How & Why to Use Facebook's "Share" Feature

Facebook now includes a little blue "Share" link below status updates from pages you like and profiles you subscribe to. Next to the number of people who have liked or commented on a post, you may also see the number of shares from other fans. So what exactly is a share, and why should you share a post?

Using Facebook's share feature for a photo, link or status update posted by a page or public profile allows you to share it with your friends by posting it on your wall or theirs, with a friend via a private message, or on another page that you administrate. Instead of making a comment publicly, sharing a post allows you to comment on it privately and allow your friends to do so as well. If you'd like to promote a particular brand or cause, sharing a post on your wall, a friend's wall or your page's wall can help you spread the word.

Here's how to use the Share feature:

Beneath the post, you'll see the blue "Share" link - click on it.

Choose where you want to share the post - on your profile/timeline, on a friend's, in a private message or on a page that you administrate.

Remember to use the privacy dropdown to select whether you want the post to be Public, Friends only or a custom setting.

Write a message to go with the post (or don't - you don't have to) and then click "Share Link." If you're sharing a link or a photo and you don't want people to know where you found it, you can also click the "Remove" link.

Using "Share" on Facebook is a great way to maintain your privacy on Facebook and share new content with your friends, fans and subscribers.

Happy posting, and as usual please leave a comment or contact me if you have any questions!

Facebook Photo Options for Pages: Pros and Cons

Facebook Page administrators have a few options and things to think about when posting photos, and they each have their pros and cons:

1. Add a group of photos to a new album. Post will appear as "Your Page added six photos to the album Retreats." with a preview of one of the photos. PRO: This uploading method is concise and simple. CON: This method is a lost opportunity for fans to see each of the photos individually. 
2. Add photos individually to an album over time. Post will appear as "Your Page added a photo to the album Retreats" with the photo attached. PRO: Individual exposure to each photo. CON: Each time, all of the comments and "likes" the album has received previously will show up. This can be confusing for some users, as the comments don't correspond to the images. (Because of this, the Disneyland page only uses option #1 when adding groups of photos to an album.)
3. Post photos to the wall. The photos will be automatically added to the album "Wall Photos." The post can any desired text and the photo itself. The text will become the caption of the photo in the album. PRO: Posts can include any text you want and comments and likes are made to the individual photo, not the album. If you don't like the original text you post, you can actually change it on the wall by editing the photo caption in the album. This is the one type of Facebook post that can be edited instead of deleted and re-posted. CON: All photos go to the "Wall Photos" album and must be moved if you want them in specific albums. 

My recommendation is to use option #3: post photos to the wall and then reorganize them to different albums later (without publishing a wall post about it when prompted by Facebook.) 


Another thing to remember is that whenever you post photos, you should decide if they're worthy of being among of the top five featured photos at the top of your wall. These are always pulled from the most recently uploaded photos, but if you don't want a recently uploaded photo to appear up there, you can remove it. 


Happy posting!

Anatomy of a Facebook Birthday

Since Facebook came out with the Wall, one of the best days in the average Facebook user’s year has been her birthday. Users that list their birthdays on their profile are delighted when their friends, seeing the convenient notice in the top right corner of their news feed, post best wishes on their walls. The phenomenon has become so popular that Facebook created a special news feed post reminding people of their friends’ birthdays and telling them how many mutual friends have written on the birthday girl’s wall. These days, Facebook often combines the notice of a friend’s birthday in the news feed with her most recent wall post.

As a Facebook aficionado (ok fine, addict), I enjoy analyzing the pattern of Facebook wall posts on my wall and my friends’. Birthday wall posts are generated a few ways:

Upcoming Events/Birthday Box Reminder

 

News Feed Reminder

Mutual Friend Wall Post Reminder

Belated (Seeing a Birthday Girl's Thank You Post and Commenting or Posting)

 

I celebrated a birthday last week, and decided to analyze the date and time I received wall posts, to determine how many posts were randomly generated (#1) and how many were generated because they saw friends’ wall posts or news feed reminders. 

The chart below shows the birthday wall posts I received organized by my various friend groups. There were only a few wall post groupings by mutual friends (shown in yellow). The analysis also demonstrated the more active times among my friends, which were especially interesting in relation to the friend groups. One grouping in particular highlighted in red, consisted of friends who were members of the same group (high school friends) but actually were not friends with each other. 

Most of the birthday wall posts I received appear to be randomly generated. I have noticed, however, that Facebook gives additional weight to birthday posts in the news feed, displaying the new special birthday notices in non-synchronous order even in "most recent" view. Therefore, the Birthday wall is a perfect demonstration of the power of edgerank, Facebook's ability to manipulate data for maximum engagement and the weight of the top right corner birthday event reminders. 

Happy Birthday everyone!

How Social Media Can Save Your Business

Social media can save your business by bringing the conversation about it into a place where you can monitor and manage the discussion. Imagine the following scenario. You're a local restaurant in a medium-size community. A guest comes in and, for whatever reason, has a bad experience. The next day, she's out shopping with a friend and discussing lunch options. "Have you ever been to (your restaurant)?" the friend asks. Your disappointed guest then gives an account of her bad experience. The next time the friend's husband asks where they should go out to dinner and suggests your restaurant, his wife says quickly, "Oh no, I heard that place was terrible."

