of likes is unusual. (I’ll save the in-depth discussion about the new public-facing “people talking about this” stat for a separate post. My quick advice, though, is do not waste too much time obsessing over this number. Instead, focus on posting quality, relevant posts that people naturally want to share.)

I came across Breaking Copy’s social network flowchart on November 1st when a friend shared it on my Facebook personal profile wall. I found the creator so I could give proper credit (Daryl Lang), and shared the image on my Google+ profile, where it ended up with over 1,480 shares. (And, an edited version by Carmelyne Thompson got 1,105 shares). Though Google+ is gaining in users and momentum, clearly Facebook’s vast userbase makes for significantly more shares. 10x in this one example if we just compare Caribbean King’s Facebook post to my own Google+ post.

When you do share photos, make sure they look great and are eye-catching in a smaller version, given most people will see a reduced size in their News Feed and/or mobile app.

Other photo examples with large numbers of shares include:

• NFL Quarterback Tim Tebow‘s photo from a friend in Afghanistan with over 2,800 shares. (Thanks to Amy Thomas Polk for the link).
• A humorous map of Australia with funny Q&A from the Australian Tourism website, posted by Sam Bush, with 19,600+ shares! (Hat tip Mehdi Benaniba for the link).
• Warren Buffet’s “How To Fix Congress” posted by Gene Vallee with 156,600+ shares. (Props to the Direct Marketing fan page for the link).
• Disney‘s “Life is all about perspective” – cute photo of Bambi and possums with 8,200+ shares. (Thank you Hana Zima for the Disney tip). Note this post has a very short narrative (tip #2) and is written in a way anyone can share (tip #3).

2. Keep the narrative short.

A study by Buddy Media showed that posts 80 characters or less in length receive 27% higher engagement rates. Considering how much content flies by fast in the new moving Ticker at the top right of your Facebook home page, and also in the News Feed, it makes sense that a shorter post will catch Facebook users’ attention quicker.

A fun example is this post by my friend Melonie Dodaro with a cute puppy and teddy bear, which got over 1,700 shares. Melonie shared this on her personal profile – with 4,816 friends and 718 subscribers. Note the narrative Melonie included: “How adorable is this?! Go ahead and share it.” This one example, in fact, makes use of the first four out of my seven tips here: it’s a (cute) photo, the narrative is short, it’s not written in first person, and there’s a call to action to share it.

Example Facebook post with over 1,700 shares

3. Keep first person to a minimum.

Even though I’m a big fan of writing in first person whenever possible, as it creates more warmth and connection with your audience, in order to increase your shares on Facebook, you might want to experiment with keeping the wording more generic. Write in a way that could sound like it was coming from others. As with Melonie’s example above “How adorable is this?!” could be said by anyone.

You can always use first person in your comments when responding to bring in the more personal touch.

Here’s a cute image I created using Snagit to illustrate one of my favorite Steve Jobs’ quotes: “You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” The upbeat narrative I included was, “A special thought for the day!! A good reminder to just GO for it. (Probably still a good idea to wear clothes though, hehee!).” 105 shares from my personal profile.

Follow your heart - Steve Jobs quote shared on Facebook

4. Include a call to action.

Invite your friends, subscribers, fans and their friends along with visitors to your page to share your posts with their friends, subscribers and fans. Simple calls to action such as “Click like if you agree” often work well, so long as the preceding statement/question is relevant. Asking people to add their comments is good too. But, it’s the Share that will likely create the greatest exposure for your page/profile.

This image of 3-D sidewalk art posted by Gallery 2166 simply says, “Dare you not to share this. It’s too amazing.” Yep – 11,449 Facebook users have shared the image so far! (Thanks Jamie Burnett for the link to the image).

Sidewalk art - Facebook post with over 11,000 shares

5. Write about timely topics with helpful tips and resources.

Given the rapid changes on Facebook and the constantly moving social media landscape in general, there’s often plenty fodder to share up-to-the-minute tips, new strategies, and useful resources on your Facebook page and/or profile. These types of posts can be any length and might include links and/or photos or videos. The point is your Facebook network and extended community will find extreme value in reading and sharing the post.

This example from my own fan page is a post with seven tips for staying safe on Facebook – which received 247 shares. I wrote the udpate on the back of Mashable’s blog post about Facebook stating that a staggering 600,000 log-ins per day get compromised. Note the use of the simple, eye-catching image.

Example timely post - 7 Tips To Stay Safe on Facebook

Here’s another example from my fan page where I dispelled a couple of erroneous memes flying around Facebook: one asking users to unsubscribe from their friends’ comments and likes, and another talking about Facebook’s plans to charge for membership (both are not accurate!). The post received 516 shares.

If you’re in an industry that changes rapidly, keep your finger on the pulse and see what timely topics you can write about. Then, with the Facebook posts that do well, repurpose by turning them into posts on your blog.

6. Experiment with longer content.

Despite tip #2 above, now that Facebook increased the maximum update size from 420 characters to 5,000 characters, try writing a “mini-blog post!” Per my tip #5 above, so long as the content is timely, relevant and helpful, you stand a greater chance of getting lots of shares.

7. Share a great cause.

Surf Dog Ricochet posted this precious dog photo with a call to action: pet supplies company Iams had agreed to donate 50 bowls of pet food for shelter animals for every comment on the photo, up to one million bowls. The photo broke the record in just over 24 hours. Though the one million bowls of pet food goal has been attained, the image is still gaining comments and shares. So far: 21,439 comments and 4,180 shares! (Hat tip to Kristi Robertson for the link to this post).

Example great cause with over 4,000 shares

By the way, keep in mind that Facebook has strict rules around promotions; the #1 rule to know is you need to use a third party app if you’re going to conduct any kind of drawing, sweepstakes, contest, or competition. Your own content in an iFrame app qualifies so long as you include the correctly worded disclaimers. See this post for more information.

Share more videos

And a bonus tip, from Ryan Cohn of What’s Next Marketing:

Among large audience clients (celebrities and brands), we typically see the most shares coming from unique/interesting videos. Usually these are behind-the-scenes peaks, though we’ve seen great sharability from loved-but-forgotten YouTube videos too.

You may find that these tips are equally effective for increasing your number of shares on Google+ too.

…and, one more tip for you on the subject of shares: Whenever possible, take time to click through and thank those who share your content. On Facebook, this is really easy to do as the Shares show in a popup window and you can easily click like and add a quick comment. People love to be acknowledged.

What have you found that’s working well on your own profile and/or fan page? What catches your eye on other profiles/pages and compels you to want to share with your own networks? Please do share below and feel free to include permalinks to examples so others may benefit. Thank you!

Facebook Chat Sidebar

You may have noticed the new Facebook Chat Sidebar when you logged in to Facebook recently. The list of friends displayed in this sidebar is supposed to be the friends you interact with most. (A few friends and I are finding that the relevancy of the friends in this display is not that accurate!)

I rarely use the Facebook chat feature, so I thought perhaps the select list of friends was ones I email most often, but it’s not. I wondered if the list is based on a social relevancy algorithm and shows those friends whose content I like or comment upon most often. But, nope!

From Facebook’s chat help:

Which friends appear in the sidebar? Can I add specific friends?

The list of friends in your sidebar is based on who you’ve interacted with most frequently or recently on Facebook. Since it updates dynamically, you can’t manually add friends to the list. The list shows both friends who are available to chat and friends who aren’t.

I’m not a big chatter on Facebook myself. I prefer Skype chat and limit myself there to my own team and a small group of core contacts. I appreciate there are great benefits to being able to live chat anytime, but for me I like to limit my instant availability and stay focused. (And, as for the new Facebook video chat? Or Google+ Hangouts? Maybe once in a blue moon when I happen to be camera ready anyway!)

There are now several changes to the way you use Facebook chat and edit your settings:

1. Chat with friends

Facebook states, “The sidebar is sensitive to the amount of free space you have on your screen, so it only appears if there’s enough room for it. If you don’t see the sidebar, just click Chat in the bottom right corner of your screen, which shows the same list of friends you’ll find in your sidebar.”

