My life through the fan page lens

Life through the fan/business page lens

I’ve been teaching classes in my house for the past couple months on Facebook and Facebook fan pages. Here I’ll share with you some of what I’ve learned and some of the pages I’m administering and why. Since many of us are using Facebook we might as well figure out ways to reduce the clutter, get to what we want to see, and have fun doing it. First I’ll start off with some information that I hope is useful to everyone who has a personal profile — this is information I go over in my FB fundamentals class — the next of these is Thursday, May 5th, at my place @ 11am. Please contact me to RSVP. OK, here we go!

PS — My 50th Birthday party plan update here.

Your personal profile on Facebook

If you click on the Account button on the far right of your page, you’ll see the word “Account Settings”. Click on that and here are my recommendations.

1. On the “ notifications” tab (3rd from the left). All of the checkboxes on this screen indicate that you will receive a separate email each time one of these actions happens. The only box I have checked is the one for “ weekly page updates for admins” in the pages section. Facebook sets a lot of these boxes to “checked” as the default. All of this emailing is a lot for anyone to deal with and I recommend unchecking all of these boxes. Note: Facebook sometimes changes/adds boxes and so r eturning to this area every so often and unchecking boxes is necessary and recommended.

2. Settings/Account Security. I recommend visiting this area, and checking the box for “ Browse Facebook on a secure connection (https) whenever possible”. A lot of peoples’ accounts are hacked and this may prevent that from happening to you.

3. I think it’s great to have a subset of your friends on Facebook that you really want to keep updated about. I wrote a short “how-to” on this topic — here.

And now, onto the main course — fan pages.

Facebook Fan Pages

Why do I say that? Well, when do you remember having the ability to reach out to a celebrity or business in a very public way — speaking to them and their followers without erecting a billboard? Or, taking out a full-page ad in the New York Times? With a fan page (also known as a business page) you can promote yourself, share ideas, and make connections with the world in a way that is bigger (600 million users and counting) and less expensive than anything the world has ever seen before. So, you may not like certain aspects of Facebook, I certainly don’t, but admit it, it’s interesting.

And possibly useful.
And possibly helpful.

So, if that resonates with you at all, read on and note the 5 FUN TIPS. If not, perhaps a fan page is not for you.

The fan pages I administer

1. Albertideation — the fan page for my business, Albertideation. Here I post things that I think are interesting and updates to environmental campaigns I’m working on. It’s a mix that’s attracted 300 fans. I also “travel” as this “entity” to other fan pages to share information about classes I’m teaching or supply information about ideas with others who are in a similar field.
2. Wileyware — friend Marcia Wiley’s hand-blown glasses are extraordinary and I became a fan a long time ago. This is the first fan page I started and I combine this page with Marcia’s Constant Contact account and help her promote her business. In exchange, I get sparkly glasses which make me smile!
3. After The Phone Book — a page that supports the effort to move Oregon and the rest of the world to an opt-in system for phonebooks. Most recently I started a petition which just passed the 1,000 signature mark. Each time someone signs 6 Oregon State Senators receive an email that’s been tailored for them.
4. FUN TIP #1 Once you have established any type of a relationship with anything on Facebook — an event, a person, a fan page, etc. you can create a link to that entity by typing in your status bar the @ symbol and then the name of that entity. ie, once you’ve liked http://facebook.com/wileyware then, if you go to your status bar and type in @wiley… you’ll see a pull-down menu that you can choose from. This can be used in many creative ways (anywhere on FB, even in comments)
5. Alternatives Magazine — this is a great free magazine that’s available in Oregon. It’s a collection of great writing and a listing of all sorts of health events around the state and practitioners who do massage/reiki and other forms of healing list their services there.
6. The Black Rock City Post Office or BRCPO. This is the theme camp that I am most often found visiting and “working” at at Burning Man each summer for the past 11 years. It is a collection of very theatrical people involved in a very fun venture — bringing mail to people 24 hours a day under extreme conditions. Through rain, dust storms and sleep deprivation… More info and volunteer applications can be found at our website at http://brcpo.com
7. The Bush Street Wellness Center. This is a group of friends who have a wellness clinic featuring gong meditations which are superb, watsu and shiatsu and the list is growing. I offered to help the group get started a while back and their businesses are doing well. I recommend all of the practitioners. I heard a rumor that Jon’s gongs will be featured in the Temple at Burning Man this year!
8. FUN TIP #2 — Once your fan page (or personal profile) has reached 25 fans you can go to http://facebook.com/username and claim a vanity name for your fan page.
9. Caffe D’arte. Great coffee, close to home (NE Broadway & 15th) and chill space to work from. Also, their womens’ room features one of Eric’s GoStools!
10. Colour Authority. A hair salon on the eastside of Portland. These folks were referred to me by my friend and client, Jane. They’ve hired me to help create their facebook presence.
11. 11!
12. Dance Journeys Collaborative. A dance group that has been dancing together for the past 8 years in NE Portland. Dancing makes you smarter
13. GoStool. Our GoStool has completely transformed my daily routine. Everyone would do well to invest in one of these. Eric also does incredible cabinetry in Portland and is a good friend.
14. Happy For No Reason — a musical group featuring the songs and singing of my friend Jo Alexis Bronstein.
15. FUN TIP #3 — To switch back and forth between your fan page and personal page click on Account/Use Facebook as Page (and click on SWITCH). Once you’re on your page click on Edit Page. If your page has liked other pages, you can then choose the tab on the left called “Featured”. There you can choose 5 pages to highlight on your page. This is a way to link to others whose work you support or you can use it to link your various pages together.
16. Holy Rascals. This is a new interesting video project instigated by Cathy Zheutlin a local filmmaker. I’m looking forward to seeing how this project develops — anything with John Cleese and jewish renewal rabbis has my interest 🙂 “Crazy wisdom for crazy times”
17. House of 6 Cats, the work of Artist Bill Fantini. Bill’s work is starting to pop up all over Portland and beyond. He is an incredible photographer and has figured out a system to apply photographs to coasters — the combo is incredible. Here’s an example.

