We have two admins to a fan page (for a mothers of twins club) and were wondering how we could comment on our fan page as ourselves and not as the page admin? Every once in a while it would be better for us to interject a comment as ourselves versus the admin. How can you choose what profile you comment under?
[I turned to Facebook marketing expert Mari Smith for help with this Facebook question. Here’s what she had to share with you…]
Facebook fan page Admins can only comment on fan pages they administer as the fan page ID. It’s not possible to comment as your personal profile, so long as you’re an Admin. To quote Facebook:
The fans of your Pages will not be able to view or access your personal profile. Any actions that you take as a Page administrator on your Page will show the Page’s name as the actor and not your personal name.
Facebook has this Admin-only posting measure in place in the name of privacy – given fan pages are completely open (even viewable without being logged into Facebook.com), and you can have an unlimited number of fans, if you were able to comment/post on your fan page as yourself, you’d be posting a link back to your personal profile and possibly exposing yourself to everyone on the planet. okay, on the Internet! Some users may be perfectly okay with that; however, Facebook do pride themselves on their very granular privacy settings for profiles, as shown in the screenshot below (hiding posts from a specific friend list, for example):
Even if you could post on your own fan page as yourself, you would need to have your privacy settings (which only impact your personal profile) set to “Everyone.” Otherwise, say you had your posts restricted to “Only Friends” or even “Friends of Friends,” then no one outside of these categories would see your posts on your fan page, anyway.
Clearly, the issue of being able to post as self is a popular question and a much-desired Facebook feature per the 400+ comments on this thread of Facebook’s own fan page for Pages. One suggested workaround, from many users, is to set up a second personal profile – but this is against Facebook’s Terms of Use.
Remove yourself as Admin
To comment on a fan page as yourself, you would need to first remove yourself as the Admin. However, originating Admins can never be removed (a major headache for so many businesses and an issue I would love to see Facebook address sooner than later!)
I do strongly recommend all fan pages have a minimum of two Admins for security reasons; you just never know when something might happen to your profile or your access to Facebook which could prevent access to your fan page. (There is no limit to how many Admins a page can have.)
Just sign your name
My best suggestion is to adopt a strategy by the likes of SocialMediaExaminer.com’s Facebook fan page, where they have several different Admins and each person signs their posts and their comments with their first name:
Or, another example:
Choose a different originating Admin
If you have not yet created your Facebook fan page, you might consider having someone other than yourself be the originating Admin. That way, you could post on your fan page as yourself. However, do give serious thought to this option, as the originating Admin will always have access to your page!
Use the Emoti iPhone app
One other fun workaround – for the occasional post and for my fellow iPhone users – is to use the Emoti iPhone app. With this app, you can post a cute emoticon and comment on your personal profile, or fan page (or any friend’s wall or the wall of any fan page you joined). This screenshot shows a post on my fan page wall by my personal profile, and with a comment by myself as the Admin:
Hope those help out!
Yes, it is possible to post on a page you admin from your personal account.
Go to the page you admin and click the ‘Edit Page’ button in the top right hand area of the screen. From the list on the left hand side of the screen select the ‘Your Settings’ tab. Here you will see two options, the first of which is called ‘Posting Preferences’. Deselect this option to post as yourself. This way, you can switch between posting from as your Page identity when you choose ‘Use Facebook as a Page’ (Account>Use Facebook as a Page), and as yourself when you are using Facebook from your personal account.
I’d been having the issue of wanting to post as myself onto one of the pages. I found out, there is a setting inside of the page (you have to be an admin) that you have to de-select to allow this to happen.
Once you get into your page’s settings, it is under “Posting Preference” and you have to un-check it. Took some digging, but I’m glad I found it!
Recent Facebook Page changes give admins the option to browse Facebook as themselves OR as the pages they administer. For example, if I were a photographer, I could switch to my photography business page then go to a colleague or a client’s Facebook page and post as my business.
With this change however, there is still no way to post as yourself (not your business page) on your page if you’re an admin. Still quite frustrating!