To chat with any friend in the new sidebar, click on their name and the chat window opens up.

You’ll know when a friend is available to chat depending on the icon next to their name:

• Friends with a green dot next to their names are available to chat.
• Friends with a gray moon next to their names are available but inactive.
• Friends with no icon next to their names are unavailable.

Even if friends aren’t available to chat, you can still send them a message and they can read it later. Chat messages are also viewable via the Messages (email) box.

To chat with a friend not listed in the new sidebar, start typing their name in the search box at the bottom of the list.

2. Turn off your chat availability entirely:

To “go offline” (not available to chat to anyone):

1. Click the cog icon in the lower right corner.
2. Uncheck “Available to Chat.”

Turn Off Facebook Chat

To go back online at any time and show your friends your available to chat, click the “Chat (Offline)” bar in the lower right:

…then click the hyperlinked “available:”

3. Limit your availability to certain friends:

You can easily display the fact you’re online and available to chat with only certain friends. Other friends will simply see you as offline. First, you’ll need to have Friend Lists set up (see #4 below). Then:

1. Click the cog icon in the lower right corner.
2. Click “Limit Availability.” [UPDATE: 7/18/11 8:30 AM PST - You may find that the "Limit Availability" option does not show up for you. It seems to be very buggy and intermittent. I had to refresh Facebook several times, clear cache, and try different browsers. Sometimes the ability to limit availability shows and sometimes not. Hopefully Facebook is working on correcting this.]
3. Click the menu in the upper left of the popup window; choose from “Make me unavailable to:” OR “Only make me available to:”.
4. Select/deselect any Friend Lists as you wish.
5. Click the Close button.

4. Create Friend Lists

Don’t have Friend Lists set up yet? Just go here and click the “Create A List” button. There are many ways to get back to your list of Friend Lists; one of the easiest ways is to remember the URL is simply facebook.com/friends.

Or, try the nifty Circle Hack app, created to emulate the Google+ circles! See screenshot below (click to enlarge). Circle Hack is a really easy way to segment your Facebook friends – you don’t have to put everyone in a list, maybe just specific friends then leave others as they are. (The Circle Hack app is not affiliated with Facebook.)

Circle Hack app for Facebook Friend Lists

Once you make your friend “circles” via the Circle Hack app, go back to facebook.com/friends to edit as needed. (Sidenote: many people get concerned over the word “hack.” Yes, if your account gets hacked by a hacker that’s a bad thing! But hack can also mean a shortcut, a workaround).

5. Hide the sidebar:

You may want to hide the Chat Sidebar sometimes – that’s easy: click the cog icon > click “Hide Sidebar.”

6. Delete Chat history:

At some point in the past few months, since Facebook has been rolling out the new Messages (email) product, you may have been taken aback to find a conversation history from a long time ago suddenly show up when emailing a friend.

The new Messages product is fully integrated with your email, chat and texting (if you use it). So, let’s say you have a chat with a friend and then wish to delete that conversation. You can clear the Chat Window by clicking the little cog icon in the Chat Window, then click “Clear Window” per the following screenshot:

Clear Facebook Chat Window

BUT, all that does is clear the Chat Window. The conversation is still in your Messages area. So, what to do is click “See Full Conversation” which opens the chat history in your Messages area. (You can also go to the Messages area any time and just search for your friend’s name).  Then click the “Actions” button in the upper right and select “Delete Messages.”

Delete Facebook Chat and/or Messages

You can now delete all. Or, select specific parts of the conversation to delete by clicking the check box next to each entry and clicking the “Delete Selected” button.

By the way, be careful of any chat messaging scams – they are out there. Unfriend/block anyone if needed Refer to the Chat Privacy section on Facebook’s Help Center. For more information on the new chat sidebar, see this section of Facebook’s Help Center. For more extensive help on chat, including video chat, refer to this section.

I trust this guide is helpful to you. Any questions, let me know in the comments below! Do you use the Chat feature much yourself? What do you think of Facebook’s fully integrated email/chat/texting communication system?

UPDATE: The popout feature still works where you can easily see all your friends, plus any friend lists you have and turn the chat slider on or off (green or gray) for each friend list. You may find the popout much easier to use as opposed to the “relevance” list Facebook displays for you!

UPDATE: 7/17/11 3:00PM PST: Since I published this post yesterday, Facebook seems to have removed the Chat Sidebar and reverted back to the old chat. For now, anyway!! Let me know in the comments below if you still have the new Sidebar.

[UPDATE: December 17, 2011: Now that the Facebook Timeline has rolled out worldwide, the way you access your Employer field has changed. Under your Cover image, there are three possible ways to access your Work and Education details and all the other data that was previously under your "Info" tab. See screenshot below - 1) click anywhere in the shaded area, or 2) click the Update Info button, or 3) click About.

Once on the Work and Education Section, click the "Edit" button in the top right of that section. Then begin to type in your own fan page if you work for yourself, or the fan page of your employer. Then add your Position, City/Town and a Description. For the position, you could use standard wording like "CEO" or you can put anything you wish, e.g. I have "Passionate Social Media Leader."

If you currently have more than one job, as far as I know, you can only hyperlink one company fan page on your Timeline. I haven't seen more than one employer linked in this section. However, it's certainly feasible to add more into that section and when visitors/friends click on your About section, they'll see the other jobs/positions. If you have difficulty in getting your main job to show as the featured one on your Timeline, you may need to delete the other jobs/employers and add the main one last.] End update.

Original post follows:

When Facebook upgraded personal profiles to the new design, most of the new features took effect without much effort on the user’s part. If you don’t like a certain photo in your five-photo strip at the top, just “x” it out to hide it from showing at the top. Tabs became links down the side, and we lost the most recent status update at the very top. (Oh, how I miss that feature as well as the wee mini-bio box!).

One of the most significant changes with the new profile design is the personal info at the top of your profile, right under your name. This section contains your job title, place of work, where you live, your birthday, education, hometown, languages, college/high school and a few other pertinent fields.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you prefer not to share any of these areas, just leave those fields blank when you edit your profile information. As you can see in the screenshot below, I choose to only show my title, employer, city of residence and birthday. I figure less is more when it comes to personal info on Facebook! By the way, only you can see fields left blank as indicated by links inviting you to “Add your xxxx.”

[Also, hot tip: be sure to change your date of birth to only show month and day - not the year - to add a layer of protection].

The #1 mistake? Your Employer link is a Community Page!

Go to your Facebook profile now and mouseover your Employer field – you’ll see it’s not linked to your fan page! When Facebook changed your profile to the new design, it automatically hyperlinked your EMPLOYER field to an auto-generated COMMUNITY PAGE!

(What is a Community Page? It’s an auto-generated wiki style of page that, in some ways, “competes” with your official fan page… at least, it can be confusing for some people when they’re trying to find you. For a full explanation of Community Pages and what you need to know, see this post.)

If you work for yourself and have your own Facebook Fan Page (or you’re an employee and your employer has a fan page), I highly recommend that you change this Employer field to your Fan Page.

Facebook Fan Page Hover Card on Mari Smith's Profile

I’ve seen hundreds and hundreds of personal Facebook profiles where the user is clearly blissfully unaware that they are missing out on an opportunity to promote their Fan Page right at the top of their profiles. We have no idea how many people might be browsing our personal profiles, whether they are friends or not, and you may as well take the opportunity to promote your fan page.

How to add your Facebook Fan Page as your Employer:

The process is straightforward:

1. Click Edit Profile > then go to the Education and Work section.
2. Begin typing the name of your fan page in the Employer field.
3. If you see your fan page in the dropdown menu, select it.
4. Then fill out the remaining fields (Position, City/Town, Description and Time Period). If you also add in any business partners/colleagues, this will show on their profile too under the Employer section.
5. Click Add Job.
6. You can also add Project(s) to any position and add business partners/colleagues (again, this shows on their Employer section).
7. Voila!

