The Maine SEO Blog

There is no current way to delete all Facebook Pages you’ve liked at once. But, if you are anything like me, at times your news feed starts filling up with posts from pages you’ve totally forgotten that you even liked. Maybe you liked it to help support a friend, or maybe you liked it because there was a contest going on, but now you want to clean up your feed. Here is the easiest way to do it…

Head to your Timeline and Click on ‘Likes.’

You will then land on the page shown below. This gives you a glimpse of some of your likes, by showing you the icons for the different pages.

From here you want to click the edit button to the top right hand of the page.

This will show all your pages organized by category and shown in icon format. In any of the categories just click on the pages icon, once you see the blue highlight around it you can just click delete on your keyboard to remove it. You can also hit the drop down to the right to see a list of all the pages liked in that category. From there you can go ahead and highlight each and hit delete. Once you have removed all the pages, from all of the categories you want removed, you can simply click the “Done Editing” button at the top. This will refresh your lists leaving only what’s left.

You can also hit the button that says “Other pages you like” and it will bring up a pop up box (See below). From this box it’s as easy as scrolling down the list and hitting the “unlike” button.

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
A Fan Of Spring Cleaning

We speculated a while back that Facebook may be rolling out Offers to all business pages and as of today it looks like Facebook offers are here! Offers are really Facebook’s way of taking advantage of the coupon craze. The set up of offers is super easy to use. Below is the tour from Facebook on how to use Facebook offers.

So, first off you find offers right in the same bar that you create all your other status updates. Circled below…

After you click on the “offer, event +” button you will get a drop down of options. Choose “Offer.”

They you will want to choose a great image. Make sure that you use an image that will stand out. You want it to fit well in the space provided, be bright and interesting. If you the offer is for a specific product the image should be of that product, if it’s for a particular service, it should be related to the service.

Like with any ad that you would create you want to make sure that you have a very clear, concise and clever headline that will draw your audiences attention.

Next fill in some of the offers details. When does the deal end? Is there an expiration date on the coupon? Etc.

Then share with your coworkers etc. so everyone knows about the offer.

When folks redeem your offer it’s very easy. They will see the offer in their news feed be able to click to redeem and then it will be sent directly to their email that is attached to their Facebook account. To learn more about how offers work, check out our blogpost “Facebook Offers Coming Soon! Facebook Marketing.”

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Anyone seen a good deal?

While I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it for everyone or every business, scheduling tweets and Facebook posts can be a great solution for those who simply cannot get to their social profiles during the peak hours their audience is online. That said, there are a ton of great options for scheduling posts, so it’s just a matter of finding one that’s the best for you!

Simple solutions

TweetDeck

If you already use a social management tool like TweetDeck, then this simple solution might be for you. As long as you have the Twitter account(s) and Facebook account linked with your TweetDeck account, you’re able to check off every account you’d like to use.

LaterBro

Very similar to TweetDeck, you can link your Twitter account and Facebook account to update your profiles whenever you’d like with LaterBro. The one downfall to this method is that it’s unclear whether or not you’re able to hook up multiple Twitter and Facebook accounts to update.

Complex solutions

Raven Tools

If you already use Raven Tools, this solution might be for you! Raven’s solution is a tad bit more complex, as you do need an account, but we think it’s totally worth it! Once you’re all set up, you’re able to create as many posts as you’d like and go back and edit them at any time.

Also, not only can you manage your Facebook and Twitter accounts through this tool, but YouTube as well! While you can’t upload videos via Raven Tools – yet! – you are able to view metrics.

HootSuite

With HootSuite, you’ll get very similar options as some of the other solutions; but if you upgrade to Pro, you’re also able to bulk upload updates quickly.

And there you have it! Those are only four solutions, so be sure to fill us in on what your favorite scheduled posting tools are in the comment section below!

Nicki Hicks
Schedulers Anonymous

Yes, I know we just got done cleaning up all of our Facebook business pages and maxing out the new dimensions for the cover image and profile photo. But, Facebook has decided to switch it up again.

Facebook sent out an update on the image size change in the weekly page update.

“On April 26, we will be updating the size of the pro­file pic­ture on all Pages. We are let­ting you know about this small change in advance so that you can update your pro­file pic­ture on April 26. The new pro­file pic­ture will be 160 x 160 pixels and will sit at 23 pixels from the left and 210 pixels from the top of the Page.”

Previously the image was 125 x 125 pixels. The new change will make your profile image slightly bigger.

So, if you have a logo as your profile image you may need to clean it up so that it remains sharp and fits correctly using up the proper amount of space. And, if you have an image that integrates into your cover image, such as the “handle” (to make it look like a shopping bag) shown above on the Macy’s Facebook Business page, you will need to also recreate the image in your cover so it matches up appropriately.