But, I like the option of visiting other related business pages and comment… and having a news feed that is specifically for the other business pages linked to mine, not having to weed through my personal friends & their endless games posts.
Facebook will prompt page admins to upgrade their pages starting today.
thank you very much, exactly that’s very easy, wanna to try it as soon as posible..
nice tips,,,
This is a ridiculous policy.
“Signing” your post by simply typing your name at the bottom, even though the post shows up as the Page account, is completely inadequate.
How is posting as myself on the page I administer any more revealing than others who post on that same page? Aren’t their posts providing a direct link back to their profiles as well?
This is clearly something numerous page admins want … Facebook should recognize this.
The response from Facebook re: privacy makes no sense, because if you “like” a post on a page, you like it as yourself.
you can do it from an android phone as my fan page shows i can post from my standard FB account
check it out
http://www.facebook.com/retreatbrand
when i post on my pc it comes from retreatbrand but from my phone it is paul sid
I’m having a problem where I’m the only originating admin on my fan page (but of course I’m on Mobile Web during all this) and everytime I post something,it shows it under my name instead of the fan page name and I didnt do anything to it/didnt change any settings.I cant repost (on Mobile Web) as the fan page name! Can someone help?
I was also told (a year and a half ago when we created our fan page) that it had to be associated with a personal profile page. When I try to comment on other pages (or like them), it shows up as my personal profile instead of as my business. There has to be a way to do this, as I see tons of other businesses posting on others’ pages as their business and not their admin profile. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
Has it always been possible to create a fanpage that’s not linked to any account? I have the same problem of wanting to comment on other pages as our business not as the person linked to the business. Now that we already have a fan page, can we transfer is to an official page? How does that work?
I’d be thrilled to buy a few cups of coffee (or chai!) for that answer!
thanks!
But you can create a fanpage that’s not linked to any account. The you had a special account just for editing and filling your fanpage and besides a personal account.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php?campaign_id=372931622610&placement=pghm&extra_1=0
That’s a good idea! I was annoyed that I could not comment as myself but.. I can sign with my name. Gr8! 😀
How do I comment on other people profiles, fan pages etc. as a FAN only and not Me/my personal profile?
I thought there would be a trick to posting as yourself on your fan page, but the ‘Just sign your name’ suggestion is a simple one and it works it works in giving that human feel behind the fan post.
Thanks for the suggestions!
@Ashley – thanks for your email letting me know about your question here!
I’ll paste my reply below for others to read too:
It is not possible to post anywhere on Facebook other than your own fan page as your brand.
However, a creative workaround is to post on others’ profiles, fan pages, groups and events and @ tag your fan page!! 🙂
See my post here: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/21-creative-ways-to-increase-your-facebook-fanbase/
look at tip #18.
You may find ideas in this post to help your contest too!
Hope this helps some!
Cheers,
Mari
Ashley’s question is also one that I have.
I manage several fan pages, I am wondering how to post from one fan page to another, not as myself (profile) but as the fan page?
For example, if I had a Michael Jordan fan page, how could I post to the Nike fan page and have the post come from the MJ fan page, rather than my personal page?
I’m an admin of a business page but would like to comment on other page walls as my business and not as myself. I would rather my name/avatar not show up at all on the other pages. Is there a way I can post to another page as my business and not as myself (without having to @ my business)?
I believe if you @tag the PAGE, you can post from your Personal profile. Try it. Go to your personal wall, type something, then type the @ sign and the first few letters/characters of the page in question, and then select it from the menu that pops up. Maybe not the best solution but it works for me!
Also interested in how I post as Admin Fan to other sites (want to post as Fan admin, not myself). Any way to do this? Thx.
What’s funny about this is that they do this for privacy of admins, but it ends if you send a message. I sent a message on behalf of a fan page I own to a fan and I had to send it as myself, NOT the fan page, so there’s a bit of a disconnect with it. And while I’m on the subject, does anyone know where the fan photo adding option went?
Very helpful, thank you!
Great info!! Thanks so much!!!