If you find that your fan page just does not want to show up in the Employer field, there is a Ninja workaround which takes a tad of tecchie knowledge. See this helpful tutorial.

That’s it. I’m sure there are many other “mistakes” some Facebook users make on their personal profiles (besides having a personal profile in the name of a business which is a violation of Facebook’s terms!). But, I feel this one mistake with the missed opportunity to promote your fan page is the most overlooked area.

Any questions, let me know in the comments below. Also, what other mistakes or tips for optimizing profiles do you know of? Feel free to share!

Recommended reading:

• Quick Guide To The New Facebook Profile Layout [IMAGE]
• Essential Guide To Facebook Page Changes [SCREENSHOTS]
• 15 Frequently Asked Questions About Facebook Pages
• Facebook Now Allows Personal Profiles To Be Converted Into Business Pages [insidefacebook.com]
• Companies Make Lousy Friends [joshuaswodeck.com]
• How to Add Official Facebook Page to Your Profile Employer Link [wchingya.com]

Many businesses have been confused as to whether a Facebook Group or a Facebook Page is the best solution when it comes to marketing on the largest online social network.

I’ve always recommended Pages because they’re the only feature on Facebook to get indexed on Google. (Whether someone has an account on Facebook or not, whether a user is logged on or not, they can search and find Facebook Pages on Google). Plus, the content you share on your Page goes out into the News Feed of your fans (depending on the “EdgeRank” score), and you can easily customize your Page with apps.

With Old Groups, the content didn’t go into the News Feed of members and you couldn’t add custom apps. One primary advantage of Old Groups was that Admins could send a message to all members in groups with up to 5,000 members, and the email would go right into members’ main inbox (that is, before New Messages came along!). As soon as your group went over 5,000, it could keep growing but the feature to email all members disappeared. In addition, the option to have an Open, Closed or Secret group has its advantages.

Introducing New Groups

Then, in October last year, Facebook unveiled their vastly different “New Groups” because it seemed Old Groups had run their course and much confusion continued around whether to use a Page or a Group. The biggest change with the New Groups was that members could be added without their permission, which caused a lot of pushback in the blogosphere.

Facebook argued that you could only ever be added to a group by someone who was your Facebook friend – presumably, our friends on Facebook wouldn’t add us to groups we didn’t want to be in. And, if you don’t want to be in a New Group? Just click the Remove button.

As Mark Zuckerberg stated in his own blog post about New Groups, this new product was designed for small groups of friends:

The biggest problem in social networking is helping you easily interact with your friends and share information in lots of different contexts.

For example, you might want to share photos from a family vacation with just your family, send a video from a party to just the people who were there, invite coworkers to an office event, play a game with a few friends, or use a running website with your friends who like jogging.

We’ve long heard that people would find Facebook more useful if it were easier to connect with smaller groups of their friends instead of always sharing with everyone they know. For some it’s their immediate family and for others it’s their fantasy football league, but the common concern is always some variant of, “I’d share this thing, but I don’t want to bother 250 people. Or my grandmother. Or my boss.”

Remember, the average number of friends Facebook users have is a mere 130. (Keep in mind the Dunbar 150). Those of us who choose to push up close to the 5,000 limit are an anomaly. So, Facebook’s New Groups were designed to communicate with small groups… but that’s not to say many marketers are using the New Groups for business purposes: focus groups, masterminds, networking, etc.

The advantage (or disadvantage, depending on how you look at it!) of these New Groups is the email notifications – much like a Google Group, Yahoo Group or LinkedIn Group. Any time a member makes a post, it goes out to all members as an email notification… unless and until they turn off these emails. (See question #8 below for how to edit these settings).

All owners of the old style Groups were basically left in the lurch; they couldn’t upgrade and couldn’t take advantage of the features of New Groups without starting all over.

Old Groups migrating to New Groups

Now, more change is happening with Groups and, again, there is some confusion and pushback. Basically, Facebook is now on a mission to eradicate all Old Groups and focus solely on New Groups for connecting in smaller groups of people you know (or want to get to know!) and Pages for business.

1. What is the difference between “archiving” and “upgrading” my Old Group?

If you are the owner (or a member) of an Old Group, you will see at the top one of two messages now: either the group is scheduled to be archived or you have the option of upgrading.

UPGRADE

If your Old Group has sufficient recent activity then you’ll be offered the choice to upgrade. Upgrading means that your Old Group basically morphs into the New Group format and pretty much everything remains intact, including content and members. Members will receive an email notification of the upgrade and begin to receive email notifications of group activity by their friends, unless they edit or turn this setting off.

In the Help Center on the Old to New Group upgrade, Facebook reminds us:

Keep in mind that the new groups format was designed to help you share with the small groups of people in your life. If you’ve been using your old group to promote your business, we recommend you create a page instead.

So far, one Old Group I’m a member of has been upgraded and it has over 700 members. Hm, not exactly what I’d call small!

ARCHIVE

If your Old Group has been inactive for a while, your only option is to allow Facebook to automatically archive your group. What this means is your Old Group will also morph into the New Group format and all your content will be migrated over. However, NO members will be migrated! You’ll basically have an empty, dormant group. Pretty useless, if you ask me.

But then, Facebook figured you weren’t really using the Group anyway and the migration is simply a way for you to retain your past content. You can add members back into an archived group, though, and get it going again. Keep in mind you can only add your Facebook friends as members of any groups.

2. Do I have a choice as to upgrading vs. archiving my Old Group?

No, unfortunately not. You’re at the mercy of Facebook’s algorithms. If you see the message that your group will be archived soon, you won’t be given the option to upgrade. Only those groups with “enough recent activity to make it a good candidate for a new group” will see the message at the top of their Old Group that they can upgrade.

*NEWSFLASH: This comment just in from my fan page:

Sue Soucy Excellent post as always, Mari! I have a little trick that I tried (and it worked)… One of my old groups that I was planning to revive soon had the message up top that didn’t include the ability to upgrade. So, I started to make a little activity on the page. I left a post… went back to it a day later and clicked “like” and then a couple days later, the option to upgrade showed up!

*Update to this post added 11:00pm PST May 10, 2011.

3. How do I delete my Old Group?

If you’re the original Admin that created the group, the only way to fully delete an Old Group is to remove all members, then remove yourself and the group will vanish. Facebook automatically removes groups with no members. Obviously, if you have a large number of members, this isn’t very practical. However, refer to question #1 and 2 above – most likely you’ll either want to keep an active upgraded New Group or just let a dormant archived New Group sit there.

4. Can I message everyone in my New Group?

With the email notification feature, by default, all members receive an email any time any member who is a friend of theirs posts/comments on the group wall. In essence, New Groups are truly a group experience as opposed to one owner communicating with all members. Remember that group members can turn off email notifications, of course; however, they would still see activity in their groups directly on Facebook.

5. Will I suddenly start to get a bunch of spam email from upgraded groups?

The default email notification setting is to receive emails when a friend posts. So, unless you have a ton of friends who are very active in a group, your email should be manageable. However, you can change email notification settings in any of your groups  – just click the Edit Settings button at the top right (and see question #8 below).

6. How do I see a list of all the Groups I’ve joined?

On your home page, look down the left side – if you’re a member of any New Groups and have chosen to show them in your navigation, you’ll see a list there plus a “See All” link at the bottom (you may need to click “More” first depending on how many New Groups you’re in). Or, if you have Groups in your list of apps further down, just click that link to see all your groups.

See All Facebook Groups

7. How do I leave a Group?

To leave either an Old Group or New Group, go to your list of Groups (see #6 above) and just hover over any group name, then click the “x.” Or, you can navigate to the group first and click the Leave Group link (bottom left on Old Groups, upper right on New Groups). I’m going through all 150+ groups that I joined over the years and am choosing to leave most of them. I’ve checked many of them and it seems very few will be upgraded anyway; most have the archive notice due to inactivity.

