Facebook — Page 3

Monitor any Facebook Page for Posts, Comments and Content

January 28, 2011 by Joe Hackman 25 Comments

As someone who manages and participates on a number of Facebook Pages, I have always wondered why Facebook does not give us the means to monitor user activity on pages such as posts and comments. Until recently I used a Google Reader entry that uses Feed My Inbox to deliver this content from other pages, but I’ve been stuck with manual visits for user comments and posts. Earlier this week I saw a wall post from my Friend Shonali that pointed to the Facebook Page Alert App SmackDown. The authors statement really sums up which app was worth even trying:

All I’ll say about Hyper Alerts is this: it is THE BEST THING EVER. It’s free and sends you real-time updates when people post AND comment on your posts. I’ve been managing Facebook Pages for two and a half years and I’m telling you right now, the past week since I’ve started using Hyper Alerts, have been a freakin’ cake walk. – Maggie at Mizzinformation.com

That was the kind of reference that I can appreciate, so I tried the app out. Since using it I have been anxiously awaiting the opportunity to share how much butt it kicks to anyone who does not want to constantly “spot check” pages for updated content, comments and posts. You all know who you are, you are the ones who are getting excited right now.

How to use Hyperalerts

Using Hyperalerts is extremely simple, you navigate to their site and setup an account. Once your account is created you are able to add alerts. I started by adding what was the most critical page for me to monitor, my businesses Facebook page. While creating the alert you are able to choose how frequently you will receive alerts and what type of content you will receive alerts about. The user interface is very simple, but I will of course be happy to provide a video tutorial for anyone who’d like a little extra help. For demonstration purposes I setup a second alert for my Rotary Club’s Facebook page, because unless I am posting something there I don’t want to visit it unless I know there is something to comment on (or delete if someone has spammed the wall, though this is becoming less common). My alerts are now setup, this is what the page looks like where I can edit them or add more:

Now that the alerts are in place I receive notices when the criteria I have setup are met. This saves me from those periodic “spot checks” that I was doing previously. Now that it is setup there is nothing else required. Here is an example of an alert:

Fresh from the idea farm

Since this program uses Email and you can monitor essentially any Facebook page, it could easily be used in to achieve some heavy lifting. In conjunction with an Email list you could distribute content notices to a number of users. For example, with a club you might be a part of you could with a little tinkering allow the entire club to receive notices when a particular page had been updated. Or you could even have alerts from your businesses (or a customers, competitors?) page go to a team of people who are at the ready to respond. You could also feed the notices into a system that creates tickets for a team to assign and respond. These are little hacks that might make this already powerful and useful application even more so. Do you have any other suggestions?

Update: 2/5/2011 – Hyper Alerts just got easier!

I was pleased when I logged in to Hyper Alerts today to notice a new button “Add alert from your Facebook user” this makes adding alerts so much easier. Nice to see great changes so soon!

Update: 2/11/2012 – Facebook Pages now do alerts but they stink

Facebook included an alerting function with their big changes to Pages but it is not very user friendly. I still strongly recommend Hyper Alerts.

Thumbnail tips and tricks for posts with embedded video (Video)

January 12, 2011 by Joe Hackman 21 Comments

I was writing a post about the importance of including images in posts with embedded video’s recently and discovered a great little “hack” to hide said images so that only the thumbnail would show up when shared. This post is the result of that discovery, it solved a long standing issue that I had with video only posts. If you also had come across this issue the video tutorial in particular will be very valuable. There is actually a hidden image immediately after this paragraph, view the page source if you want to see it or watch the video to see how it was done.

The problem with embedded video posts

Posts with only embedded video and no pictures do not display as nicely when shared on Facebook, Linked In and other similar sites. For example, when I share a post without an actual image included, these are my thumbnail choices:

None of these are appropriate in most cases as they do not represent what I am posting about. The thumbnail should represent what the post is about, here is a good example:

In the example above the image represents the 2 Year Anniversary of Waxing Unlyrical (Shonali – that’s 3 days in a row, inside joke sorry readers). With the two candles you really get the gist of what the post is about before reading it, the image ties in perfectly with the title and what the post is about. The example above is clean and professional.

