How do I leave a comment on my brand’s Facebook Page as myself, not as the Page?

I’ve been getting this question a bit more often lately, so I figured it might be easiest just to share it here.

First, being able to switch how you use Facebook is a handy feature that has been available to Page admins for several months now. Previously, anytime an admin of a page left a status update or a comment on the page, the comment would look like it came from the brand, not from the person. (For example, if left a comment on the 30 Lines page, it would always appear to come from 30 Lines, not from my personal profile. I’d often sign posts with my initials to let people know it was really me.)

Well, this is fine, but I had a number of clients who wanted more personal interaction with their audience. In some cases, a couple staff members would purposely be left off as admins to be able to comment on the page as themselves. In other cases, some people would remove themselves as an admin of the page, make the comment as themselves, then get added back as an admin — repeating this anytime they wanted to comment from their personal profile. An annoying, tedious process … but really the only option available if you wanted to add that personal touch.

Well, Facebook fixed this. You have to update your settings to be able to do it, but it’s actually pretty easy to do. Here’s how:

Update your settings

Head over to your page settings (Click on “Edit Page” in the top right corner), then select the very first option in the left menu, called “Your Settings.” It should look like this:

Uncheck the top checkbox. It will say something like “Always comment and post on your page as My Awesome Page even when using Facebook as {your name here}.” Make sure to save your changes.

BAM.

That’s it. You’re done.

Well … sort of.

Switching Between Personal Profile and Page

Once you’ve changed this setting, you’ll *always* comment on the page from your personal profile, unless you make the switch to use Facebook as your page. Now when you visit your page, you’ll see an admin panel in the top right that looks like this:

If you want a status update or comment on the page (or other pages on Facebook — see Admins Can “Use Facebook as Page”) to come from the brand, you need to click the link to “Use Facebook as My Awesome Page.” If you don’t make this switch first, any comments on the page will come from your personal profile, and they likely won’t end up in the newsfeed of many of your subscribers. Make the switch, then share your update or comment. (I’d recommend a big Post-It plastered to your screen reminding you to switch until it becomes habit.)

NOTE: This change doesn’t affect how you use third-party tools like Hootsuite, Tweetdeck or Postling. If you have authorized these tools to post to your page, the updates you share will come from the brand without the need to switch how you’re using Facebook.

OK, now you’re done. You’ll be able to share updates with all of your subscribers by posting as the page, and you’ll be able to get into more personal conversations by posting and commenting as yourself. The end result will look something like this (post from the page, comment left by me):

So now that you can do this, does it change the way you use your brand’s page? Have you seen any good examples of companies that have been able to “get more personal” with their audience?

Well, Google stepped further into more “social” search results this week by introducing their own version of the Facebook Like, a social sharing button dubbed +1. They describe +1 like this:

Click +1 to publicly give something your stamp of approval. Your +1′s can help friends, contacts, and others on the web find the best stuff when they search.

Take a look:

View the video on YouTube.

Here’s what your search results will look like if you see a result that has been +1′ed by one of your connections:

You can see that Mark has +1′ed his property, which is now reflected in my search results.

Google hasn’t rolled this feature out to everyone yet. If you don’t see the +1 button next to search results, you can head over to Google Experiments and request to join the +1 “experiment.” Once you’re “in,” you’ll see the button next to the title in search results (and next to AdWords, too … but that’s a topic for another day).

There are a few things that you can do to make sure you’re getting the most out of this new feature to benefit your online marketing efforts:

Update Your Profile

Start here, because you need a public Google profile in order to use +1. Your profile is also one way Google learns about where else you are online (and who you’re connected to there), so make sure your profile info is up-to-date and that you’ve added links to all of the social profiles that you use on a regular basis. Take advantage and feed the machine as much information as possible.

Don’t have a profile yet? Get one here. (Here’s mine to give you an idea of what this looks like.)

Do Something Worth Talking About

I think this one should be a given, but I really can’t emphasize it enough. Social sharing is all about word-of-mouth. You need to do something so interesting, funny, unique, etc. that people will want to tell their friends. (Or you could just sing an incredibly bad teenage pop song.) Be worth talking about at the water cooler or over a beer, and some of that conversation is bound to happen online.

