With the new changes to Facebook Graph Search, the pages you like on Facebook will soon appear in search results. For most of us, there’s nothing to worry about. Declaring you “Like” How I Met Your Mother is just a sign you enjoyed the show’s witty writing before Barney and Robin got together… for the second time.

However, for one reason or another, you might have liked a page you shouldn’t have. If you’re uncomfortable with unwittingly shilling for companies you no longer support or if you just want to avoid expressing your love for anything embarrassing, here’s the best way to remove your unwanted page Likes:

How to find Facebook pages you’ve liked

1. Visit your profile and click the Likes app (it might be hidden under the application dropdown button).

2. Scroll to the bottom of your Likes page and click “Show Other Pages.”

3. If you’re like me and have gone on some major liking sprees, you might need to click on the “show more” button to see the complete list.

Over the past four years—Facebook pages have been around since 2009—I’ve liked around 300 different pages. I’m really into Ghostbusters, Disney World and social media, so don’t worry if you haven’t liked as many pages as I have.

To remove a page from your list, you’ll need to unlike it. Hover over a page title, click the Like button, and then select “Unlike.”

This is just a demonstration. Please keep liking Portent’s Facebook page.

If you have any troubles or need any other questions answered, feel free to leave me a comment or tweet at me at @SocialDoug.

The post How to Find Pages You Like on Facebook (and Unlike Them) appeared first on Portent.

Add a Custom Tab to your Facebook Page

Have you tried to add a Custom Tab Application to your Facebook Page lately? It seems impossible with the Facebook Timeline changes.

Before Timeline, every app used an App Profile Page. This was a confusing process because every Facebook Custom Tab forced Facebook to create these App Profile Pages, which were unique URLs inside Facebook that no one visited. Since Facebook didn’t want thousands of App Profile Pages, they removed the process.

Unfortunately, this also removed a convenient button on App Profile Pages that allowed us to add our apps as a custom tab on any Page we admin.

Facebook’s solution to add apps to Pages is to visit this URL, replacing the all-caps values with your app’s info:

https://www.facebook.com/dialog/pagetab?app_id=YOUR_APP_ID&next=YOUR_CANVAS_URL

At this custom URL you’ll get a drop-down list of all the pages you admin and you can add your app to any of them.

So, that works. Why do I need the Custom Tab Generator?

Because simple tools are awesome. A couple big input fields are much easier to deal with than remembering a complicated URL or changing sections of a bookmark every time you want to use it. So here it is:

Inspired by YouTube Time, the Facebook Custom Tab Generator takes the two values you enter and generates a window set at the custom URL to add your app to any Page where you are the admin. That’s it.

This:

Will generate this:

I originally created the tool for myself; In fact, I’ve already used it several times from the time I built it and the time this post went live. I’m excited to share it with you now, and hopefully it is as useful to you as it will be for me.

If you like the Facebook Custom Tab Generator, a share would be much appreciated. Let us know what you think in the comments below!

The post Introducing the Facebook Custom Tab Generator appeared first on Portent.

The problem is that many businesses opt to have the CTO’s 12-year-old create an account and throw in some cheesy stock image style artwork.  They then proceed to spam the account and miss opportunities left and right.

Luckily there’s hope for even the worst offenders. Optimizing your Facebook presence is not rocket science. There are a few simple strategies you can follow to “magically” improve your standing.

Here’s a list of 11 simple suggestions every business on Facebook can and should use:

1. Don’t be too salesy.  The number of businesses that think Facebook is a pure sales driver is appalling. Facebook is still a place for conversations.  Informally teach your Likers about your company and your products. That way when it becomes time for them to make the purchase they will remember you.

It’s ok to offer buyer incentives at the right times. Offering a special Facebook-only discount, or free shipping, or a pre-purchase window for new products can directly lead to new customers and sales. Just remember to do this infrequently. Offering a 1-2 week sale bi-monthly, or even quarterly, is a safe starting point.

2. Post original content. Don’t just regurgitate what you hear or read elsewhere. Use Facebook to interact with your Likers and tell them about cool new product innovations. Teach them about your production process. Introduce them to the human side of your business by displaying photos of your employees at a charity event.  Likers want to see new and interesting content when you make updates – not something they’ve already seen 83 other places.

3. Post Regularly. If you let your Facebook page sit dormant your company will slip out of mind for existing Likers. Worse, new Likers won’t be attracted to your page. You must post new content regularly.

But how often is “regularly?” After all, Facebook is not like Twitter where you find people posting about an A-hole driving too fast on the freeway. Remember, the last thing you want to do is annoy your beloved Likers with all-to-frequent updates.  As a business regular posting in Facebook entails 1 – 2 times per day, maximum.

4. Fill out your profile and use custom tabs. Most companies understand enough to fill in the standard Wall, Info, etc. tabs. If you haven’t filled these out in their entirety, please do so right after finishing reading this article.

However, many businesses neglect custom tabs. One of the cheeky components of business profiles is that you can create custom tabs. These can be used to create everything from FAQ’s to cool landing pages offering special Facebook-only incentives. Don’t limit your business to the bare essentials of Facebook.