8. How do I change my email notification settings for New Groups?

Go to the group you wish to edit and look for the “Edit Settings” button at the top right of the group page. See screenshot below:

Edit Facebook Group Settings

In the popup window, the first menu for notifications has four choices – you can receive an email when 1) A member posts or comments (maximum notifications), 2) A member posts (not comments), 3) A friend posts (my recommendation for groups with lots of active members), or 4) Only posts I am subscribed to (ideal for best control but you may miss some new posts).

You then check or uncheck the email box. You can choose to show the group in your home page navigation always, sometimes, or never; and opt to receive group chat messages or not.

In addition, be sure to go to your main email notifications settings here and scroll to the third section down for Groups where you can select the various default settings you’d like for all Groups:

I trust this was helpful whether you are an Old/New Group member or owner. I plan to write another blog post that goes into great detail about all the New Group settings, uses for these groups, and group etiquette.

Meantime, please let me know in the comments below if you have any questions about the topic of Old to New Group migration. Do you have an Old Group that is being archived? Or upgraded? If so, how are members responding to the upgrade? Will you be going through all the groups you joined some time ago and leaving most of them?

Related posts:

• NEWS FLASH: The End Is Near For Old Facebook Groups
• Facebook Notifies Admins That Content but Not Members of Most Old Groups Will Be Migrated
• Using an Old Facebook Group? Upgrade Now!

Thanks to Mashable and Robert Scoble, I recently discovered the brilliant new platform, Storify which just came out of private beta. If you often spend many long hours searching through all the different social platforms and setting up ancillary tools just to get the exact information you want… only to find there isn’t really a solid way to then share your curated content with your community, your prayers have been answered!

Storify allows you to easily search, find specific content, drag and drop individual stories, and create your own selection of content. And, to top it off, the full story comes as an embeddable widget. Love that! The possibilities are endless. Robert Scoble calls this “bundling” – it’s an advanced level of curating!

Storify is designed for users to compile a variety of social updates on a certain topic from a variety of sources in one place. Or, you could display your own content on a specific subject all in one place as I’ve chosen to do for my first Storify!

Below, I’ve created a selection of some of my most popular Facebook marketing blog posts and videos, along with a handful of current tweets pertaining to Facebook marketing resources. Be sure to click the blue Load More link at the foot of the Storify widget for the full selection of Facebook resources! You can also see this story on my Storify page here.

How Storify works:

You login to Storify via your Twitter account. Then select content from Twitter (your own tweets, lists, any user, searches, hashtags etc.), Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Google search, any RSS feed, any link, Delicious bookmarks and any story or user on Storify.

There are three more sources you can choose to add in: SlideShare, Causes and Audioboo under Settings > Sources. PLUS, you can assign editors to edit your stories (including drafts) – go to Settings > Editors.

Once you’re happy with the content you’ve selected and the order (easily drag and drop any individual story), add headlines above each section if you wish (just click the little “T” for text icon). Then publish! Once published, you can embed the widget as I’ve done above. PLUS, Storify provides an option to publish your Storify stories to Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, Posterous, Tumblr and/or MailChimp. Nifty!!

There’s really only one improvement I’d like to see at this stage and that is the ability to login via Facebook and the ability to easily select posts from my fan page to display in a Storify. Otherwise, I’m delighted with Storify and will be using it time and again for a variety of cool stories!

See this post on Mashable that includes a quick demo video of how Storify works.

Please share your thoughts below. Have you tried Storify yet? How did you like it? What is missing for you? Have you tried other content curating/”bundling” platforms such as Curated.by? Do you think with the constant flood of information coming at us every day, there is more and more need for tools such as Storify?

There are many online tools I use every single day to manage my social media marketing effectiveness. In my recent interview with Darren Hardy for the May 2011 issue of SUCCESS Magazine, I talked about many of these tools. During our interview, Darren asked if I would put together my top ten list of social media resources for readers of SUCCESS. Of course I said yes – here they are!

(It’s a delight and honor to be one of three featured expert interviews on the CD that comes with the magazine, along with Peter Guber – author of Tell to Win, and leadership guru, John C. Maxwell. My audio interview is all about how to build “social equity” through relationship marketing. Plus, check out the article starting on page 38 “Networking With New Media” with contributions from Gary Vaynerchuk, Susan RoAne, Maribeth Kuzmeski, yours truly and others. The theme of this SUCCESS issue is all about connecting and the cover story features one of my favorite visionary leaders: none other than Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and co-founder of Facebook.)

Here’s my top ten tools:

1.  HootSuite.com

A fantastic free online tool to manage multiple social media profiles, pre-schedule updates for specific days and times, monitor keywords and analyze statistics. Plus, check and reply to saved searches, Twitter Lists, @ mentions, Direct Mentions and more.  Also available as a mobile app which provides an excellent way to pre-schedule your social updates on the fly.  Paid version also available with additional features. (See TweetDeck.com as an alternative tool to try that is equally as popular).

2.  Bit.ly

The top link shortening service, ideal for Twitter but just as useful for Facebook and even email marketing to track clicks. Copy your long link and paste into your bit.ly account. Easily make custom links and track how many clicks you get. For example, this is a link to one of my most popular blog posts with a directory of Facebook contact forms: http://bit.ly/FBforms.

Check the raw link and stats for any bit.ly link by simply adding a “+” sign at the end, whether it’s your bit.ly link or someone else’s. Plus, be sure to add the bit.ly sidebar to easily shorten and tweet any weblink. Another cool feature is the little popup notification of “trending bits” when one of your bit.ly links receives a number of clicks in a short time.

3.  Twitter Lists

Easily build your own source of curated content by making a list of Twitter users in a certain field of expertise. Twitter allows up to 20 lists per account with up to 500 names in each list. Lists can be public or private. Anyone can follow a public list. (See Twitter List instructions here).

You might set up a list for top news in your industry (be sure to add your own name!). I refer to my own Facebook Marketing Twitter list several times a day to stay up to date on breaking news about Facebook. (See also Listorious for a wonderful compilation of lists to find and follow.) Here’s my Facebook Marketing Twitter List embedded in a widget below (make your own widgets here):

4.  Facebook Like Button

Adding a small piece of code to your website and/or installing the Facebook Like Button WordPress plugin allows visitors to your website and blog to share your content with all their Facebook friends. You can change the verb from “like” to “recommend” – great for placing on the top right of an entire website. Also, include the Like Button on all opt-in pages and sales pages for extra viral visibility.

I love the Facebook Like button for social proof and for quickly and easily sharing content with my Facebook friends. However, I must say since the Like Button changed from a one-line story to a full-on story with randomly chosen thumbnail and a description, I’ve actually been clicking on it less often. I liked the one-line as I could click several links in a row and it wouldn’t clog up the feed of my friends.

If you’d like to test the like button, click the recommend button below for my blog – then go check your Facebook profile wall to see what was posted!

5.  TweetMeme Button

This is the Twitter equivalent to the Facebook Like Button. Add it to your blog, website, sales pages and anywhere you want to make it easy for your visitors to share your content with their Twitter followers. I love to use the TweetMeme button myself whenever I find great content on the web to share with my Twitter followers – the button is typically already formatted with a short link and the author’s Twitter ID.

You’ll see the TweetMeme button at the top and bottom of this post - that’s the WordPress TweetMeme plugin. (In addition to the Facebook Like Button and TweetMeme Button, be sure to also add the LinkedIn Share button to your website, blog, opt-in pages and sales pages).

Tweetmeme Retweet Button

6.  Twellow.com

Twellow is the Yellow Pages of Twitter with tens of millions of accounts listed. Set up a free account, then find and follow targeted people by searching for keywords users have in their bio. Browse categories and also drill down to cities around the world to find top users in a specific location (see “Twellowhood” tab). Twellow is a great tool for building your Twitter following. Be sure to add your keyword-rich extended bio as the search feature also crawls this field! (As an alternative, more automated tool to try instead/as well, see TweetAdder.com).

