How To Post To A Facebook Page As "Yourself" When You Are A Page Administrator
UPDATE: Facebook has now (finally) included this feature baked in. View this video on How to use the new Facebook pages for a nice visual guide.
Fair warning, none of the solutions below are complete answers to this issue. They are workarounds. Let’s hope Facebook is listening and bakes in this functionality in the future.
The Challenge
If you are the administrator of a Facebook page (a.k.a., a business profile), you may have experienced the frustration in not being able to write Wall posts on the page as “yourself.” This can be helpful at times—especially when you administer a page that uses a corporate logo or other impersonal graphic. Your comments come from “the brand” and not you or other page admins.
But sometimes, your personal voice is what you want to convey, to contribute to the community as a person. Let’s say someone is complaining about a particular issue on your page. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could post so your own picture appears on the page, instead of the page’s logo? Fortunately, it’s possible using a fairly simple workaround.
Step 1: Enable Your Fan Page To Allow Posts By Others
In order for someone to post to your Facebook page from a personal profile (including you, if you also administer the fan page), the page settings must allow it.
Log into Facebook and access the page that you administer. Click the Edit link under the Page’s logo, then select Edit under Wall Settings.
Under View Settings, select “All Posts” in the drop-down menu.
In the Permissions area, make sure you add a check next to “People who like this Page can write or post content on the wall.” If you wish to allow others to post photos, videos or links as well, select those options.
Step 2: Posting From Your Personal Profile To Your Fan Page
To send a post to the other Page’s Wall, go to your personal profile and compose a message. Within the message, type the @ symbol and begin typing the name of the page you administer. (I prefer to do this at the end of the message). Assuming you like/are a fan of the page on your personal profile, you should see the page name pop up in the message window. Select it and the page should then appear in your message in blue, with a link to the page.
The next step is critical. Using the “lock” icon next to the share button, make sure you select “Everyone” before you hit share. For many people, this is not the default setting. If you don’t choose Everyone, your post may not show up on the page.
Step 3: Check the Page
If everything goes well, your new post—from your personal profile—should appear on the Wall of the page you administer. From now on, simply go to your personal page and repeat Step 3 whenever you feel like showing up as “yourself” vs. the “page” on Wall posts.
The Bad News
One dilemma of having to use this approach is that when your message posts on the Page you administer, there is no chance for someone to comment on it. Instead, they will have to click “View Post” in order to leave a comment on your personal profile page.
Also, this solution does not allow you to reply to fan comments. To do this, a second account is required in some capacity.
Creating A Second Account Solution
You can only comment on a page from a personal profile if you are logged into a Facebook profile that is not an admin. The steps to achieve this get a little quirky, to say the least.
- Create a second account to use as the page administrator. Make sure it is a real person or public figure, and it should fall within Facebook’s guidelines. You must use a different email address than the one associated with your “real” personal profile. And another fair warning: if this second page violates Facebook’s Terms of Service, you’re in danger of having the account shut down at any time.
- If the new account is you, or a profile you do not wish people to find, simply set the privacy settings to the highest options. That way, it will not interact with other Facebook users or be searchable. It will then not have a public face, since you are only going to be using it to post to the Facebook page it administers.
- Assign administrative rights to this new account and remove your personal profile admin rights. If your personal/primary profile remains an admin, it will still post as the page profile.
- To use both your personal account when you want and this new admin account, use two separate browsers so you do not run into login issues. Examples include Firefox and Safari, or IE and Chrome. I suggest Chrome since it can run easily in the background without slowing your computer down too much.
Another warning here, this is definitely not a squeaky clean solution. Personally, I don’t condone it. With multiple accounts, it is all too easy to make mistakes (e.g., posting from the “wrong” profile), and you have to remember multiple passwords and constantly use multiple browsers to keep things straight.
The bottom line is, Facebook has not made this easy to do. But if you do want to try it, these are the main ways to make it happen. You can also suggest to Facebook that they add this feature. The more people that complain, the more likely it will be integrated and made easier for us all.