1. Lewis Childs — one of my favorite singer-songwriters, based out of Portland, Oregon. Lewis’s music is original, captivating and his presence is always welcome. Can you tell I’m a big fan?
2. Hans Barklis — since we’re talking musicians.. Hans writes songs and sings in Portuguese, Spanish and English. He also gives the best hug this side of the Delaware 🙂
3. Northeast Broadway businesses in Portland, Oregon. I thought the neat coffee shops (like the one I’m visiting), restaurants and other groovy places deserved a FB presence.
4. Nourishing Medicine: A Chinese medical practice located within the beautiful Cypress Beauty & Wellness Center. Services include acupuncture, Chinese herbal therapy, massage, Qi Gong meditation classes, and nutritional therapy. This is in line with my wish that “alternative medicine and treatment” should be available to all. For a list of who I recommend in Portland, visit my healthcare directory
5. Passportlandia: I thought I’d create a fan page for my new transit-oriented game
6. FUN TIP #4 — when you search on FB, always use the “see more results” option at the bottom of whatever you type in. It will provide you with more choices to choose from and ways to refine your search. 9 times out of 10 this is better than putting in a search term and hitting return.
7. Riccquisimo! — my friends Rut and Antimo are creating an English/Spanish/Italian language cooking show!
8. Ryan Staub Glass: Ryan is the glass blower who creates Wileyware! He’s also raising money to send himself to a show in Taiwan later this year.
9. School of Conscious Hearts — Susan is a great local teacher and healer and she says: “This is a school that Susan Cerf was told to create through her meditation that would be in service to helping people embody spiritual principles as well as get deeply connected with their own power and guidance.” Her classes are sublime and powerful.
10. Voter Owned Elections Rock! — nuff said!
11. Voting Virgins — resources and encouragement for those who are voting for the first time. Do you know a voting virgin? Send them here 🙂
12. FUN TIP #5 — no matter whether you’re acting as yourself or a fan page, when you’re traveling on Facebook or any social network its always a good idea to be helpful, kind, useful, polite, supportive and interesting.
13. Working Design: I’ve known Kris Klaasen of Vancouver, BC, Canada, for many years — watched he and his girls grow up through multiple visits to the Vancouver Folk Festival. Kris works hard and has a conscience. If you’re looking for a great WordPress site, he and his team are a good place to go.
14. Didn’t see your name on the list? Want to work together? Get in touch!

1. Signing Off

Thanks for reading. I’ve been wanting to share much of that for a while and it will give folks who come to me and idea of what I’ve done in the past and the understanding I have of the Facebook landscape. Which is continually changing and shifting. Hopefully, the tips above will help orient you and give you some ideas of how to make better use of your time with social networking. Also, know that FB is constantly changing — everyones’ experience is not the same. I’ve held classes and had 10 people click on the same link and have different experiences — I’m not sure if that’s intentional, or a bug or what, but it is the way this platform/game/tool works currently.I’m always open to working on new projects. If you have something you’d like my input on or know someone who I might enjoy working with, please let me know. I hope your Spring is going well.

Sincerely,

Albert Kaufman