Personally I detest the whole artifice of "interacting" with an <strong>institution.</strong> I interact with <strong>people</strong> -- not with logos.

Why not have a two-faceted approach to establishing presence on a social network: Set up a mostly broadcast-style institutional presence, and then get your people -- who are probably on Facebook anyway and (depending on the job they do for the institution) have loads of experience acting in public on behalf of the institution -- to talk about their work and their passion for it to others in the network?

Interesting point, Ian!  Adding "interactive functions" to an organization's Facebook Page doesn't alter the fact that there's got to be a human behind the communication. Facebook (as I keep saying, ad nauseum) was designed as a person-to-person social network, and that continues to be the realm in which it is most effective for most.

I very much like the double-pronged approach you suggest here, Ian. We know it's tought for many organizatons to "let go" and trust its people to carry the message, but then, "control" of a brand or message in social media is largely an illusion, anyway!

Is there any way to connect Facebook and an outside website.  For example, I've been looking for a way to post photos on only one of these sites and feed them to the other.  Same with "News".  I really don't want to be keeping up two parallel sites.  Thanks for your help.

Laura, if I understand what you're looking for here, this is the direction that Facebook is headed with Facebook Connect -- read more here http://developers.facebook.com/connect.php. For "News" you might also use the Notes application to bring your blog's RSS feed into your Facebook space, whether that's your personal Profile or your organization's Page.  

Can you advise about how to create multiple FBML tabs on a single page?  

This page http://www.facebook.com/advertising/FacebookPagesProductGuide.pdf states:

You can add as many as 10 FMBL modules to the Boxes and “Wall” tab of your Page (up to four on the Wall tab). The Static FBML application is also available as a full tab, where you can embed Flash animations. The FBML tab can be as wide as 760-pixels and has no restrictions on height.

I have seen pages that appear to have multiple FBML tabs but cannot figure out how to add more than one.

Thanks!

CJ, can you give an example of a Facebook Page with multiple FBML tabs? I don't think I've seen that before - once there's already an FBML tab, I've always gotten a message that it has already been added and no option to add another -  so I'd like to have a good look at the source code. Is it possible that what you're seeing might be another application running in a tab, such as an HTML-formatted Notes tab, instead of FBML?

I found it, if you open the existing FBML tab in edit mode, there is an "Add another FBML box" link at the bottom of the page.

Wonderful - thank you for sharing that solution, CJ!  

Hi folks. Thanks for all the good information here - much appreciated.

I have some questions and concerns about the Facebook account one of my nonprofit clients set up. One of their staffers set it up like it's a regular person, with part of their org's name in Firstname and part in Lastname. A lot of people have signed up as friends, but I worry this is in conflict with Facebook's user rules, and that the organization may not be able to take full advantage of opportunities and tools for nonprofits - like having fans instead of friends, and the like. After all they've done right I'd hate to see them putting a bad foot forward on Facebook.

Should I suggest to them that they start over?

Thanks,

Aline

Hi Aline, you're right to be concerned - and better to make the change now than to wait until you've collected even more "friends" who should more properly be "fans" of your organization.

See http://www.facebook.com/terms.php and specifically http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=173

Question: "I'm trying to register a presence for a business, product, or public figure"

Facebook: "We do not allow these entities to maintain personal profiles, but you can create a Facebook Page. Pages can only be created to represent a real public figure, artist, brand or organization, and may only be created by an official representative of that entity. Find out more about Facebook Pages."

Our own "basic how-to" post on setting up a Facebook Page, although written some time ago, might also be useful to you: http://www.wildapricot.com/blogs/newsblog/archive/2008/06/16/how-to-set-up-a-non-profit-facebook-page.aspx (be sure to read the comments - readers bring a lot of great information after an article is posted.)

Hope this helps!

Oh Rebecca! Thank you very much for your helpful reply. Yeek. I hope I can help them get things straightened out. Your reply and the links within will get me started.

Much appreciated.

For some time, Twitter users have been able to publish their Twitter updates automatically to Facebook.

Hi there. Thanks again for the great advice.

As you and others suggested, I've set up a PAGE for my client and am now in the unenviable position of trying to migrate 600+ friends to fans. Plus there are the 140+ friend requests that have built up while no one was really riding herd on the original (and somewhat "illegal") profile. Gah. If you have any hot suggestions on making this change, I'm really, really open to them.

:)

So far, I've posted a couple of "hey everybodys" through the page's share option, and I'm writing individual messages to the people lingering in the friend request list.

I think the page has actually turned out quite cute and is better suited to the organization than a profile was. Now if we can just get people over there...

Thanks again!

Glad that we were able to help you out, Aline. It sounds to me like you're doing all the right things, to try to shift those Friends over to Fans, but yes, I'll certainly give some more thought to other tactics you might try, and tap my sources to see what others have done... and perhaps some other readers will have eperiences to share that can help you out.

Thanks Rebecca. This site helped me understand what changes needed to occur and to be able to convince the organization it was necessary. Adding the specific advice and thoughts you and your readers have supplied has really been great. I'll check back to see if anyone's got suggestions. People seem to be slowly adding themselves as fans, but there's no way I can shut down the existing profile yet.

Of course, that creates another problem anyway - I'm not a Facebook user and don't want to be on there personally, so log in as an authorized person to use the profile to manage the page! Tangled little web...

:)