Debugger – A Facebook Page Admins Best Friend

If you manage a Facebook Page for your organization/company and often post links back to your website, then the Facebook Debugger (formerly called the URL Linter) should be your best friend. Why? Because it allows you to see what information Facebook will pull from any URL that you might post to your Fan Page. Whether you have set exact Open Graph tags or rely on the default Meta tags, the Debugger will show you what it can “scrape” from your URL.

But here is why I really find the Debugger to be a most valuable tool. Have you ever tried to post a URL and noticed Facebook is caching an old image or text (it will often retain content from the last time you posted the URL)? You can fix this by entering your URL into the Debugger and it will pull the latest version of your page. Then you can post the URL and access the updated content:

What do you use to help manage your Facebook Fan pages? Tell me about it in the comments.

Manually Post to Facebook or Lose Impressions

Since the big update to Facebook in mid-September, I’ve noticed a decrease in impressions when using any kind of third-party app to post updates to Fan pages. It seems using third-party applications like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck to post updates to your Facebook Fan pages could mean less of your Fans will view the post. This also seems to be a problem with some Facebook applications that post RSS feeds automatically to a Fan page.

For example, I use the Facebook app RSS Graffiti to automatically send to new blog posts to a Fan page.
These blog posts used to generate 4000-5000 impressions per post.

They now average 800-1000.

I also recently needed to send out a few scheduled updates to Facebook using HootSuite and experienced similar results:

A similar post I had sent out manually the previous day had better results:

From this article it appears Facebook is aware of the issue: http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/social-media-marketing/facebook-penalizes-third-party-apps/

The fact that this is still an issue over a month later is surprising. But until it’s resolved, I’d recommend posting your updates to Facebook Fan pages manually when possible.

The Case Against Linking Twitter & Facebook Fan Pages

I understand why an organization would link their Facebook Fan page with their Twitter account to share updates. Time and staff are limited. It’s easier to update once and let the auto-posting magic take over. In my humble opinion, this is not a best practice. I think Facebook and Twitter are two different beasts and should be treated as such. Here’s a few reasons why:

1. It’s obvious you didn’t write for this platform so you look kind of lazy: Posts sent from Twitter to Facebook have usernames (@someone) and hashtags (#something) that are useless and mean nothing to Facebook. Facebook posts are usually too long for Twitter, so they end up with that “fb.me” link back to the Facebook page. If you want visitors to take a certain action (say visit your website), why make them go to Facebook in between? You’ll lose some percentage along the way.

2. You are losing impressions if you post from Twitter to Facebook: I’ve been seeing this in my Wall stream lately: “See XX more posts from Twitter.” That means I have to take an action (click) to view these posts. If the last few Tweets sent to my Facebook News stream before this one are not so engaging, I may not click that link at all. The post you carefully crafted for Twitter may not be viewed by many of your Facebook Fans simply because it came from Twitter.

Twitter posts are collapsed by Facebook

You are also likely losing impressions by not updating manually because of EdgeRank (the algorithm that Facebook uses to determine what to show in News feeds). You’ll get a lower EdgeRank score when using third-party applications to post to Facebook (more on EdgeRank here and here).

3. Facebook to Twitter often leaves out important info: One organization I’m a big fan of recently posted on Facebook to “view the Note below” for info on a new feature on their website. But after it was auto-posted to Twitter, there was no link included back to the Note on Facebook. After they created the Note, it was automatically posted to their Facebook Wall. In a separate status update they instructed to look “below” to read the Note. But only the second update made it to Twitter and there was no “below” to read (except other people’s Tweets). Important note: most people read your Facebook status updates on their News feed and not your Fan page (check your Facebook Insights to see the difference between your Impressions versus Wall visits), so if you refer to something “below” it might not make much sense even on Facebook.

4. You lose the power of tagging: One great way to both get the word out about your page and be a good social media neighbor is to tag other people & organizations in your Twitter and Facebook updates. Since they use different formats, posting from one to the other is not compatible for tagging. On Facebook, all those Twitter “@” tags don’t work and look kind of silly. On Twitter, the tagged name may not display the way you may have preferred and will often use up more of your 140 characters than needed. When auto-posting, you can’t create these important links to other Twitter accounts that share info and help grow your followers.

