I first signed up for Facebook in 2007 while I was at Microsoft. We were doing a partnership with Facebook, and as a Platform Evangelist my job was to keep current with new developments on the web and in social media.
As I started using Facebook more, I hooked up my blog and Twitter updates so they automatically flow through to my personal Facebook page. This has worked pretty well; it resulted in a lot of great conversations and many new friends.
Now my Facebook friends represent a pretty diverse set of people – people I’ve worked with, people I’ve met online, and friends from high school and college.
As Facebook kicks into high gear I’m making a minor shift in my content strategy. I’m creating a Facebook Fan Page for Expand2Web that will feature everything that’s posted on my blog plus some exclusive content for those who opt in and become a fan.
This is similar to how I approach Twitter, which also features some links and tips that might not appear on my blog. I see the new Facebook Page fills a “gap” between conversations on my blog and Twitter, and I’m hoping to spark some interesting discussions from a broader group of people that might not follow RSS or Twitter feeds.
Please join in the conversation and become a fan. I’m always open to input and suggestions, so if you have any I would love to hear them in the comments below or on my Facebook page!
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi, Don — Congratulations on your Facebook Fan Page.
I’d like to know how you feed your blog content to your Facebook page automatically — can you share that tip with us? Thanks!
Hi Yvonne,
Yes, I used the Facebook “Notes” function to import them to the Wall. Any WordPress blog automatically has an RSS feed, which gets updated whenever you create a new blog post.
There is also a nice application called Blog RSS and another one called Social RSS that help you import your blog posts to a Facebook page.
Don, do you use this for personal pages as well as fan pages? I tried Social RSS with my personal page, and it was a little strange.
Hi Eileen,
No, I’m not using it for my personal Facebook page, only for the Expand2Web Fan page. But I find it kind of confusing and I think I’m going to take that tab off. Instead, I want to focus more on the FBML tabs and also the Discussion tab.
Hey Don. After years as a social media ‘recluse’, my daughter enticed me to Facebook as the sole avenue to new pictures of my grandchildren!
Now that the bug has bitten, I’ve seen the light and want to ‘evangelize’ the use of social media to my offline business clients. I’ve done a ton of reading and research over the last few months, listened to a fair share of hype and finally come full-circle to the one person who made real sense in my first adventure.
How should I establish a Facebook presence for my business. I was expecting to see something similar to your example above, but it is nothing more than an advertisement banner at the top of a list of other ads.
Thanks.
Hi Ed – nice to hear from you!
There is some work involved to creating an effective Facebook page for your business. First of all, choose the name carefully because it is hard to change later. Then you’ll want to create a few specific pages like a welcome page, etc. That takes a little knowledge of FBML (Facebook markup language) which is very similar to HTML. This sounds like a good topic for a future tutorial.
Ed – here’s a nice guide for customizing your Facebook page. Thanks to Eileen Lonergan for sharing it with me!