Those of us who waste hours a day on Facebook have a hard time understanding, but apparently there are people who have lives away from their computer, smartphone, or other electronic tether. Maybe … wait a second, a notification just popped up on Facebook. BRB (that’s be right back, for those who aren’t savvy about all these new fangled acronyms).
That Rich Meyer is a funny guy. As I was saying before I got interrupted, maybe some of you are too busy writing to spend much time on Facebook. But you still have a Facebook account and have setup an author page, right? Apparently some of our less Facebook savvy readers (you know, those people I talked about who have a life) want to participate in the periodic Facebook like fests we have at IU, but aren’t sure whether they are “doing it right.” So, in order to put some of those wasted hours to good use, I’m going to show you.
First, make sure you’re signed into Facebook. It is important to be signed in and using Facebook as your personal profile, not as your author page. If you’re unsure how to tell click the upside-down triangle on the top right as in the picture below.
I have three possibilities, my personal account and two pages (like your author page). I’m currently operating using my personal account. If the top right of your page looks like this, with the shape pointed at by the arrow instead of an upside-down triangle, click that instead.
When clicking whichever shape you have at the top of your page, if your choice or choices listed for “use Facebook as:” includes your personal account rather than your author page, choose your personal account. (There goes the fiction that BigAl is my real name.)
Now you’re all set to start liking pages.
Start by navigating to the page you’re interested in liking. During a like fest, that should be easy, since the other participants will post a link in the comments. There are a few ways to do this. The easiest is to highlight the link (It will look something like this: https://www.facebook.com/BooksAndPals) and copy it. (On a PC click and hold down the left mouse button while dragging it from the first letter in the link to the end of the link. Release the mouse button. Then with the mouse pointer over the highlighted link click the right mouse button and choose copy from the menu that will pop up.) Next open a new tab on your browser and paste the link into the navigation box, then hit enter.
Those who use the Google Chrome browser can highlight and when the menu button comes up a choice to navigate to the highlighted link will appear. Picking that will save you some steps by opening the page automatically in another tab without having to do the copy and paste steps.
Follow the steps on the link above (yes, I’m being sneaky) and you should get a page that looks like this:
Last, click on the button that says ‘Like’ (where the red arrow is pointing) and the word like will change to ‘Liked’. Yes, it really is that simple.
It should be noted that this will “like” the page using the name on your main, personal account. It is possible for one page to “like” another page, but the results are different and not what you’re expected to do during a like fest.
Liking from a page instead of a personal account does not increase the count of people who like a page. It won’t cause posts to the page you liked to show up in your newsfeed. The only thing I’ve been able to identify that one page liking another will do is list the pages you’ve liked on your page for people who visit the page. In my opinion, this isn’t of much value to anyone. Maybe someone else knows differently.
Now that you’ve liked the page I linked to above, here are a couple more links to try:
https://www.facebook.com/IndiesUnlimited
https://www.facebook.com/TheIndieView
Am I pushing it too far? Nah, practice makes perfect. Now it’s time for to go look at more pictures of Grumpy Cat. Or maybe I should re-read this post from Martin Crosbie?
Thanks. I’ve always been confused about using FB as either ME or MY PAGE. In my case, since my page name is so close to my personal name should I just keep it the setting at use FB as ME? In other words, what benefit is there to using FB as my page?
Deborah, there may be some uses for using FB as your page rather than as you, but I haven’t figured it out. The one exception I can see (to like a comment someone has made on your page and do so as the page name rather than your name) is going to happen automatically if you are on the page when you do it. The only time I’ve used FB as a page name in recent memory was to prepare this piece. Day to day, I never do.
Thanks for the explanation. But I think I just figured out another reason to use as page. When I share something, the clickable name under my photo for that item takes the curious person to either my page or my profile. But really, I want to funnel everyone to my page not my profile, so now I think I should always like/share as my page.
No, Deborah. Unless I’m missing something, if you like a page as your page it does nothing that I’ve identified on the page you liked. It doesn’t show up in the counts. It doesn’t show in the list of people who have liked the page that can be seen by the owner. It doesn’t show in the list of “friends who have liked the page” (this is a list of your friends who have liked the page).
The only place I’ve found where the fact that you’ve liked the page (if done as a page) shows is in a list of pages you’ve liked that only shows on your page. The owner/admin of the other page has no idea that your page has liked theirs unless they happen to visit your page and see it.