If you’re not doing this in the first place, why would anyone want to recommend you or your website?

Build a Strong Social Presence

There are lots of other reasons why social media can benefit your business, but your prospect’s online social circle is influencing the search results they see now more than ever. Expanding your networks on Facebook, Twitter and other social sites will increase your opportunities to start working your way into these “social” search results. Sharing links to resources besides your own website will help you build a broad, almost-ambient presence over time in your connections’ search results pages.

Get +1 for Your Website

Of course, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to make a recommendation for a web page before you’ve visited the page. I’d imagine the only people who will be clicking on the +1 button from the search results will be marketers and SEOs. (Um, guilty.) For everyone else, including the vast majority of your brand’s audience, they’re much more likely to make the recommendation once they get to your site.

That’s why Google soon will be rolling out the +1 button for websites. I’m sure it will be very similar to the Facebook Like, Tweet This and LinkedIn Share buttons … you’ll be able to place it on any page on your site. And yes, you will want to add this to your site. Make it as easy as possible for visitors to your site to share your content with their network.

It’s a bit odd that Google didn’t roll out this feature as part of their initial launch, but you can sign up to get notified when it does become available for your site here.

In any case, when Google makes a move like this, it’s worth watching. It’s clear that social networks will have a huge impact on search, and more importantly, how your brand’s online presence appears in search results. Keep pumping out great stuff, keep growing your network and make sure you’re giving Google as much information as possible about what you’re doing. Do that, and it’ll be +1 for you and your brand.

And while you’re here, why not click that “thumbs up” button below? I’d like that a lot.

All that said, Quora isn’t necessarily doing anything new (but they are doing one thing really well). Lots of people have questions about all kinds of things. They probably have questions about the subjects that you know best. That’s an opportunity for you and your organization.

Not everyone is on Quora yet, and they probably won’t be for a while. But there are plenty of other sites where you can find questions about your area of expertise. Here are a few places where you might want to look:

• Yahoo! Answers: The granddaddy of the category. Yahoo! Answers are open to anyone and indexed by the major search engines.
• LinkedIn Answers: Open to any LinkedIn member. Follow categories that interest you most, and get recognized for providing the best answer to a given question.
• LinkedIn Groups: Groups can be very targeted by industry or interest group, but they can tend to get self-promotional. Find the groups with proactive managers and get active in the discussions.
• Facebook Questions: A fairly new feature in Facebook (some people still don’t see this option in their status bar), the size of the userbase alone makes this one worth watching.
• Twitter: Twitter is full of people asking questions and pondering various subjects. Use the Advanced Search feature, plug in a keyword term related to your industry along with a question mark (one example I use is “wordpress help ?“) and see who you can assist. Plug the terms into your Twitter client of choice, or grab the RSS feed and check back a couple times a day.
• Local/Industry Networking Sites and Forums: If your business is focused on a specific region or industry, there’s a good chance there are already discussion boards and networking sites where people are seeking information. Be there to help. (And if such a site doesn’t exist for your industry yet, start one here.)
• Your Website or Blog: If you’re already blogging or getting a decent amount of traffic to your site, consider taking questions from readers and answering them in future posts or a dedicated area of your site. What better place to make sure that potential customers can find the answers they need?

That’s Just What I Needed!

The difference, and the advantage for Quora at the moment, is the quality of the experts answering questions and the answers being provided. You’ll quickly find that Yahoo! and even LinkedIn are full of spam, while Quora provides their community with tools to help vote the best answers to the top and suppress the self-promoters.

Whether Quora makes it or not, people will always be searching for useful answers. If you’re going to spend some time answering questions on any of these sites, here are a few things to keep in mind to make sure you stand out from the pack:

• Be a resource, not a sales clerk. People want answers, not sales pitches. If they reach out to you, you’ll get the opportunity to reel them in.
• Be clear and concise. We’re all busy. We don’t have time to sort through pages of manuals. Get to the point, and fast.
• Be a connector. Sometimes you don’t have the answer, but you know just the person who does. Rather than making something up, make the referral. Provide a link to reach the other expert.
• Look for ideas to incorporate into your own site. If you see a trend, leverage it. Write a blog post, add some content to your FAQ or record a quick video to address the question that keeps popping up.