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Thanks for the heads up Facebook!

I wanted to create an editorial calendar for our updates on Twitter. Not only to make sure that I was focused on a topic for the month but also to make sure that regardless of my schedule I was staying active on Twitter. So, I created a spreadsheet with all my updates and decided to go over to Hootsuite and bulk upload them. The instructions simply said to format your date, enter your update, a link if you were linking to something, save as a .csv and then use the bulk upload scheduler. Seems simple enough, right? Wrong.

After struggling with Hootsuite trying to upload my Twitter updates in bulk I read through some help forums that stated that if you save your excel spreadsheet as a .csv on a mac it needs to be reformatted to UTF-8 doc before Hootsuite will upload it correctly. So, below are my instructions for those who have been having difficulties on how to bulk upload your updates to Hootsuite using a Mac.

Tip: Make the video Full screen to see the details!

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Scheduling Tweets 50 at a time!

A while back we wrote a blog about How to post to your Facebook Business Page as You. Ever since this post was created it’s been one of the most highly visited on the site. Now with the new Facebook changes I just wanted to make sure that you still knew how to post on a page as yourself.  So here are the new instructions of how to post on your Facebook business page as you with the new Timeline for Facebook Pages design.

Step 1. Go to the page that you admin.

Step 2. Click on the Manage Button and go to the edit page drop down.

Step 3. Go to “Your Settings”

Step 4. Make sure the check box next to “Always comment and post on your page as “Your Page Name“, even when using Facebook as “Yourself.” is UNCHECKED.

Step 5. Now you have the ability to switch back and forth on when posting on your page as yourself and the page.

Note: Now when you are signed into Facebook the default is for you to post as yourself. So, when you want to post an update on your page as your page you need to make sure that you switch users. See the steps below.

Step 6. Go to your page to make the update.

Step 7. From the admin panel go to the Manage Drop Down and Click on “Use page as ‘Your Page’”.

And, it’s as easy as that! To switch back to yourself all you have to do is follow step 5 through 7 and choose “Use Facebook as ‘Yourself’”.

Tip: To get conversation started on your page it’s always a good idea to post a question first as your page and then answer it as yourself. People are more likely to comment on an update/post that already has other responses.

Joan Woodbrey Crocker

The best way to think of Facebook Interest Lists is a way of creating your own news feed. When you sign into Facebook your current News Feed is a compilation of your friends posts and updates from pages you’ve liked that Facebook deems important enough to show up using an algorithm called EdgeRank. However, sometimes we subscribe to others and follow pages because we want to keep up with all of the information. These groups are groups of interest. So, Facebook has created a way for us to create our own news feed by adding these particular individuals and pages into an interest list.

A few ideas of types of lists that you can create:

- Family
- Industry Experts
- Celebrities
- News/Journalists
- Sports Teams or pros

Once you’ve created these lists you can then click on the list to see all the news and updates for those added in one niche news feed.

Where do I find my interest lists? You can find your interest lists in the left column of your home page in Facebook. See them circled in red below…

Here’s how you create a list:

Step 1: Click “Add Interests” Under Interests in the Left Column of your home page on Facebook.

Step 2: Click Create List. Note that when you come to this page you will also have suggested interest lists that you can follow just by clicking subscribe. It’s always a good idea to see if there is another list that similar to what you are about to create that you can just subscribe to rather than recreating it.

Step 3. Once you’ve clicked “Create List” you will get a pop up window that has all the different subscriptions, pages, friends that you can choose from or you can type whatever you’d like into the search box. Once you’ve chosen all the folks you’d like to have in the particular interest list click “Next”.

Step 4. Once you’ve selected those that you want to add to the list a new window will show up asking you to name your new list. You will also notice it asks if you want the list to be seen publicly, friends only or only yourself. If you choose public this means that anyone on Facebook can subscribe to the list, if you choose Friends this means only your friends will be able to subscribe to the interest list you’ve created. And, if you choose just yourself it will be a private list just for yourself.  You will also notice that to the right you can see all the different subscriptions, pages and people you’ve added to the list. This is a quick check to make sure everything is good. If everything is all set, hit Done.

Step 5. Once you’ve hit done your interest list is finished. YOu will be brought immediately to the news feed of this particular list. See below…

Are you using interest lists yet? Do you find them helpful? Share your ideas with us on how to best use Facebook Interest Lists for marketing purposes.

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Interested in Lists

One of our most popular blog posts at the Maine SEO blog is “How to Like a Facebook Fan Page…As a Fan Page.”  But now the set up of Facebook has changed a bit with the new Facebook Timeline for Pages design and so we need to update the instructions a bit. So below is an updated version of Nicki’s fantastic blog with some more recent screenshots! Hope this helps!

