Facebook Insights...not so private.

Facebook has taken a lot of heat about their privacy policies. Most of that can be corrected through settings, thank goodness.

What has recently come to my attention is something on Business Pages that you might wish were completely invisible to the "fans" of your page. The image above is from the Pinterest Facebook page. They have over 1.7 million fans, which at first may seem like an impressive number. (It really is impressive) But, click on that number and your opinion might change.

When you do, you will see some information about the page that show their engagement - a key indicator to the effectiveness of a facebook page - has been in a steady decline for the past month.

The rub is that this is information you or I could find on any Facebook page. And, while this information cannot be completely deleted, you may want to make it challenging to find. If you have more than 4 tabs, you can hide the one with the likes.

If you need a little help, please just give me a call and I can walk you through how to change it!

And, what do you think about Facebook making this visible to everyone? Would love your thoughts.

Timeline: Ready or not, here it comes!

If you haven’t logged into your Facebook business page recently, you might not be aware that there is a change coming to your page THIS FRIDAY! But, do not fear, here are some tips to make the transition easier.

1. Choose a great cover photo for your banner on your Facebook page. The ideal dimensions are 850 X 315 pixels. Your profile picture will also be resized to 125 X 125 pixels.

2. Add some milestones. One unique feature of Timeline is the ability to jump to past dates. Click “add Milestone” and you can tell a story. When did you start your business? Hire your first employee? Win an award? This is a place to document your business history.

3. Visit the admin panel where you will find useful data, including recent page interactions (new comments, likes and likers), the insights graph and messages from fans. Explore the new Build Your Audience and Manage buttons to see their functionality as well.

As an added note, people can now send messages to your business. This is a new way for your fans to communicate with you and Any time a fan or customer reaches out to your business, it’s an opportunity to connect that you don’t want to miss. The challenge will be to remember to look for new messages which are part of the admin panel.

The shift to Timeline may take some getting used to, but when the sense of overwhelm disappears, you will find a much more robust tool that will help your business thrive.