Anybody who uses Facebook for business knows that the site is constantly changing the way users create, manage, and update pages – whether they wanted their page to change or not.
And juggling all those changes can be anything but easy if managing one or more company Facebook pages is just one of the many responsibilities in a busy marketer’s daily to-do-list.
All too often, the changes aren’t exactly popular with users – Timeline anyone? Over the summer, however, I’ve found five Facebook changes that I actually like. Four of them are from Facebook, and one is a third-party app, but I think that they all make it easier to create and manage effective Facebook pages for your business.
Scheduling Posts
I’ve been using Socialyzer since it went into beta last spring, and I’ve gotten great results by using the app’s predictive analytics to schedule my social media marketing campaign posts. Before that, I used Buffer. Trouble is, if I use the same scheduling app for Twitter and Facebook, my Facebook posts appear with Twitter hashtags in them.
Hashtags in Facebook posts are so common that they must not bother most people, but they annoy me. Now, Facebook has rolled out a scheduling feature that enables brands to schedule posts directly from Facebook.
It’s not easy to find – look for a small clock in the left hand corner of the box where you add new posts. That’s the scheduling feature.
Tip: You can backdate posts to create milestones for your company’s Timeline – an especially useful feature if you need to make a new page look better established, or clean up a previous administrator’s errors.
Editing Posts
If you haven’t yet used the pencil icon (which appears in the upper right corner of any post), it’s time to make it part of your regular Facebook review process.
If you spot a mistake, or want to make a change in a new post (less than 24 hours old), just click on the pencil icon and enter the new content. To edit an older post, click on the time stamp, then click on “edit” under the post. Note: This seems to work on posts with pictures, photos and captions, and posts with videos or hyperlinks – but not on those that contain only text. Facebook says that this is a browser-specific problem, but it’s been consistently annoying for me.
Sharing Video
Yes, you’ve been able to post a completed video on your Facebook page for a long time. But there’s a new app called Broadcast with Friends or BFF that lets you stream a live video to your friends or the public. It’s like Instagram for video.
It’s an iPhone only app for now, and it’s still in beta. I’ve been trying it, and so far, I’ve found it simple and trouble free – and it’s still free during the beta.
I love being able to stream a live video – especially of an event – and collect real-time comments and “likes” as I broadcast.
BFF was designed as an app for personal streaming, but large brands like Pepsi are already jumping on the bandwagon, live streaming concerts, corporate events, and video news releases. I’m planning to use this product later this year to help clients live stream conference speeches, product demos, and behind-the-scenes tours. The possibilities seem endless.
Rearranging Apps
Once upon a time, adding an app to your Facebook page meant costly hard coding from a professional developer. No longer. Now you can simply select an app and embed it in your page. Unfortunately, when it came time to rearrange where the apps appeared, things weren’t quite so simple.
Now, rearranging where an app appears on your Facebook page is only a few mouse clicks. Start by clicking on the pencil icon in the top right-hand corner of the app, and go to ‘swap position with [app of your choice].” For example, you can move the app that prompts your audience to subscribe to your blog or showcases your YouTube channel so it’s among the things people see first when they visit your page. The possibilities are endless – and you can update the page layout whenever you have something new to feature, or when your analytics tell you it’s time to promote one feature over another.
Adding Administrators
Getting help in managing an active Facebook page is now as easy as adding new administrators. Just click on “settings”, and change the admin roles. It couldn’t be faster or easier.
Before adding a new adminsitrator, take time to review your company’s social media policy. Make sure that the ownership of socialmedia accounts and content is spelled out, and that the new person has been trained in the policy as well as your goals and objectives for the page. This is a place where a few minutes of training and review can save a fortune in litigation.
Graphic Credit: Urs Steiner made his graphic available on Flickr under a Creative Commons License.
