I'm Going Live!

Just a heads up, in case you've missed our other announcements: I'm hosting a live webinar on Thursday, all about Facebook for arts organizations. Some of the information I'm presenting has already been posted here, but I do have some new stuff plus a live demonstration of at least a few "how-to's."

The webinar is on Thursday, April 2, at 1:00PM Eastern time.

If you're interested, just click here to register. Thanks!

Cultivating a Community

I keep promising to answer the excellent questions I got from readers in response to my first article (back in February), so here we go!

Stephanie from BRIC said:

I’m still conflicted on the Page vs. Group issue for non-profit arts organizations. Especially in New York, where the small and mid-size performing arts organizations are part of a network where everyone knows one another... Audiences who don’t come from within the community often want to be a part of it – make a personal connection, rather than feel like they are part of a commercial enterprise.

A friend of mine is a Fan of 245 pages. He’s a Fan of Kermit, The Daily Show, the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, The Little Prince, Spinach, Burberry, Muffins, Macbook, the IDF, Tommy Hilfigger, Sushi, Levis Footwear -- the list goes on. ...Pages become more of a statement of aesthetic than a place he actually visits and interacts with on a regular basis.

Stephanie raises a good point about creating a more community-oriented space on Facebook -- and it's evident that she wasn't the only one to think so! By now you all know my thoughts on the NEW Facebook Pages: They're designed to be so much more community-based and interaction-friendly than they were before. Now Page administrators have more control -- as long as you're posting compelling messages and discussion questions, the Page can be made to feel much less like a "commercial enterprise" now.

So I think that in some ways, her question might be answered already. Since "fans"can now interact much more directly, I think that the new Pages feel a lot more like the old Groups now.

I have to stand by my opinion that Groups are simply outdated technology, at this point. They still don't get News Feed real estate, they can't be customized, you can't add apps... (I know I haven't gone into technical detail yet about HOW to do some of those things with a Page, but I'm still waiting for Facebook to settle down and stop changing things.)

That said: I think that Groups can still be a valuable tool for arts organizations, especially in situations like Stephanie describes, where the organization's artists and managers DO want to be personally associated with the org. Maybe one solution is to create both, but be sure to delineate a separate purpose for each -- have a Facebook Page with more generalized, public content and event information, but also include a big link to join the organization's Group, which would have a more personal feel.

I'd love to hear more thoughts on this! What do you think? Do the new Pages seem like a better environment for making a personal connection than the old ones did?

A Few Answers

Aha! Here's the reason Page updates aren't appearing in the newsfeed. This is the message appearing at the top of the Facebook home page right now:

Pages are now a part of News Feed
From now on, posts from Pages you are a fan of will show up in your News Feed. You can hide their posts by clicking the 'x' in the top right corner of the post. If you would like to see posts from Pages you connected to the in past, click here.

That last sentence is not as clear as it could be. Basically, they've defaulted all the Pages you're already a fan of to the "hidden" list -- that's why they're not showing up in the feed. If you click on the link in the message, it opens a box with a list of all the things currently "hidden":


So you need to go through and click all the "Add to News Feed" buttons, manually.

(Why? Why should people have to do all this work to be able see Page updates? I don't understand why Facebook keeps shooting itself in the foot this way. If the whole idea of turning Pages into Public Profiles was to make them more integrated and accessible (and, presumably, profitable...), then why in the world did are they making users jump through all these hoops?)

Anyway, it probably wouldn't hurt to send out a real Update to your fans reminding them to click that link and unblock you, or at least to post about it on your Page (of course, who knows if anyone will see it!).

(PS: extra points to Lara, commenting on my previous post, for discovering the "See hidden posts" link before Facebook put up this message. )

Feeling Frustrated with Facebook

Hi, new readers I met at the ArtsReach conference last weekend! Thanks to all who attended PatronTech's pre-conference day -- I hope you found it helpful and valuable.

I know the blog's been a bit quiet this week, and here's why:

Frankly, I'm finding myself fed up with Facebook.

Now, I'm not counting myself in the camp of those users screaming, "BRING BACK THE OLD FACEBOOK!" -- I *like* the new Facebook, or at least I like its potential. Everything I said in my last article remains true: In theory, the new "Public Profile" Pages offer arts orgs a great opportunity to connect with fans.

It's just that in practice, there are a whole bunch of little features of the upgrade that seem either poorly thought-out, or outright broken.

Here's an example, from an e-mail I received this morning:

"Hi Michelle. I've been doing status updates for our Facebook page, but as far as I can tell, they are not showing up on our Fans' walls. They don't show up on my wall, and I just checked with another person in our organization who is not an admin but is a fan, and the updates are not on her wall either.

Is there something I need to do to make the status updates show up on our fans' walls?

I'm also having problems with the Page where parts of the page appear layered over other parts. Sometimes the pictures of the Fans move around and appear on top of other sections."

(Short answer: both problems *might* be a browser issue? Try looking at FB in Internet Explorer and Firefox, see if the problems exist in both. There doesn't seem to be a definitive solution yet, though.)