The bottom line is that being helpful is be a great way to gain trust. And when people trust you, they’re more comfortable doing business with you. I can tell you from experience — helping people on LinkedIn and Twitter has led directly to several wonderful, long-term clients. Give it a try … you might be surprised at the results.

Have a question for me? Post it in the comments, reach me here, or ask me on Quora. I’ll be sure to answer as soon as I can.

More Resources:

• 9 Ways to Get More Out of Quora

I want to post something on this other brand’s Page, but I want it to look like it’s coming from my brand, not from me. How do I do that?

You can do this using a feature called “tagging.” Tagging other brand Pages is a great way to give credit to the other brand, and it also can get your brand some extra exposure, because your post will appear on your Page and theirs (assuming they allow others to post to their Wall). It’s perfect to use when you’re sharing a link or announcing some kind of partnership marketing effort. And it’s actually really easy to do.

Here’s how:

1) Navigate to the other brand’s Facebook page and make sure that you have “liked” the Page from your personal account. (If you want to “tag” a person, you need to be personally connected to that person.) As an example, I had lunch last week with Christian Adams, a great guy and fellow online marketer, and now I want to “tag” his business to give him credit whenever I share one of his posts on Facebook. Here’s a look at the Facebook Page for Christian’s business, Sigma Creative:

2) Now that you’re connected to the Page, head over to your own brand’s Page. Do not go to your feed or your personal profile. (Note: This assumes that you’re already set up as an admin on your brand’s Page.) Go to the top of the “Wall” tab just like you were going to share any other update, photo, link, whatever. It will look like this:

Start typing what you would want to post on the other brand’s site. Make sure the text of your update has the name of the other name of the other brand in it. In this case, I’m going to share a link from Christian’s blog.

3) When you get to the point where you want to mention the brand by name, you want to “tag” their page. Start by typing the @ symbol, then immediately start typing the name of the business or person you want to link to. Don’t leave any spaces between the @ and the characters of the Page’s title. You’ll see that a list of names will start to appear where you’re typing. Once you see the Page you want to tag, scroll down and highlight it. It should look something like this:

Finish the rest of your update and hit “Share.” The update will post to your Wall, complete with a link to the Page you’re referencing:

Looks good, right? You bet. But wait … there’s more!

Depending on the other Page’s privacy settings, your post will also appear on their Wall. Here’s what I mean:

Now, when readers are viewing that Page’s Wall, they’ll see the post from your brand’s Page. It’s a great, simple way to share the spotlight with another brand on your Page, while getting some extra exposure on their Page, too.

(Note: Don’t abuse this. Overusing this feature can easily be seen as spam, so use the tagging feature sparingly and wisely, especially if you don’t have direct relationships with the brands you’re tagging in your posts.)

How else are you using Facebook to connect with and promote other brands of interest to your audience?

UPDATE: As of August 18th, it looks like Facebook has made it even easier to tag other users and business pages in your posts. Now, Facebook will automatically suggest links to Facebook pages, groups, interests and other users, offering a drop-down list of suggestions as you type, even if you don’t include the @ symbol first. More on this from ReadWriteWeb and InsideFacebook.

This announcement really got me thinking about similar possibilities in other industries. Take the apartment industry for example. Is it valuable to prospective renters to know if they know anyone who lives in a community where they’re considering renting? Do they have mutual friends or share similar interests with many of the current residents? Do they take reviews more seriously if they know who wrote them?

What about Privacy?
Privacy could be seen as an issue, but potential issues can be avoided if users are given the ability to control the information from their account. The major social websites are already moving toward this quickly — Facebook wants to give each user the ability to control who sees every piece of information about them, and sites like Flickr provide grouping tools with which users can determine how info gets shared (Everyone, Friends Only, Family Only, etc.).

The Opportunity
Apartment companies — particularly those marketing around specific themes or catering to college students — could certainly benefit from ”relationship” features like this on their website, social profile pages and other listings. As Facebook, MySpace and Google move their data-sharing initiatives forward, an apartment community’s web presence could easily be augmented with personalized information for each prospect based on the social networks that those prospects have already joined. Is there a better way to build a great community than by starting before the resident ever even sees the property?