5. You might accidentally do this:

Why you shouldn't link Facebook updates to Twitter!

Sounds pretty tasty up until the “Flash Fried Baby!” There is a good chance the next word was “Spinach” but we can’t be sure unless we click-through. I’m guessing no one wants to accidentally send out a message like this to their followers and fans. And they certainly don’t want a local newspaper writing about it on their blog: Why Restaurants Shouldn’t Cross-Post From Facebook to Twitter by Robin Wheeler @ RFT

Do you have a different opinion on linking Twitter and Facebook? Are there other good points I didn’t mention? Let me know about it in the comments.

Google for Nonprofits Relaunched Umbrella Site

I’ve blogged about the Google Grant for AdWords before but this is even better. Google has recently relaunched their Google for Nonprofits website which offers a whole suite of services that non-profits can now apply for under one umbrella site.  Before you had to make separate applications at each website (been waiting to hear back about a YouTube grant request for over a year – guess I’ll try through the Google for Nonprofits site instead).  Some of the offered services include Google Grants for Adwords, YouTube for Nonprofits and Google Apps. Check it out at http://google.com/nonprofits and follow them at Facebook and Twitter.

Facebook Custom Tabs – Moving from FBML to iFrames

With the recent update to Fan pages, Facebook has moved away from supporting FBML & Static FBML to using iFrames for custom tab development. If you currently have custom tabs using Static FBML, you are okay for now but you will not be able to add new tabs using this method (and who knows when it might be phased out completely).

The good news is there are many new solutions to creating custom tabs, from building your own iFrame app to using one of the many new free or paid apps that are becoming available.  One important factor in determining which app to use will be if you can host the content on your own server.  If not, you’ll want to use an app that will host your content for you.

Here are few I’ve checked out recently:

• Involver’s Static HTML – I like that this one is easy to use (assuming you have HTML knowledge) and offers a “fan gate” (visitor must “Like” the page before they can view content) but when I tried to use the script tag within my HTML it gave an error message this was not allowed.  Since I was trying to add embed code from another website, I had to keep looking.
• Wildfire’s iFrames for Pages – Again another easy one to use with a “fan gate” but restricted by the following:  “Please note: Scripts, Forms, iFrames, and external CSS are not allowed.”
• Build your own iFrame app at Facebook – I did this thanks to a great tutorial but still pretty complicated.
• I finally landed on the iFrameWrappper app.  This allowed both the use of a “fan gate” with different content delivered to fans & non-fans and let me use the script tag.  A paypal donation removes the “Powered by” message at the bottom of the custom tab page (it’s very unobtrusive to begin with).

Another thing I like about the iFrameWrapper is the number of icons they have available that you can choose for your custom tab.  Here is a sample and they are adding more all the time:

In my case, I was hosting a voting poll so this icon worked out perfectly:

Have you found any great apps or solutions for the switch to iFrames for custom tabs?  Tell me about it in the comments.

Facebook Insights for Social Plugins & URL Linter Tools

If you are posting links back to your website on a Facebook Fan page(s) and/or Facebook Social Plugins on your website, here are a few tools that could help:

Facebook Linter:
I stumbled on to the handy Facebook URL Linter tool while looking for more info on how shared links work on Facebook.  If you are posting links back to your website on a Facebook Fan page, this tool will help you debug your pages for syntax errors.  Visit this Facebook Developer’s blog post for more info on the Linter tool.

Facebook Insights:
If you are using Facebook Social Plugins (Like/Recommend buttons for example) on your site, Insights can give you stats and demographics on users who click your links.  If you manage a Facebook Fan page, you’ve likely clicked on the Insights link in the left sidebar to view some basic stats on Users & Interactions.  Make sure to back up one step to the main Insights page and click the green “Insights for your Domain” button.  You will need to enter your domain name and then place a short snippet of code (meta tag) on your root web page.  Then you will start receiving usage stats on your Social Plugins.  I was going to type up step-by-step instructions with screen shots, but this great tutorial has already done all that work for us.  BTW – the default charts on Insights are adequate, but use the “Export” button to download your stats by date span and you’ll find a lot more useful information.

