The vision for this blog is to create a community of harmonious professionals across the care continuum who encourage each other in exploring digital media as a way to support businesses and families dealing with elder care.
Written on February 16th, 2011 by tasha
Last week Facebook unveiled changes that for once did not cause users to groan. In fact, those with Fan Pages (business pages) gave a mighty cheer!
The changes now allow us to make a better separation between our personal and our private lives. For instance, in the past, if I LIKED my hospice clients’ pages or commented on my geriatric care manager clients’ pages, my teenage nieces and other personal “friends” got regaled with posts about death, dying and Internet marketing. (They have been generous about it and chalk it up to their kooky aunt/friend. But still, it can get to be a bit much.)
Now, when you want to LIKE a colleague’s fan page, or make a business-related comment, you can do so as your “Business Self.” Anyone reading your posts and interested in exploring more about you and what you are up to can click and be led to your company page, not to your personal page. (No more worries clients may see you soaked by a water balloon at the summer BBQ when what you really want them to know is the professionalism and caring you bring to your job!)
Ready to be a tad schizophrenic? Here’s how you make the change:
In order to track this easily, you have to think of yourself as having 2 personas:
• Your Personal Self (in my case, my Personal Profile of Natasha Beauchamp)
• Your Business Self (in my case, my Fan Page of Elder Pages Online)
THE “OLD” SYSTEM
Recall that Facebook was originally set up as a friends-connecting-with-friends vehicle for college students. As businesses began to see the value in creating and participating in online communities via the social Web, Facebook obliged by allowing for Fan (business) Pages.
But you had to create a Personal Profile first to be the Administrator of a business Fan Page. (You still do. If you don’t do this, Facebook will not index your site. I believe they wanted to be sure there was some personal accountability to sites going up. This is kind of a way to make sure people don’t behave like spammers and post things irresponsibly.)
If you LIKED a colleagues page, or COMMENTED on a colleague’s page, it was NOT your Business Self that appeared connected to the post. The photo associated with the post would be whatever photo was showing on your Personal Profile. And if anyone clicked on it to learn more about you, they were taken to your personal page. Grrr.
Similarly, your LIKES appeared on your Personal Profile, not on your business Fan Page. Double grrr.
THE NEW SYSTEM
You still have to create a Personal Profile to be an Administrator of a Fan Page. But now, when you log in to Facebook, you can tell it “which hat” you are wearing as you make posts, LIKE and comment. Here is a short tutorial on how to switch your personas.
To post, LIKE and comment as your Business Self:
1. Go to the upper right corner of your page and open the Account menu
2. The large photo will tell you “who” you are currently logged on as. In this case, I am logged on as my Personal Self (large picture, Natasha Beauchamp), but I have the option to change to “Use Facebook as Page”. Cryptic wording, but this is where you click to change your subsequent interactions from your Personal Self to your Business Self (See red circle)
3. I am the Administrator of 2 Fan Pages. (“Elder Pages Online” is my business presence. Please be sure to LIKE me while you are there! 
“ABC Hospice” is a fictitious page David Cherry and I are creating for our Facebook for Hospice presentation at the NHPCO Management and Leadership Conference in April.) I’m going to pick Elder Pages Online.
4. Now the entries I make on Facebook are as my Business Self.
To change back and post as your Personal Self:
Now you can interact more consistently, and in fact, with more depth, with your business colleagues. You can LIKE and COMMENT and know that you are actually spreading the word about your business, not yourself. Your business picture will appear beside your entries. And when people click, they will be taken to your Fan Page instead of your Personal Profile.
Like many, I grumble at how often (capriciously?) Facebook makes changes. But this time, I have to say BRAVO! Although I may grow weary of my many hats, at least I now have the option to fully “be” my Business Self, or fully “be” my Personal Self, without having to worry about misleading posts that uncomfortably blur the lines.
How helpful was this explanation?
I do like the ability to switch back and forth and post as my fan page. I also like the fact that pages I “like” for business purposes don’t have to clog up my personal news feed anymore.
However, I want to point out that you can do all of the above without “upgrading” your fan page to the new layout. I am holding off on upgrading until Facebook works out the bugs and hopefully makes changes that admins are asking for (or until they automatically upgrade everyone in March). My biggest complaint with the new layout is the weighted system they’ve put on wall posts. The only way for page visitors to view posts chronologically is to view only posts by the page, not everyone. This makes no sense in my opinion and I really hope Facebook gives us the chronological view as an option before upgrading everyone.
Yes, in its inimitable wisdom, Facebook and Company has decided that they want the posts that have the most engeagement (people commenting) to appear first, regardless of chronology.
You do have the choice of having your Wall posts display chronologically, but it comes at a price. The only way to do that is to set the Wall filter from “Everyone” to “Just [your page]“. The latter is so anathema to the social/community premise of Facebook (only showing your own posts), that it’s a tough call. You retain total control of the chronology, but block community, or you encourage community and let users’ engagement determine the priority of the order.
I guess it’s their sandbox, and if they want to say that the rules are we emphasize those things that get comments, well, that’s one way to reduce the other complaint about businesses on Facebook: Too many unidirectional promotions, not enough engaging or substantive content.
Check out my Facebook post tomorrow on a study concerning why people UNLIKE a Fan Page. (http://www.facebook.com/elderpagesonline). This might give some insights.
All I can say is that as a fan/user myself, I can’t stand the new weighted system. If I go to a page, I want to see everything in order. I’ve never liked this feature and always view my personal news feed through the “Most Recent” filter. I don’t mind Facebook having a weighted system. I just think they should give users options.
For you personal wall you can show the posts chronologically by clicking on Most Recent at the top of the page. It defaults back to Top News when you come back, but it is easy enough to check a couple of times a day. That feature doesn’t work for Fan Pages.
I am very excited about this upgrade so I can also post as a person with my personal story separate from my business persona (but I will always ID myself as the biz admin.) And even better is the ability making the b2b connections this way.
Nice article… thanks.
http://www.Facebook.com/StorybooksForHealing
[...] to see if they have a Fan Page on Facebook. If they do, LIKE their page. (Be sure you are set to be Using Facebook as your Fan Page. If you are using it as your personal self, then you won’t be getting the business exposure [...]