A few days ago, Facebook rolled out changes to the Facebook pages. Facebook pages are the equivalent of user profiles for companies and brands and they’re an increasingly important web presence for most organizations.
One of the most important changes is the ability of Facebook admins to interact with fans and other pages as the company or brand. Here’s what this means:
- Facebook admins can now be on Facebook as an individual OR the Facebook page or brand. If you’re admin on a Facebook page, go to your Facebook page and click on Account in the top right. The second option in the dropdown is Use Facebook as Page. If you click on this, you’ll get a list of all pages for which you’re an admin. Select one. You will now interact with others and pages on Facebook as THAT company.
- You can “like” other Facebook pages as the company, not as yourself. Pages that your Facebook page “likes” will be displayed randomly (5 of them) in the left rail of your Facebook page, with the ability to View All.
- You can comment on your own wall and other walls as the company, not as yourself. For example, Matrix Group can comment on a client’s wall, even though it’s me, Joanna Pineda, who would be authoring the post.
- You can view a newsfeed of updates from the pages that your company likes, not your friends. For example, Matrix Group has “liked” the Facebook pages of our clients. When I’m on Facebook as the Matrix Group page, when I press Home, my stream is from other company pages, not the friends and family of Joanna Pineda.
- When I’m online as a page, Facebook recommends other pages for me to like as a company, based on the “likes” of the fans of my fan page. For example, Facebook tells me that 101 of Matrix Group Facebook fans like Starbucks and gives me the option to “like” Starbucks right from the Matrix Group fan page homepage. Very slick.
If there are multiple admins on your Facebook page, be sure to train them on how to switch between their profile and your fan page. And establish guidelines for when to interact with other Facebook pages and fans as themselves or the company fan page. Remember that just because you as an individual love a band, author or political party, it does NOT mean that your company or brand should like these pages as well. I love these new changes and look forward to being Matrix Group on Facebook!
8 replies on “Facebook Admins Can Now Interact With Others on Facebook as THE Brand”
This is good info. Facebook’s changes are not always obvious. Speaking of which, there used to be a way — an obvious way — to ‘View all Photos with Comments’ and you’d get one page where you could look at any photo with a comment. It was great. But I can’t find that link anymore. Any ideas? I suspect if you knew the URL you could find it. It doesn’t appear that Facebook actually gets rid of any old code (like so many of us) but rather just hides the link.
I have set our organizations fb page and created a volunteer admin page. This new feature does not work. When I switch to the fbpage for wywl and want to “like” another page , I get “oops” message when I try to like other peoples pages as our organization page, however I can like them as my profile, But want to use the org. page only. So are you saying that in a hidden way when we are the admin(personal) and are in that mode and “like” another organization page, it will reflect on the ORGANIZATION page? So confused. Help!
Hi Valerie. Be sure to go to your Facebook page (e.g., http://www.facebook.com/MatrixGroup) and then click on Account. From the dropdown, select Use Facebook as page. If you are the admin on more than one page, you will get a list of the pages. Click Switch next to the page.
Then, as you surf Facebook, you can like pages as your nonprofit, you can comment as the nonprofit, etc. For example, when I switch to MatrixGroup, when I post a comment on a fan page, the comment shows up as Matrix Group, with the Matrix Group logo, and NOT Joanna Pineda.
What do you mean when you say you get an ooops error?
Hello,
I am the only admin on my Jacob Meudt Photography page on Facebook. I know how to switch to my page, yet I can only post on other business pages. I go to my brother’s page, or my friend’s pages and cannot access their walls in order to post.
Hi Jacob. Thanks for your comment. Let me make sure I understand what is happening:
* You go to Account in the top right corner and select Use Facebook as Page. You select your company page.
* Then you go directly to your company page, e.g., http://www.facebook.com/yourpage. If you post an update or comment, you should be posting as the company. What happens when you do this? Remember that you need to go to your company page, not your Profile page.
Is this not happening? Can you describe a bit more? Hope this is helpful.
I think I misunderstood your earlier posting. Yes this works as you have described.
What I would like to do, don’t know if you can, is to be able to go to a person’s personal Facebook page (as my company page) and post a comment.
I can go onto other organization’s pages and post as my company, but when I go onto a friend’s personal page I have no access to their wall. For example, I have to go to my brother’s wall, with my personal page and comment, put a link and tell people “Hey go check out the new photography on my business page.” I would like to be able to go to my brother’s page, as my business and comment.
Is this possible?
I think facebook make changes all too often not only too facebook business pages but to the average user profile/page as well, you seem to only just get used to then they run a new update or development and you have to get used to it all over again!
I just created a Facebook “page” that has absolutely no interaction settings. My upper right corner as you noted, does not even have an “account” button. I don’t even have a “search box” to go outside my page and look for other pages that are similar to mine.
Nothing. The only thing I can do is “write” on my page….nothing else. I have a new email for this page, so I cannot even connect to “email contacts.’ Help?