5. Use Images.  Why do businesses avoid the Photos area like it’s diseased? As I alluded to in the “Post original content” segment, images can show the fun and human side of your company. Show your Likers the office prank you pulled, or the facial hair competition you held.  Give them a glimpse of a new prototype you’re working on.  Show them how your employees use your products. All of these images enforce the human element of your company and strengthen the bond your customers have to your products.

6. Do NOT ignore Liker comments. If a Liker comments with a question, critique, or even praise write back immediately. Doing so will clearly express your interest in what your customers have to say. If that person is irate make sure and convey your concern in your reply and, if feasible, call the troubled customer. That will show your customer that you won’t stand for their displeasure and that you too want to find a nice resolution.

7. Check political and religious views at the door. This should be obvious, right? Your 100,000 customers come from a plethora of backgrounds and mindsets. Please respect them accordingly. The one exception is if your company is in the political field, or is openly known to be religiously affiliated. Otherwise politics and religion should be avoided entirely.

8. Don’t forget cross-browser testing. Cross-browser issues are such a hassle. Even to this day most internet users prefer Internet Explorer. Sure it has 343,332 issues, but it also doesn’t need to be downloaded like Firefox or Chrome. Hence, 55 year old users like my mom love it!

The point is, don’t forget to test in IE, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome at bare minimum.  If you push a new lander live, chances are there will be an issue in one of these browsers, even if it looks flawless in all of the others.

9. Use company colors and themes. This is especially true if your colors and style are very well known to customers. If a visitor hits your Facebook page expecting to see a specific logo or color and gets something else that visitor will probably bounce, thinking it’s the wrong place. Be creative with image and experience, but don’t change your company’s identity just because you want to be fresh and unique on Facebook.

10. Advertise. Facebook advertising is dirt cheap, and you pay based on clicks, not impressions. You can build the number of Likers you have by creating ads that offer free shipping, a free product preview, or a nice discount to new Likers. Just make sure you have a worth-while incentive. If you don’t the ads will be soundly ignored, no matter what they promise.

11. Check spelling and grammar. It’s amazing that I even need to mention it, but I’ve seen spelling and grammar issues over and over again on Facebook. Please check your work! Using abbreviations like “Nice ta see U” on your personal page works. NEVER do that on your company’s page.  End of story.

So that’s it for my tidy list of recommendations for your business’ Facebook presence. At Portent, Inc. we have an abundance of cool Facebook tricks and ideas up our sleeves, so if you need Facebook marketing help please don’t hesitate to contact us.

The post 11 Tips for Making Facebook Your Business’ BFF appeared first on Portent.

Every Facebook marketer should be asking themselves, "When do I have to upgrade my pages?"

Lucky for you, Facebook isn’t forcing anyone to make these changes immediately… yet. Before you do anything, you should know some of the new design elements like the main profile image and FBML will drastically change the appearance of your page, and once you make the switch, you can’t go back.

To get your page updated and working quickly, focus on these three major features of your page during the upgrading process:

• Photos
• Profile Image
• FBML

Be warned: if you don’t plan ahead, the only poking you’ll be doing is gouging your eyes out with a broken pencil.

We love this ridiculous picture. Check it out in Emma’s Copywriting Nightmare’s article.

Three Features You Must Change

Feature 1: Photos

Just like how a personal profile streams photos across the top of the wall, pages will now highlight pictures that an admin posts to their page’s Wall, as well as any tagged photos. This seems like a cool idea, but these images don’t always make sense.

Even the Facebook page for Facebook Pages (yeah, that’s a real thing) displays a nonsensical row of unexplainable thumbnails. It would be cool if Facebook allowed you to change each of these thumbnails so they could make sense, but until that happens I suggest removing unappealing photos by hovering over the image with your mouse and clicking the hide button after you make the upgrade.

Another suggestion that is sure to pop up over the next few weeks is to create a "photo hack" on the Wall like these creative personal profiles.

Feature 2: Profile Image

Since Facebook doesn’t have a name for the main image on a page, I’m just going to call it a profile image. In the new design, the background of the entire Facebook page is solid white and reduces the profile image dimensions from 200×600 to 180×540. This affects page designers in two ways:

1. The solid white background removes the opportunity for profile image photo hacks. The biggest example of this is when Facebook marketers insert the Facebook background boarder to create depth, a tactic used by Coca-Cola, Toyota USA and even Portent Interactive.

2. Reducing the image dimensions to 180×540 creates another struggle in the fight to display a branded (and beautiful) thumbnail image on the Wall. When creating a new profile image, keep your logo within a 160×160 "Logo Area" box to prevent other graphics from invading your thumbnail.

Feature 3: FBML

On March 11, 2011, Facebook markup language is going the way of the Google Wave, but that doesn’t mean pages won’t have the ability to create their own content. FBML pages will still work, but Facebook highly recommends switching new content to iframes. Facebook says this will allow page users to "build apps that run across Facebook (including Pages and Canvas applications) using the same simple, standards-based web programming model (HTML, JavaScript, and CSS)."

To add an iframe to your page, access the Facebook Developer’s Application, select a Tab Name and insert your Tab URL.

When to Update?

Facebook has yet to set an actual deadline for page users to update into the new design, but I would assume it coincides with the end of FBML in mid-March. That means you have four weeks to implement these changes or else Facebook will make the switch for you and your page will look like crap.

The post Facebook Page Changes You Must Make Before You Upgrade appeared first on Portent.