7.  ManageFlitter.com

Easily manage your Twitter following, unfollow inactive accounts, find out who isn’t following you back and more. There are many ways to sort including by profiles with no images, inactive, no bio and more. Free and paid versions available. This is such a fun tool to use and very effective. I haven’t found anything like it out there. (As an alternative, check out the popular tool SocialOomph.com. I use SocialOomph every day to auto follow those who follow me; then 1-2 times a week, I filter and clean up the following using Manage Flitter).

Manage Flitter

8.  Echofon

Mobile App for Twitter – I’ve tried many, many mobile apps to manage Twitter on my iPhone and keep coming back to Echofon. The app offers a variety of great features and is always synched with your online Twitter activity. Check and reply to saved searches, Twitter Lists, trending topics, @ mentions, Direct Mentions and more.

Echofon also offers desktop apps for Mac and Firefox. (Plus, a Facebook mobile app! However, I find Facebook’s own iPhone app works just fine.)

9.  Disqus Blog Commenting System

A wonderful, user-friendly addition to any blog, Disqus allows users to have their own portable profile for commenting. Comments can easily be shared with their Facebook friends and Twitter followers. Visitors to your blog can simply post a comment using their Facebook or Twitter account with one-click instead if they don’t have a Disqus login. Try out the Disqus commenting system on my blog here – scroll down and leave me a comment!

10. TwentyFeet

An easy and simple way to track and monitor all your social media metrics. You get two social media accounts for free for life. After that, the fee is extremely nominal ($2.49 a year!) for additional accounts. Track your Facebook profile, fan pages, Twitter accounts, YouTube, Bit.ly, Google Analytics and more. TwentyFeet sends you a daily email with activity reports as compared to predicted activity based on past performance. (See also SocialBakers.com to use instead or as well for tracking your Facebook metrics.)

TwentyFeet - Example daily email

I trust you found some nifty new tools here! Let me know what your favorites are – feel free to list them below in the comments. It seems every day there are more and more new tools available to assist in making our social media and online marketing more effective.

Do you tend to stick with the more established platforms and tools? Or are you always on the hunt for the holy grail of social media tools that does everything under the sun? Let me know in the comments below.

Recommended reading:

• 22 Hot New Social Media Tools Worth Exploring [socialmediaexaminer.com]
• How To Evaluate And Compare Social Media Tools [oneforty.com]
• oneforty.com [directory of social media tools]
• 22 Social Media Marketing Management Tools [toprankblog.com]

Any time you offer an event – live or virtual – there are several ways you can capitalize on Facebook’s tools to increase your event registrations. Thing is, many Facebook users create all manner of events and insist on inviting all their friends… only to upset those friends with the constant barrage of invitations and emails about events of no interest or relevancy. So, let’s take a look at what does work in terms of promoting events on Facebook!

By way of example, I’m going to use the upcoming Social Media Success Summit 2011 presented by Michael Stelzner and his team at Social Media Examiner. Anything Mike turns his hand to is professional and effective! (Note: this is my third year in a row as a member of Mike’s executive team for these Summits, as well as one of the instructors.)

First, I recommend you always have your own event sales/registration page outside of Facebook. The only exceptions might be if a) your event is coming up quickly, b) it’s free and/or c) it’s for a relatively small group. (For small group events, I recommend never, ever revealing the event location to the public. There have been many wild stories of flash mobs for private parties, including a fourteen-year-old gal in the UK with 21,000 RSVP’s for her birthday party. Yikes!)

So, once you have your own web page set up with details of your event and a way to purchase tickets, apply these six tips to generate more buzz, visibility and ticket sales:

1. Add social share buttons to your event registration page

There’s no doubt about it, numbers mean social proof. The more Facebook Likes, retweets, LinkedIn shares etc. on your blog posts and web pages the more visitors will perceive your content as being popular and will also want to share. The best place to position your social share buttons is at the top right “above the fold” (visible without scrolling). See this screenshot below of the Social Media Success Summit 2011 registration page:

Social Share Buttons on Social Media Success Summit page

At minimum, add the following social share buttons to your event registration page:

• TweetMeme Retweet Button
• Facebook Like Button* or Facebook Share Button with Counter
• LinkedIn Share Button

*Note the Facebook Like Button now functions (almost) the same as the Facebook Share Button. The big difference is there isn’t an obvious place to write your own narrative before posting to Facebook, plus you cannot select the thumbnail. Clicking the Facebook Like Button automatically pushes the full story into your personal Profile stream. So, you may wish to add the Facebook Share Button with Counter to your registration page instead.

Facebook Comments Plugin

I also highly recommend adding the newly upgraded Facebook Comments Plugin to your event page. I love the way the plugin now syncs with users’ Profiles or fan Pages – what that means is anytime someone writes a comment (and the button for posting to Facebook remains checked – see screenshot below), you get additional visibility for your event page!

I recently offered a couple of free Facebook marketing webinars and had my web team add the Facebook Comments Plugin to the registration page, the thank you page, and the replay page. The same plugin (and social share buttons) are on all three pages so the same numbers and comments appeared in all three places, *but* the link that gets posted on Facebook through comments – and shared through the social buttons – is the registration page. Gotta love that! Test the comments plugin live here.

Facebook Comments Plugin

You can find the new Facebook Comments Plugin here.

See also the post on Social Media Examiner with the TV show I did on 8 Ways to Use Social Share Buttons on Your Blog for additional ideas on what to add to your registration page!

2. Add a blurb to your Facebook Page banner

The image on your fan Page is prime real estate. The maximum dimensions are now 180px by 540px – I recommend taking up all that space. (Though, now that we have a list of links down the left instead of the lovely row of tabs across the top, you might want to make your fan Page image height less than 540px so more of the navigation links can be seen “above the fold.”)

Social Media Examiner do a great job of utilizing this space on their Page. As you can see, their Facebook Page image has been made to look like two banners in one. Plus, note that the call to action offers a “free sample class” which is more appealing than selling tickets directly on the banner.

Social Media Examiner Facebook Page image

You could also add images about the event to your fan Page to go across the five-photo strip with calls to action. See this post for ideas: How To Use The New Facebook Photo Viewer As A Marketing Tool.

3. Promote your registration page on your fan Page wall

So long as you consistently provide enough valuable content on your fan Page wall, you can certainly periodically promote the direct link to your event. I like to start with a question – something like “Have you got your ticket yet to this exciting event?” or “Hands up who’s attending this event?!”

You could mix up sharing the link to your registration page and the link to your Facebook Event (see next tip). The screenshot below shows a recent post by Mike revealing that over 1000 participants are already registered for this mega event – again, there’s that social proof!

Social Media Examiner Wall Post

4. Create a Facebook Event

Notice this is tip #4, not #1! Facebook Events is one of the most mis-used and misunderstood features. There are basically two ways to create an Event on Facebook: 1) via your personal Profile and 2) via your fan Page.

If you create an Event from your personal Profile, you will have the ability to message all invitees directly into their inbox. This one feature alone makes the Events created by your Profile the most attractive. (In essence, it’s a “loophole” to “spam” all your friends! Uhoh! Also, it used to be you could select all friends at once with the use of a javascript snippet in your browser’s address bar; however, as of recently that trick no longer works. Probably a good thing too!) UPDATE 4.4.11: Thank you to Courtney Parham for pointing out that the javascript code does still work; it changed to this one.

With the new Messages product many Event emails are now bypassing the Inbox and go straight to the “Other” folder.

HOT TIP: If you’d rather not receive Event invitations/emails from certain friends but you don’t want to unfriend him/her, help is at hand! There’s a little-known feature on Facebook that allows you to block Event invitations from specific friends. Just go to Account > Privacy > Block Lists > scroll to Block event invites and type in the friend’s name. Voila. Your friend will be none the wiser.