Now imagine if that conversation happened online instead. The guest has a bad experience and rants about it on Yelp. You and your staff notice the review and quickly post a response to apologize and explain. The friend, looking for a place to eat, reads the review, but then reads the other four- and five-star reviews your restaurant has received, as well as your response. She and her husband decide to go there for dinner and see what all the fuss is about and to judge for themselves.

Instead of negative reviews, mostly based on hearsay, saturating the community before you can do anything about it, social media helps everyone weigh in through a more public forum. People are forced to go "on the record" with their complaints, and are held accountable by their peers. If word-of-mouth is one of the most effective marketing methods, social media takes word-of-mouth to the next level by allowing you as the business owner to be involved in the conversation.

How and Why Clubs and Fraternal Organizations Should Use Social Media

Facebook and Twitter (and eventually Google+?) are perfect tools for for clubs and fraternal organizations such as the Rotary, Lions and Kiwanis, and even exclusive Yacht, Golf and Tennis clubs. Faced with aging populations, low membership enrollment and a seemingly stagnant business model, social media can help give these groups the boost they need to appeal to their next generation of members and better fulfill their missions.

Although, and perhaps because, most clubs and fraternal organizations are invitation-only, recruitment of new members is becoming a struggle. Many clubs with a financial requirement (Yacht Clubs for example) are reducing their initiation and/or membership fees for younger members in the hopes of boosting enrollment. The increasing age of their membership bases is a concern both in terms of the longevity of their organization and their attractiveness to new and younger potential members. Developing active social media profiles will help clubs and fraternal organizations reach younger people where they hang out most and demonstrate to them that these groups can be relevant in today's world. However, clubs must develop a sustainable social media strategy before launching their profiles. Nothing is less attractive than a social media profile managed badly or abandoned after only a few posts.

Once they are on Facebook, Twitter, etc., clubs and fraternal organizations can use it to achieve their missions, especially if those missions involve community support and outreach. Internally, social media can be used to advertise activities and improve attendance, and help members stay in touch with each other and with the club. New members who are not used to the club structure may be more comfortable interacting online before introducing themselves and getting more involved in person. Social media can also be used for fundraising both internally and externally. The codes of conduct that often govern these groups, such as the Rotary's "Four Way Test," can be easily extended to govern members' conduct online to ensure that the image and reputation of the club are maintained.

Clubs and organizations of this type often engage in community outreach and partnerships with other organizations to recruit members, maintain their standing in the community and fulfill their missions. Social media can help them take these interactions online. Partnerships can be acknowledged and developed by "liking" and "following" and interacting with each other's profiles. When a Rotary Club gives a grant to a nonprofit in the community, for example, both the Rotary and the nonprofit will benefit by acknowledging each other online. Engaging in community involvement online through social media strengthens the connections between groups and increases exposure to everyone involved, from the members to the general public.

So how can clubs and fraternal organizations get started with social media?

1. Make a plan - determine what social media channels you want to pursue, what you will post and who will be responsible for managing them
2. Set up your accounts - create a look and feel that is consistent with your overall brand
3. Follow through with a consistent schedule of posts and interaction with fans and partner organizations

Use Facebook as Your Fan Page (Instead of Your Personal Profile)

Based on a comment on one of my earlier posts, I wanted to provide a simple walk through of how to use Facebook as your Fan Page instead of your Personal Profile. This will increase allow you to "like" other pages, see a news feed of their content and comment on and like their posts as your Page instead of yourself, and in doing so, increase exposure for your Page. Here's how:

From your Page, click "Use Facebook as (Page Name)"

OR

At the top of any page within Facebook, click "Account" then click "Use Facebook as Page" then click "Switch" next to the name of the Page you want to operate from.

You can then click on the Facebook Home button to view a news feed of content from the other Pages that your Page "likes", or you can find new Pages to "like" using Facebook Search.

You can also visit other Pages and write on their walls, and like and leave comments on their posts or posts by their fans.

When you're done using Facebook as your Page and want to switch back to your personal Profile, click "Account" then click "Switch Back to (Your Name)"

As always, if you have any questions please leave a comment or email me. Good luck taking advantage of this opportunity to increase exposure for your Page!

Can Facebook Page Administrators See My Profile Information?

As a Facebook user, you might be concerned about the amount of information you're sharing with the world, and rightly so! But do you need to worry about what the corporate big brother behind your favorite brand's Facebook page can see? That depends on your privacy settings. 

Most Facebook page administrators manage their pages from behind a regular Facebook account. That means that they can see the same information about you that other Facebook users see. How much they can see depends on what you allow the following groups to see: Friends, Friends of Friends, Networks and Everyone.

Facebook allows you to customize your profile info to show or not show to these groups. As I've mentioned before, you can further break this down to hide info and activity from certain groups of people. To do this, click Account>Privacy Settings>Custom>Customize Settings.

While you're at it, go ahead and customize the information that appears when users search for your name. 

Click Privacy Settings>View Settings and change the dropdown on each profile section that will show when a user looks you up in a search, depending on the category they fall in. Since I belong to fairly wide networks, I limit visibility of detailed information such as my friend list, hometown and activities to Friends Only. Since I want people outside of my Friends and Networks to be able to find me, I allow Everyone to search for me and send me direct messages and friend requests. People I have connections with may have an easier time recognizing me if they are able to see my education and work info, so I share that with Networks and Friends.

Customizing your privacy settings, especially since they usually default to "Everyone", will ensure that Facebook page administrators can only see the information you are willing to share with the general public.