“That may sound a little confusing, but you can actually like a Facebook fan page as a fan page you administer. Instead of “liking”, Facebook calls this “adding to your page’s favorites”.

Why would you want to do this? You might want to call attention to a client or a favorite business of yours, or simply provide another resource/fan page you think your fans would be interested in.

Start by logging into the account you administer.

Then, go to the fan page you’d like to favorite. Click on the Drop Down button near the “Message” button.

Then click “Add to My Page’s Favorites”.

Click this option and you’ll see a pop-up window, where you can choose from the pages you admin:

And that’s all there is to it!

Update:

Once you’ve liked a page from your page it gives you the opportunity to talk about them on your page and link to them at the same time so you show up on their page wall as well. This is a great way of getting in front of fans of their page while promoting their business to yours as well. Note: Keep things non salesy. No one wants a bunch of spam on their Facebook wall and it’s the fastest way to get your update deleted from their page.

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Maine Seo Blog

There are so many features of the new Timeline Facebook design that I like. But, one really cool one is the new insights that can be seen on the “Likes” Tab. Facebook has moved all of the custom pages and apps into one place and now you have up to 12 app icons to show below your cover. Photos is fixed and always has the top spot, but the rest you can move around at will. The “Likes” tab is provided by Facebook and also has a pretty cool function other than just telling you how many likes are on that particular page.

If you click on the “likes” tab, shown in the image above, you will notice that some interesting insights also pop up. (shown Below)

Here you can see how many folks are talking about your page, the total likes, and most importantly some page insights. However, you don’t just get this information when you click on the “Likes” tab on your page, you get it when you click on the Likes tab for every page. This is a great tool to dig in and do a little market research to see how your competitors are doing. Here are a couple things you can tell below:

1. What was the most popular week for the page? Look back at that week and see what your competitor was doing on their page that made it so popular. Was it a particular post? Was it a holiday? Were they offering a deal of some sort? What made that week so popular?

2. Where are their fans coming from? If it seems that most of their fans are local, than they are probably doing a great job spreading the word locally about their business and services. If they seem to be from a target city, maybe they are targeting that area with ads. If they are from India, and it’s a local business, then perhaps they purchased some of their likes – eek!

3. You can check out the demographic. Do they have the same target audience you’ve been targeting? If not, should you be targeting a different demographic?

4. Check ins – you can see when the business was most visited. Again, check to see what was going on then. Were they having a sale or an event of sorts? What made that week popular?

5. Now, this is where it gets really interesting. The People Talking About This/New Likes per Week Graph. This is a great way to get some insight into what types of posts they are creating that get shared/liked the most. Is there a spike on a particular day? What did they post about, or how did they word their post? Is this something you can duplicate and try out for yourself?

The “Likes” Tab may seem small and insignificant. But, with the recent changes it seems it could pack a lot of heat. Before we could go to our competitions page and scroll down the page and look for ourselves what posts were performing well. Now, we can still do that, but we have a little extra help in the market research department from a simple little button.

Have you tried this out yet? What do you think?

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Likes Likes

Since the announcement of Facebook Timeline for Business pages I’ve heard the same question asked over and over again. What happens to our Facebook Landing pages/custom tabs? And, If you didn’t get a chance to read that post take a minute and go read it. But since then we’ve done a little thinking.

While you can’t set up a default landing page for those who’ve not liked your page yet, you can still create landing tabs that are “like gated” or “like baited”. You are just going to need to give your audience some incentive to click on that tab!

You pages have not gone anywhere, they are still there. And, now you actually have more space/width for your designed pages. (810 pixels) So, you can get even more creative. And, the tabs, which used to be small word links to the right column of your Facebook page, are now larger image links right below the Cover image. This also allows you to get a little more creative and enticing with your images and what you call the page.

For instance, you can create a page that offers coupons, call that tab “Coupons” or “Specials” or “Discounts” of “Deals”, people are always interested in getting a deal so this will entice them to click on your page.

Once on the landing page you can have it set up just as you did before, only with a slight bigger page design, and ask for the like. You will notice that there is still a like button above if the person hasn’t liked it already. Facebook was having an issue last week where the page wasn’t automatically refreshing after the Like button was clicked, but they have now fixed the problem. So, after someone clicks like, you can still have a reveal tab or welcome tab that has the printable coupons you are offering.

There are several other ways to drive traffic to your pages to get the likes other than making the tab itself enticing. It may not be as easy as the default, but using Facebook Ads is another great way to direct people to land on that page if they haven’t already liked the page.

So, you may have to get a little more creative. But, you can still drive people to your custom tabs, offer deals for people to like you and technically like gate your pages to reveal coupons etc.

Share your thoughts on new ways of gaining fans for the new Facebook Timeline with us here!

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Get Creative!

Photo Credit: by JoshSemans