I strongly suggest you create a Facebook Event via your fan Page for any business-related events and keep the personal/social events for your Profile. Just click the Events link on the left of your fan Page, then click the “Create an Event” button.

The downside with Page-created Events is you cannot message all invitees – you can only send an “Update” and it goes to all fans, just as if you are sending a regular Update from your fan Page. However, if you think of your Facebook Event as an outpost for additional engagement between potential attendees, attendees and yourself as the host, you’ll get more traction.

Once your Facebook Event is set up, you can always ask your invitees (via the Event wall and via periodic Updates) and ask your fans (via your Page wall) to invite their friends and/or to post the Event on their Profile. This gives you extra viral visibility around Facebook. See screenshot below – the Share feature is now a link at the top just under the event title.

Social Media Success Summit 2011 - Facebook Event

One thing to note about Facebook Events, you’ll want to make it really clear there is a link that Facebook users need to click in order to register. Some people might think that by clicking the “I’m Attending” button they have signed up for your event. Write periodic updates and messages on the Event wall to encourage everyone to go get their ticket if they haven’t already.

Also, the Event photo/graphic is one of the most important features – when users share the Event around Facebook, the thumbnail of the image goes with it.

5. Offer live micro events on your fan Page

A regular feature that Social Media Examiner does really well on their Facebook Page is “Expert Fridays” where a subject matter expert spends one hour answering questions directly on the fan Page wall. In the midst of a Summit promotion, Mike makes a point of featuring instructors from the upcoming Summit as guest experts. This helps to introduce the faculty to Mike’s community, provides tremendous value, and helps to further build social equity.

Example Expert Friday - Guest from previous Summit

Mike says:

A few times a month, SocialMediaExaminer.com conducts Facebook Friday expert sessions. We invite a book author or well-known social media expert to answer questions on our Facebook wall for an hour. We promote the event and the expert guest for a few days before the live event. On the day and hour of the event, our readers flock to our Facebook wall and ask the expert questions. It’s a fun and engaging time where the expert shares great knowledge. And sometimes our Facebook fans chime in with their advice as well. Whether your micro event is a webinar, live video broadcast, an Internet radio show, or some other activity, the benefits of micro events are significant for your business.

I have often hosted micro events myself, such as a “flash chat” using an app like Clobby. Or an impromptu webinar using livestreaming apps like Vpype or the new Linqto (coming out of beta next month). Bottom line, many of your fans are on Facebook throughout the day and just love to interact with you LIVE! Use this engagement as an opportunity to add value and to seed your upcoming event.

6. Encourage attendees to engage and share

Once participants have signed up for your event, encourage them to come write on your Facebook Event wall and engage through other social channels. For the Social Media Success Summit 2011, Mike has a whole section for attendees called “Social Networking” which includes an invitation to join the private LinkedIn Group, interact on the Facebook Event page, tweet about the Summit, add an Attendee Badge to their website. Plus, a widget displays the livestream of #smss11 tweets, and all Summit instructors photos and Twitter IDs are displayed too.

Attendee Social Networking

And, here’s a bonus tip:

Include a “Share on Facebook” badge in all your promotional emails!

I created this badge, which you’re welcome to use:

Click the badge above to give it a try! The badge shares this blog post and you’ll have a chance to add your own comment and select a thumbnail.

To make your own link code for sharing your content on Facebook, use this: http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=XXX (replace XXX with your event URL including the http://).

Join the web’s largest Social Media event!

These Summits are among my favorite events each year. I’m honored to be a presenter and I also make a point of attending all the other sessions and join in the live tweeting – the content is second to none. Unlike events where the content is light and the pitching is heavy, the Social Media Success Summit is heavy on content and has zero pitching! By attending this Summit you’ll be able to apply practical social media marketing methods right away that will help you to create more visibility, reach more customers and take your business to the next level.

I’m leading two all-new sessions on Facebook marketing at the Summit this year:

• Facebook News Feed Optimization: How to Dramatically Increase Your Visibility and Engagement
• How to Create a Stampede of Local Customers Via Your Facebook Page, Places and Deals

Come join me and 21 other subject-matter experts at this year’s Social Media Success Summit!

The Social Media Success Summit 2011 expert instructors include many of my favorite thought leaders in the new media space: Jeremiah Owyang (Altimeter Group), Brian Solis (author, Engage), Frank Eliason (Citigroup), Erik Qualman (author, Socialnomics), Michael Stelzner (founder, Social Media Examiner), Dan Zarrella (author, The Social Media Marketing Book), Andy Sernovitz (author,Word of Mouth Marketing), and David Meerman Scott (author, Real-Time Marketing & PR). Plus, experts from Verizon, Boeing, Intel, and Cisco will be sharing their proven social media tactics and strategies.

I trust you found some valuable tips for increasing your event registration in this post! What did I miss? Have you successfully used Facebook Ads to sell more event tickets? What other social media event promotion ideas have you seen that work well? Let me know in the comments below!

• Facebook Comments Plugin Upgrades – What You Need To Know
• 15 Frequently Asked Questions About Facebook Pages
• Essential Guide To Facebook Page Changes [SCREENSHOTS]
• How To Use The New Facebook Photo Viewer As A Marketing Tool

Facebook provides a comprehensive Help Center with its own range of FAQs along with helpful content from a vast number of users. [There's even a handy Leaderboard - Top Contributor - with points system to see which users have been most helpful. Links just go to the user's personal Profile, though. It would be great to see all their answers in one place, similar to user profiles on Quora.]

The Help Center can be difficult to navigate and zero in on the exact solution for the issue you’re having on Facebook. I often find the most reliable way to find information on Facebook is to actually do a Google search!

Then, there’s Facebook Questions which I have yet to find useful, quite frankly. It’s not intuitive to navigate and search for accurate answers.

You could certainly search for answers to your Facebook questions on Quora – in many ways, this platform is easier and more helpful than Facebook’s Help Center and Questions.

There’s also Yahoo Answers, LinkedIn Answers, Ask.com, Get Satisfaction… but you could keep digging and still not find what you’re looking for!

So, in the interests of simplifying life, this post is one of a series of Facebook FAQs gathered from the questions regularly asked on my own Page wall and via Twitter. Just about every question warrants its own separate blog post and I may just do that over time. Meantime, I felt it would be a more useful resource in one place.

Feel free to ask questions in the comments section below that are not listed here, and I’ll do my best to reply and/or add to the follow up FAQ posts. This post focuses on questions pertaining to Fan Pages. I have a separate list of Profile-related FAQs to follow.

1. How do I secure a username for my fan page?

You first need to get a minimum of 25 fans. Then go to http://facebook.com/username to register a unique username (vanity URL) for your fan Page. See this Help section on Facebook for more assistance with usernames.

If the username you want shows as not available (and when you go to pull up the URL, nothing comes up), you’ll need to contact Facebook directly. See this directory of forms. I have not yet found a form specifically for this request, but you could try a form like the one for intellectual property infringement.

2. How do I switch between posting on my Page as my Profile and as my Page?

To post as your Page, in the top nav bar click Account > Use Facebook as Page. Or, in the Admins area at the top right of your Page, click Use Facebook as xxxx (your Page name).

To post as your Profile, click the Edit Page button > Your Settings > and make sure the Posting Preferences box is unchecked > click the Save Changes button. Then make sure you’re using Facebook as your Profile (Account > Switch back to your name). If you want to leave the default so you always post as your Page regardless of whether you’re viewing Facebook in Profile mode or Page mode, leave the button checked as shown in the screenshot below:

See also this Essential Guide to Facebook Page Upgrades for more help.

3. Where did the Suggest to Friends feature go?

Facebook removed this feature for all Pages and instead encourages users to use the Share button found at the bottom left of all Pages. See this entry in Facebook’s Help Center: How can people suggest my Page to their friends?

However, the Suggest to Friends feature does still appear for Admins and has been moved to the top right of your Page now in the Admins area. I have heard reports that, since the Page Upgrades, the form is very buggy and that the friends don’t always receive the invites. Hopefully this is being resolved. Keep an eye on Facebook’s Known Issues Page.