I believe you’re correct, Al.
Got it. I guess it behooves me to make clear links on my personal profile to my author page, doesn’t it!
P.S. ME just liked your page.
I spend too much time on Facebook, but I must admit, it just never occurred to me to look for these pages or like them. And they all seem like great pages, so I went and liked all three.
FYI, I liked Big Al’s page despite the askance views I’m likely to get. In my hometown, Big Al’s is a strip club (for a while, it was the only strip club; there may be more now). I’m sure all my hometown friends will think I’m into non-family friendly reading 🙂
RJ, I think I’ve seen that Big Al’s mentioned on twitter. There is also a burger joint somewhere with the same name. 🙂
Thanks, Big Al. Much of Facebook remains a mystery to me, but at least that part is clear now!
They change things often enough that it is a mystery to most people at some point. 🙂
Thanks for the comment, Helen.
Have you ever noticed that you never see Grumpy Cat AND Martin Crosbie at the same time? Just sayin’…
Hmm. They do share a certain… Wait. No, they don’t. 😛
I use my author page persona (http://www.Facebook.com/DonnaFasanoAuthor) to comment and chat on threads of other FB pages (i.e. Amazon, BN, book review blogs, book lovers pages, romance reader pages, etc) in the hopes that my cuteness, wit, and fun attitude will lead the curious to my page. Yeah…I’m wily like that. *grin*
Donna, that’s an idea that makes sense. It doesn’t work for me (missing cuteness, wit, et al), but it makes sense for you. You’re smart too.
That’s one reason why someone might want to switch to “use FB as your page name.” This relates to Deborah’s comment above. The curious who might see your name goes beyond the page administrator(s) who *might* notice you liked the page and go look at your personal profile. Making a comment on another page could potentially attract anyone who has liked the page who sees your comment and and would lead back to your page. That seems like something of value.
What puzzles me is why you get notifications of some likes and with others the number just goes up. If I click on the ‘see all your likes’ it only seems to include the ones notified and is substantially less than the number of likes stated on my page. I’d understand if it was due to the person liking from their page rather than their personal profile, but as you mention this is not supposed to increase the number of likes.
Just liked the three pages mentioned here, though I thought I had already liked them!
Mel, I think you might be confusing likes of a post and people liking your page. This is how I think this works.
If someone likes a post or a comment you’ve make on a post that is on your page you might get a notification to your personal account. This is dependent on that account being set as an administrator for your page, which should be the case, and the way you have notifications setup on your personal account. The personal setting allows you to turn off notifications from pages you administer, if you want, so you may or may not get these. If you are signed on as your page, you may also get these same notifications, and that can be controlled to some degree from the notification settings for your page.
If someone likes your page (clicking the big “Like” button shown in the post) then I don’t think you’ll ever be notified of that when signed into your personal account. If you switch to using FB as your page it will notify you of new likes at the top of the page using the icon used to notify you of friend requests when you’re operating using your personal account.
Thanks Al, but I was only talking about the notification of new likes on the page itself. There have been instances during a Facebook Fest where my number may go up by, say, seven, but I am only notified of four people liking my page. And there doesn’t seem to be any way of telling who the other three are.
I’ve also noticed that in the section “invite people to like your page” half the names suggested are people who already do like it. It could be rather embarrassing to ask them twice!
Got it, Mel. That “invite people” section has had issues for a long time (6+ months) and I agree, they’re setting you up to look foolish. In fact, I did with a friend when I first discovered it was broken. 🙂
And I’ve been remiss in thanking those who have liked any of these pages I suggested. So, thanks. 🙂
What is your opinion on coaxing people to your author page if you don’t know them? I have seen a few very successful businessmen and women combine personal and business. I have an author page, but with social media time limited for efficiency I am still adding the new friends to my personal page. My son says it would be egotistical to try and push people to a separate page.
L.A.,
I think everyone needs to figure out what works for them. I can say that my Facebook friends fall into different silos (for lack of a better term to describe it). Some are people I know in real life in the community I live in. Others are family. Yet others I know as fellow music fans or other interests we share. A small number (no more than 10%) might even fall into multiple silos. Those that fall into the books silo (readers, authors, etc) I didn’t hesitate to invite to like my page(s). My siblings I invited (they’re much more forgiving of my faults than most people) I invited. I haven’t those from other silos unless I found out they were interested in books, reading, etc.