If you take a look at the discussion board for "Facebook Pages/Public Profiles," you'll see that these issues are not the only ones. Problems with Pages are rampant! And they're not being addressed by Facebook at all. Since the launch, there hasn't been a single announcement from FB that they're aware of these issues, that they're listening to their users complaints... nothing.

So, I'm pretty frustrated.

That said, I will be blogging more regularly next week -- I was asked a whole novel's worth of excellent social media questions last weekend, and I'll start to dive into those soon.

Again -- feel free to comment! Are you frustrated by Facebook too? Is your Page experiencing these formatting problems?

Thanks for sticking with me!

Home Page Changes Are Going Live... Slowly.

Hi, new subscribers!

Facebook has started rolling out the new home page layout! As of yesterday afternoon, accounts are starting to be changed over to the new layout. My own account hasn't gotten the update yet, but I'm already seeing a few stories from Fan Pages come through:


I'll be back with more news after my account changes and I have a chance to poke around a bit and get a better idea of how things work. For now, here's the latest Facebook Blog post about the home page.

Has your account changed over yet? What do you think? Is the new home page user-friendly? Tell me (and everyone else!) in the comments.

Facebook Home Page and Fan Pages Redesign

If you want a more detailed look at the changes coming to Facebook this week, here's a roundup of various links that should give you a pretty full picture. Once the changes go live, I'll be writing a followup post here with more information.


Facebook's labeled screenshot of the new home page

Facebook's Help Center info about the new home page

Facebook's Help Center info about the new Facebook Pages

The official Facebook blog post from Mark Zuckerberg about the changes


Here are a couple of posts from insidefacebook.com analyzing the changes.

Before & After images of Facebook Pages

A more detailed look at the new home page

A Facebook Glossary

News Feed: The News Feed is the first thing a user sees upon logging in to Facebook. It’s an automatically-generated list of all the activity of the user’s Facebook friends. For example, "Michelle added new interests to her profile,” or "Chelsea uploaded new photos.” The newsfeed is the main catalyst for all Facebook interaction.

Stream: The Stream is the new real-time version of the News Feed, which (as far as I can tell as of this writing) will be automatically refreshed to show the latest stories. The Stream will include not just a user's Friends' activities, but also the user's Fan Pages.

Story: Stories are the items that appear in the Stream or News Feed -- each individual item in the list is called a Story.

Comment: Comment is one of the options for users to give feedback about a Story in the Stream. Clicking "Comment" opens up a text box underneath the Story -- the user can add a note and the note will then appear on context with the Story on the Stream.

Like: The other option for giving feedback on a Story is to click the "Like" button -- if you don't have any actual commentary to add but you want to acknowledge the Story in some way, you can just choose to say that you "Like" it.

Friend Lists: Since the Stream will now be updated in real time and will display stories from all of a users Friends and Pages, users can use Friend Lists to filter the Stream and choose to only see stories from certain groups of people. (I'll post more info about Friend Lists when the home page changes go live.)

Profile: Facebook profiles are the pages that display a user's personal information, as well as all their interactions with friends.

Profile Tabs: Profile information is divided into sections of different content.

• The Info tab displays basic information like Birthday and Hometown, as well as interests and activities. The Info tab also lists all Groups the user is a member of, and all the Pages the user is a Fan of.
• The Wall tab dispays all the user's interactions with friends (comments and messages) as well as status messages.
• The Photos tab is pretty self-explanatory.
• The Boxes tab is not at all self-explanatory! It's where all other Application information lives. (For example, mine shows the "Growing Gifts" I've received from friends, and the i'll go! events I'm attending.)
• Other tabs: users can choose to turn their Application boxes into separate tabs. I display my "Extended Info" application as a separate tab because I want to make it easy for people to find.

Pages: Facebook Pages (possibly called "public profiles" now) are for any entity that's not an individual. They were created as a way for users to connect with brands and organizations. (For much more on Pages, read my February E-marketing E-ssentials article.) Pages now have the same layout as user profiles.

Status messages / Publisher interface: There's a text field at the top of the home page and the Profile page that asks, "What's on your mind?" (formerly "What are you doing right now?"). If you type text in the box and click "Share" (or "Post), the text will become your new status message (e.g., "Michelle is writing blog posts about Facebook.").

That same field can now be used to share links, photos, etc: if you add a link or photo by clicking the links directly below the field, the text in the field will instead be attached as a comment from you on the link or photo (instead of updating your Status).


Mini-feed: The mini-feed was the section on a Facebook Page that displayed the recent activity of the Page (e.g. "Carnegie Hall posted a new note;" "Playwrights Horizons added a new event"). On the new layout of Pages, the Stream serves the same function.

Updates: Until now, the only direct way for a Page to communicate with its Fans was to send out an Update. With this week's changes, that's no longer the case, but Updates may still provide to be an important communication channel. More on Updates to come in a later post.

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