As a sidenote, I’ve never been a fan of the Suggest to Friends feature – except for having other people suggest your Page to their friends. Suggesting to your own friends doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, because your friends are already connected to you. You could just periodically @ tag your Page on your Profile and/or use the Share button and include an enticing incentive, not just “come and like my Page.”

There is an app called Suggest This which I took for a test run recently. However, suggestions are limited to just 12 friends at a time (a limit imposed by Facebook). I’m told by GroSocial, the app creators, that users can come back daily to suggest in batches of 12. I’m not sure how many users would go to the trouble of suggesting a Page 12 friends at a time, but oh well!

4. How do I get more fans?

There are many creative online and offline ways to build your fanbase. If you focus on building organically by using a two-part blend of 1) providing consistent quality content, and 2) providing consistent quality engagement, over time, the quantity comes. For a list of 21 ways to build your fanbase, see this popular post I wrote last year. I have a follow up post in the hopper with another 21 ways to get more fans! Stay tuned.

The secret isn’t growing a huge fan base. We have 100,000 Facebook fans, but those fans have all come to us organically. We believe the more organic the growth, the more loyal the fans, the more likely they will be repeat customers. – Cam Balzer, vice president of marketing at Threadless

5. When a Page likes my Page, does it affect my total fan count?

No. Only likes by Facebook users (personal Profiles) are counted as a fan.

6. How can I see all the Pages that have liked my Page?

I’d love to see a simple solution to this one myself. However, to my knowledge the only way you can tell is a) when other Pages write on your Page wall (because they have to like your Page first in order to post content/comment) and/or b) look on the Info tab section of any fan Page and you’ll see a list of the Pages they’ve liked (the same place where liked Pages are listed on your personal Profile).

7. How can I run a contest on my fan page within Facebook’s guidelines?

Bottom line, you have to use a third party app. Now that Facebook replaced Static FBML with iFrames, you are basically creating your own app so could run a contest that way so long as you comply to all of Facebook’s Promotions Guidelines. See this comprehensive guide on Facebook promotions that I wrote for Social Media Examiner.

8. How do I add custom content to my fan page now that the Static FBML app has gone away?

Select a third party app provider and/or use Facebook’s new iFrames. For a long list of possible app solutions, see this directory. For excellent tutorials on creating your own iFrame content, see my friend Tim Ware’s blog at HyperArts.

9. How can I create a Welcome tab with non-fan and fan-only content?

Many app providers are now offering simple solutions with two clearly marked text or image areas where you paste in what you want non-fans to see and fans to see. This is often referred to as a “reveal tab,” “fan-only content,” and “fangating.” See this list of app solutions for ideas.

10. Why do @ tags only work some of the time?

You can @ tag any friend, or fan Page you’ve liked, or Event to which you’ve RSVP’d. However, depending on a few temporary bugs on Facebook and possibly browser issues, @ tags are not always 100% reliable. I’ve found clearing cache, restarting my browser, switching from Firefox to Safari or Chrome, or logging out of Facebook and back in again can help in getting @ tags to function properly. This goes for the new @ tags in comments too.

11. When I @ tag another Page, why doesn’t my post show on their wall?

There are several possible explanations. There is no setting to prevent @ mentions from showing on Page walls, so that’s not it. Some say, for Pages that set their default wall view to be posts by Page only, @ tags don’t show up – but they do. Really, the only explanations are a) a Facebook bug or, more likely, b) the Page owner chooses to remove @ mentions to keep their wall clean.

12. How do I publish my tweets to my fan Page?

I’m not a big fan of pouring your entire tweetstream onto your Facebook wall – either personal Profile and/or fan Page. Unless, of course, you don’t tweet that often. Even so, there’s a whole different language on Twitter with @, #, RT, acronyms etc. and any Facebook user who is not on Twitter won’t necessarily understand this language.

Example Twitter Language

Plus, if you overpopulate your Page wall with automated content, you could be hurting your EdgeRank score (the algorithm that chooses what to show in the News Feed of your friends/fans).

What to do is to only post some of your tweets on to Facebook using an app like Selective Twitter. Once you add the app to your Page and set up the configuration, just adding #fb to the end of a tweet will post just that tweet to your wall.

Another idea is to just post your favorites to your fan page wall using an RSS app like RSS Graffiti or Social RSS. Your Twitter favorites has its own unique RSS feed – the best way to find it is to log out of Twitter and look at your own profile whilst logged out; click on Favorites in the right panel/column, and you’ll see the little icon for RSS.

Of course, a great solution is simply to use a tool that allows you to post to multiple social profiles, e.g. Facebook Profile, Facebook Fan Page, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. But I don’t recommend posting the exact same content to multiple profiles at the same time. Mix up the wording and add a bit more to Facebook posts because you have 420 characters vs. 140 with Twitter.  Check out my favorite HootSuite, plus also TweetDeck.

You can also pull in all your tweets onto a tab using an app like Involver

13. How do I publish my fan Page updates to my Twitter account?

Try the Facebook Twitter app. However, it has been buggy since the Page Upgrades.

One workaround is to simply burn a feed of your Page using likes of FeedBurner – just paste in the URL of your fan page and you’ll get the feed. FeedBurner is owned by Google; once burned, you then get an option to post that feed to a Twitter account. Posts are truncated with a goo.gl link that goes back to your fan Page. I have a secondary Twitter account that I use exclusively for this purpose at @socialmediamari.

14. Can I pre-schedule content to my fan Page and include links with a thumbnail?

Sure. HootSuite does this nicely – add your Facebook Page under Settings > Social Networks. Then when you add an update with a link, just like on Facebook, you’ll be able to cycle through the thumbnail choices and select the one you want.

Just be careful of overly using third party apps to post all your content on your Page wall. Manual posts get the best EdgeRank (News Feed optimization).

15. What is the optimal number of times per day to post content on a Facebook Fan Page?

You’ll need to experiment to find your own sweetspot. For my Page, I’ve found the ideal frequency is about 2-3 times per day, no more. Different audiences respond to different content and frequencies. The key is relevancy and consistency, coupled with engagement. (That is, unless, you’ve set up your Page to be more of a news source with automated feeds – these types of Pages are not that common, though).

I recently attended a webinar led by ExactTarget in which they revealed the #1 reason people unlike brands on Facebook is the company posted too frequently. So, I recommend tracking your unsubscribe and unlike rates each day as measured against what you’re posting and how often. (“Unsubscribes” are fans who are still a fan, but they’ve chosen to hide your posts from their News Feed). I’ll be covering this piece in-depth on an upcoming Facebook Insights free webinar – click here to register.

Okay, that’s the 15 FAQs for now! I’ll follow up with another FAQ post containing questions pertaining to using your personal profile on Facebook, along with additional Fan Page FAQs.

Now, it’s your turn – did you find these questions and answers valuable? What did I miss? Is there a huge question that is always being asked that I overlooked? Do let me know in the comments below!

SPECIAL: By popular demand, I’m leading another free Facebook Marketing Webinar. This one is all about Facebook Insights, where I’ll share five key metrics you should be tracking for success on Facebook. Come join me on St. Patrick’s Day, that’s this Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 11:00am PST / 2:00pm EST / 7:00pm GMT. If you can’t make the live session, go ahead and register anyway and I’ll send you the link to the replay along with transcript, audio and bonus materials!

Related posts:

• Essential Guide To Facebook Page Changes [SCREENSHOTS]
• New Tool Measures Your Facebook Page EdgeRank Score
• New iFrames Facebook Page App With Fan Gate Option – from Wildfire
• Facebook @ Tagging Etiquette – A Guide For Personal And Business Use
• Quick Guide To The New Facebook Profile Layout [IMAGE]

The Facebook Comments Box Social Plugin now includes incredible, game-changing features. When you add this plugin to your blog/website, visitors can leave a comment as their Facebook profile or any Page they administer. They can choose to have their comment posted to their Facebook wall (Profile or Page, depending upon how they made the comment). The comment also publishes to the News Feed of their friends/fans. To quote Facebook:

Distribution: Comments are easily shared with friends or with people who like your Page on Facebook. If a user leaves the “Post to Facebook” box checked when she posts a comment, a story appears on her friends’ News Feed indicating that she’s made a comment on your website, which will also link back to your site.