The solution is simple – an appropriate but hidden image, this video will show you how you do it:

Bring more readers to your blog with the LiveFyre comment system

January 11, 2011 by Joe Hackman 72 Comments

In my recent post about tagging people on Facebook there was a robust discussion that occurred that was largely not related to the post but was actually centered around the Livefyre comment system itself. In this video I explain how and why that occurred and how you can use the system to bring more readers to your blog.

What comment system do you prefer and why?

Facebook Tips – Tagging best practices and etiquette (Video)

January 10, 2011 by Joe Hackman 45 Comments

I recorded this video to show people how to use the relatively simple tagging function on Facebook. I also explain more in depth in the video some of the etiquette involved with tagging people and pages. This is a great introduction to the feature if you are unsure how to use it or are looking for a starting point on etiquette.

What would you like to see?

Do you have any Facebook related topics that you’d like to see a video of? Please let me know and I will try to include it in this series.

Mentioned in this video/post @Lifehacker and @Shonali

Why 2011 may be the Year of Privacy

January 4, 2011 by Joe Hackman 4 Comments

As we roll into our 14th year here at Managed Solutions taking stock of the last 14 years many trends have dominated our priority list. In 2010 the focus was extending the life of under-maintained hardware, Cloud Computing and Security. Signs are pointing to privacy being a very relevant issue for 2011. The Wall Street Journal really started the ball rolling with their privacy series in 2010. That really set the tone with many consumers learning and becoming much more concerned about their data privacy. Also it seems like everywhere you looked in 2010 Facebook was being criticized for their at times what appeared to be utter contempt for the privacy of their users. See also “Frustrated by the new Facebook groups? So am I, and something you can do.” on amplify for some additional discussion on that.

Photo credit Opensourceway, Creative Commons

Spokeo.com got “spinsucked”

Gini Dietrich posted a great article this week that struck a chord with the readers. It’s been viewed, shared and commented on heavily since it came out. The post was about “Deleting Your Spokeo Profile” and it detailed what information could be found on Spokeo.com and how to delete the profile. I thought based on the comments that it was worthy of a screencast so I recorded it and shared it with Gini. You can view it on Youtube. At one point Spokeo was not able to process requests, so I joked with her on her blog that there is a new /. in town and that spokeo had gotten “spinsucked” so henceforth that will be my story, and I will stick to it.

As further proof that this issue really resonated with many of us, I had one person completely disconnected from the matter ask me on Facebook last night if I had “heard of Spokeo” at that point I realized this was really circulating far and wide.

Learning from the debate

Some debates did come up over the spinsucks post, here were the opposition arguments to removing your profile from spokeo:

There are many other sites that mirror the same data
They are probably harvesting the required email address to sell
The information is public domain only, readily available

One less site is better

In response to argument #1, one less site is certainly better is it not? Not to mention Spokeo actually did a bang up job of getting a lot more data than other sites seem to have to offer. I’d rather not be listed there.

Avoid the harvest

Avoiding the email harvesting concept is easy, you should use either an alias that can be tracked and later deleted or a “junk” email that is only checked in these circumstances.

The information is public domain only

I don’t think this is the case, it appears that Spokeo has found or paid for some really unique data or at least their paid for service touts that. If it is all public domain it’s usually not in one place. If someone is going to go after it, let’s make them work for it, does that sound like a decent strategy?

What does it mean?

I think these developments solidify the position that 2011 is the year of privacy, why? We know now, and we care, and we’re reading and watching and opting out to the tune of disabling a website. Our current privacy laws are not reacting fast enough for the changes in this digital world. This disparity is creating a vacuum that will be filled one way or another.

What happen’s next? Predictions

So the question is do the companies that are gathering this information and making it available cave from the pressure cooker that is likely to develop from consumers this year? Does the government step in and pass new privacy legislation more geared to our digital and interconnected age? Or does a group of entrepreneurs put together a service that opts out and erases data that can be masked, opts you out of junk mail and create an opportunistic menu of other privacy features?

I’ll be talking privacy a lot more this year and making it a priority to educate and discuss both here on Managed Solutions and also on my blog. Please join the conversation and share your thoughts. The most compelling comments will be added to the post and the authors cited. Or perhaps you’d like to guest post about this, if so please contact me.