Do you have any tools you use to help manage & track your Facebook Fan pages or Social Plugins?  Please share in the comments.

Sharing Links on Facebook Fan Pages – Update

In an earlier post, I suggested how to use an image and certain meta tags on a web page when posting a link on a Facebook Fan page.  I recently discovered what I think is a better way to post links to a Facebook Fan page than relying on the default meta tags.  If you are using Facebook share buttons (Like/Recommend), you can also then control how your page is presented on the user’s Facebook Wall page.

Check out the section titled “Sharing Rich Media” at http://developers.facebook.com/docs/share.  It describes how to use some custom Open Graph <meta> tags in the <head> section of your HTML.  This way you can control the title, description and thumbnail image that displays when you or someone else shares a link on Facebook:

<meta property="og:title" content="title" />
<meta property="og:description" content="description" />
<meta property="og:image" content="thumbnail_image" />


<meta property="og:title" content="Frank Abagnale | November 30, 2010 - Tuesday, 8pm" />
<meta property="og:description" content="The Spielberg film, Catch Me If You Can, is his amazing life story" />
<meta property="og:image" content="http://www.baltimorespeakerseries.org/images/abagnale-l.jpg" />

Use the Facebook URL Linter tool to preview how your Open Graph tags will be viewed on Facebook before posting.

A few issues:

1. You have to manually update the page you want to link to with these extra Open Graph <meta> tags ahead of time.
2. Your page may not validate.  For example, XHTML 1.0 Transitional does not have a “property” attribute.

If you already have a title, description and image on a page and you are happy with the way it displays on Facebook, there’s no need for this extra work.  But by using these tags, you can make sure the title, description and thumbnail image are exactly the way you’d like them to be viewed (even more important if you are using Like/Recommend buttons or other people are linking to your pages).  I’ve noticed when I have many images on a page, Facebook never seems to offer the one I prefer.  And with the volume of Fan pages and friend’s posts, this could be the difference between getting noticed (click!) and just lost in the Facebook ether.

Facebook Fan Page Links – Don’t Forget the Meta Tag & Image

Please note – On 11/18/10 I posted a new article and would recommend this new method for sharing links on Facebook: http://dalefisher.wordpress.com/2010/11/19/sharing-links-on-facebook-fan-pages/

One of the great benefits of having people “Like” your Facebook Fan page is having access to their News Feed stream. If you have a Fan page and a related website you regularly link to, there are a few things you can do so your links will stand out both on your page and your fans News Feed stream.

1. Make sure you have an image related to your content on the page you are linking to. Links with an image are more likely to stand out on a crowded and constantly changing News Feed stream.
2. Make sure the meta name="description" tag on the page you are linking to has relevant content. Facebook will show the text contained in this tag when you post a link on the Wall of your Fan page (more info on meta tags).

Do you have any best-practices you use when posting links to a Facebook Fan page?  Please post them in the comments section.

Brand Monitoring with Social Mention

I highly recommend checking out Social Mention as a way to monitor keyword mentions across the social media universe.  Social Mention monitors over 80 social media sites so you don’t have to.  You can search by keywords and also set up daily email alerts or subscribe to RSS feeds so you can track on a regular basis.

Social Mention offers some interesting statistics that are more useful for directional purposes than absolute measurements (for example view your negative mentions and you’ll notice they are likely not that negative).  Here’s a sample screen shot — this FAQ explains how they establish each measurement:

sample of Social Mention data

If you don’t already, I’d also recommend using Social Mention along with Google Alerts and Technorati to monitor your keywords around the web.  Please let me know of any other resources you might use to track your mentions around the web in the comments section below.

Best Facebook Static FBML Tutorial

Please note as of March 2011 Facebook has deprecated Static FBML and this link is now outdated.  For information on creating custom Fan page tabs with iFrame apps, visit:  http://dalefisher.wordpress.com/2011/03/27/facebook-custom-tabs-moving-from-fbml-to-iframes

Social Media Examiner offers a comprehensive explanation on how to use the “Static FBML” Facebook application to add custon tabs or wall content to your pages:

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-customize-your-facebook-page-using-static-fbml/