Friends and people who like the Page can then respond to the discussion by liking or replying to the comment directly in the News Feed on Facebook or in the Comments Box on your site. Threads stay synced across Facebook and on the Comments Box on your site regardless of where the comment was made.

These screenshots were taken from TechCrunch‘s post on this subject. To leave a comment on a website/blog that has the new Comments Box Social Plugin, just click “Add a comment” and the text field opens up. If you’re logged into Facebook as your personal profile, you’ll see confirmation that you’re posting as yourself. There is an option to change this as you can see in Step 2 below. And in Step 3 – you’ll see a dropdown with any fan Pages you administer.

Step 1 - click "Add Comment"

Step 2 - click Change if you wish to switch to your Page

Step 3 - select the Page you wish to post as

The really cool part is when anyone comments on the comment inside of Facebook, that comment instantly ports over to the original blog post/web page! And, conversely, additional comments made on the original comment sync back to Facebook. In other words, whether comments are made inside or outside of Facebook, the thread is synchronized in both places. Same goes for likes on the comments.

This is an awesome way to create *significantly* more engagement. Plus, when you make regular comments as your Page on popular blogs, you’ll be able to bring much more visibility and traffic to your Facebook Page.

The screenshot below was taken from my Facebook Page wall – it’s the comment I made on TechCrunch’s post that then auto-posted to my Page wall and ensuing comments synced in both places (plus in the stream of fans). As you can see, Facebook makes it clear that you’re actually posting onto the original site/blog as well, per the “Comment on (site name)” button.

My comment written on TechCrunch posted to my Page wall

Social Relevance

Something of note: first line comments on the original post are displayed according to social relevance – meaning that you’ll see comments made by friends above those made by non-friends. I’m not sure how happy Facebook users will be about this, given the pushback about non-chronological Page wall posts*… but, we’ll see! It actually encourages even more engagement when you see people you know leaving comments – I know I feel more inclined to add a reply to people I know vs. those I don’t know.

*Facebook Page wall posts now have a new filter – see top right of your wall: (Page Name) and Top Posts with a little arrow next to it. Click that to then switch to Most Recent – aka chronological order! See my post that I’ve now updated at: Essential Guide To Facebook Page Changes [SCREENSHOTS]

Adding the Comments Box Plugin

My guess is many savvy bloggers will be adding the Comments Plugin to their blog… and may well decide to replace systems like Disqus or Livefyre. That is, unless these third party systems are somehow able to integrate the upgraded Facebook Comments Plugin. Hmm! (Much as I love Disqus, I may choose to use the new Facebook Comments tool instead/as well… soon!)

Get the code for the Facebook Comments Box Social Plugin here.

Check out Facebook’s video below about the Comments upgrades. Plus, See TechCrunch’s post to give the new Comments a test run.

Moderation Tools

The Comments Plugin includes moderation tools so when you add the Plugin to your blog/website, you can keep any spam under control. Given users are posting as their Facebook Profile or Page, there’s actually less chance of trolls and spammers troubling you on your blog. Love that!

According to InsideFacebook.com:

The moderation settings allow admins to add other admins or moderators, use a standard keyword blacklist, create a custom blacklist, set common grammar mistakes to be auto-corrected, and permit or deny third-party logins. They can also set the moderation mode to “Make every post visible to everyone by default” or “Let me approve each comment before it’s shown to everyone”.

Aha, as I was completing this post, a rather nasty comment showed up on my comment thread of TechCrunch’s post. Fortunately, one of my buds alerted me via DM and I was able to go in and report/remove/ban the person from my fan Page. I’m not entirely sure if that ban then prevents the same person from returning to the original post or if they would need to be banned by the Admin of the blog with the Plugin. Hm.

Also, though I have my Page Profanity filter enabled, the troll put spaces into their expletives so it didn’t trip the filter. Interesting. More words to add to the Moderation Blocklist!

With these comment threads now having extensive visibility potential by showing up both on Facebook (walls and News Feeds) and on the originating post, moderating duties now just expanded… again. But, fortunately, we can moderate on our Profile/Page or the blog and both places retain any changes made.

Notifications

When Facebook users comment on your comment, you’ll get a notification on Facebook. What’s interesting to note is that the link in the notification takes you back to the original post.

New Facebook Comments Notifications

Are there any downsides?

Possibly these six:

1) LIMITED LOGINS: Some users may be resistant to putting all their comments into one giant Facebook basket. At present, Facebook does offer the option to login through your Yahoo ID and indicates that additional logins are coming. Certainly, Twitter and Google would be great. (See TechCrunch’s post for more on this aspect). But, still, I do like Disqus!

Login Using Yahoo or Facebook

2) PAGE MODE: When you’re using Facebook in Page mode, the Comments Box Social Plugin completely disappears. This has been a bug with all plugins since the Page Upgrades on February 10th. The Like Button and Like Box, most notably, vanish when viewing sites in Page mode. Presumably, Facebook are working on these bugs.

3) SEO: When you comment on blogs, typically your comment is linked to your own website/blog giving you added visibility and search engine optimization. But, if a blog switches to the upgraded Facebook Comments Plugin only, you’re adding to Facebook’s SEO. Which, of course, when posting as your Page can be a good thing.

4) FACEBOOK BLOCKED: Users would not be able to comment if their workplace or country blocks Facebook. (Props to InsideFacebook for this).

5) LOAD TIME: With a large number of comments, this does seem to slow down the page load time.

6) BUGS: As this is a brand new upgraded plugin, it’s a bit buggy. I noticed on a few refreshes (of TechCrunch’s post), often all but one of the comments was truncated and I couldn’t access the buttons in order to make a comment. I’m sure the Plugin will become more stable over time.

Change your Employer to your Official Page

One tip I want to make sure you know about is to ensure the Employer field on your personal Facebook Profile has been correctly linked to your official fan Page (assuming you’d like it that way!). Why? Because any time you post a comment as your personal profile on third party sites via the upgraded Facebook Comments tool, your employer link automatically posts too.

In the screenshot below, my buddy, Dave Kerpen, has added a comment on TechCrunch’s post via his personal profile. Alongside Dave’s name, you can see “CEO at Likeable Media” which is hyperlinked to his fan Page. This information is pulled from the Employer section of our personal Profiles.

Your Employer Shows on Facebook Comments

When Facebook upgraded Profiles to the new design, the Employer field automatically hyperlinked to a Community Page. I recommend changing this to your official fan Page for extra exposure and marketing. Click Edit Profile > Education and Work > then see if you can just type the name of your fan Page and select from the dropdown menu. It can be tricky! If that doesn’t work, try typing in the full URL of your Page. If that doesn’t work, W Ching Ya has a great tutorial that is a bit tecchie but it does work!

Of course, you may choose to post comments as your Page when using the new Facebook Comments Plugin, in which case there is no additional information/links. Just your Page, which is great.

Let me know your thoughts on this awesome upgrade to the Comments Plugin. I really feel it’s another step forward for Facebook as the next generation Internet. Like it or not, Facebook is becoming truly ubiquitous across the web – not just the social network web, but Facebook is turning the entire world wide web into one giant social site. What do you think?

Related posts:

• Facebook Now Powers Comments All Around the Web (readwriteweb.com)
• Facebook Rolls Out Overhauled Comments System (Try Them Now On TechCrunch) (techcrunch.com)
• Facebook’s New Comments Box Plugin Filters Website Comment Reels by Relevance (insidefacebook.com)
• Facebook Releases Robust Updates to Its Comments Plugin (mashable.com)