Check If Your Facebook Page Is Working

The comments about FB pages not working began to come in to a discussion board on 13th of March. Complaints were, as follows:

• page updates not showing up in the News feed;
• external RSS feeds not automatically feeding into Pages/Notes;
• updates being sent to fans not as email messages, which understandably diminishes the outreach;
• irregularly updated Insights.

For full thread of comments, go here: Page Updates Not Showing Up In News Feeds.

Complaining issues were also left in Notes application by those who noticed that RSS feeds directed into Notes are not automatically updated.

While this adds to all the problems Facebook has already encountered over the privacy issues and the interface changes, what I find to be the most surprising is the lackadaisical reaction on the part of Facebook to this issue. Or to put it even more bluntly, no reaction at all. Whilst I allow for all sorts of possibilities, what I cannot take in is the fact that the lessons that we, as Social Media people, teach each other and those who listen, are being openly defied. It has nearly been two weeks since 13th of March, but the thread to which I linked above still has not seen a comment from Facebook staff about the reason, the state of the issue, and the plans to resolve it.

I sent a message yesterday to Mark Zuckerberg about this, saying:

I think it really is odd that no-one of your team has yet responded to what seems to be more important in terms of business communication than the changes made to profiles. Pages of different fan base sizes are being affected by the issue, so we would all be very grateful if you could help resolve this.

Now, there is obviously a way for me to update the page manually. Unfortunately, this does not take away the uneasy feeling of things being done entirely at discretion – including publishing the news about potential setbacks of business-related services. Frankly speaking, I may be one of those who do not mind the recent changes, but I do mind the lagging response to the highlighted issues.

So, check if your Facebook Page is working OK,  and if not, consider joining this group: Admins affected by the recent Page to Public Profile change.

Branding and Conversation, or Who Is Really Enthusiastic About Social Media?

I posted recently about the Social Media Cafe in Manchester, and by the look of it one of the members is about to start a blog. From where I and a few pals stand, things looks bright for Social Media and its use in Manchester, as elsewhere. But there are yet too many hurdles to overcome. Whilst my journalist friends are looking at the use of Social Media tools in the traditional media, I decided to narrate the two experiences I have recently had in dealing with an art depository and a fashion network’s event. In the light of this experience, Manchester has got a lot to improve.

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It’s been twice in the space of November that I had to deal with the rather suspicious attitude to Social Media, and blogging in particular. First, I went to one of Manchester’s major museums where it turned out that I needed to fill out a photography permission form. I know the collection well: I have been visiting the museum since 2002; a lot of paintings displayed there are in the “knowledge minimum” for the History of Art, which I do know well, being an historian; and, most importantly, I can access many, if not all of them, online, either via the gallery’s website or via several online museums.

The pictures I wanted to take were therefore not “for personal study purposes”: for those purposes I can browse the images online, or read a specialist monograph. I wanted to take the photos of paintings as they are in the gallery space, in frames, among other works, possibly with the visitors standing in front of them. The photos would be uploaded to Flickr and used on my Arts and Culture blog, to tell my visitors about the collection.

Some of you may already be asking themselves: who would need that, if the gallery has got a website? This is a good question. My answer is: the gallery’s website does not provide a feel of the collection. I see my duty as a blogger to tell precisely about this side of the museum, rather than some well-known facts, and for that I need pictures of the gallery space. As a visitor, I am empowered by a few means to make the gallery collection appear more vibrant and appealing to prospective visitors – and I don’t ask to be paid for it.

Update: I have been given a permission to use the photographs after I showed which ones I was going to use. I was also explained the problems the depository encounters even when trying to produce the photographic images on display for their own purposes. There are still many things that the museum can do to improve their interaction with Social Media, and their use of up-to-date means of online communication on the website is one of the things that are begging to be changed.

In hindsight, I should probably have written to the museum, explaining my intention. My only excuse is that this was the first time in England that I had to ask for a photography permission: I genuinely assumed that this would not be a problem as it has not been with very many other art collections and depositories where I have taken photos previously. I generally have no problem with photography not being allowed at the special exhibitions. But the collection in question is on a regular display.

Social Media Cafe in Manchester

The very first Social Media Cafe is opening its doors in Manchester tomorrow, 11th November, 2008, at 6 pm, at The Northern in 56 Tib St. It is curious in a way to see this happening, the backdrop being the much-discussed issue of whether or not blogging has died. Since 2006, Manchester bloggers have been meeting in many places across the city, and in 2007 the meet-ups were particularly powered by the BBC Manchester Blog. With its demise in spring 2008, nothing has been happening until August when I found a video on YouTube of one of the first ever blogmeets (I wasn’t even writing any blogs then yet), and boy, did I feel nostalgic! I posted about the video on my main blog, and out of a sudden a huge interest originated. So huge in fact that I saw myself co-organising the blogmeet with Sarah Hartley of the M.E.N. All of us who went there got a tour of the newsroom and a nice chat in the pub afterwards, but ideas were thrown around, particularly that of the Social Media Cafe, and having a panel of speakers.

Well, the great news is that both these ideas have now been given the green light, and I’m looking forward to The Blogging Is Dead debate. On the surface it does look like that blogging is dead, and the bloggers’ meetings are to be changed by a Social Media Cafe. Symptomatic, you may say. Not quite so, in my opinion, if only because the original “blogging is dead” article and the subsequent reactions have all appeared in blogs. What we see instead is how communication is being reinstated, and the status it is being given. A couple of years ago the talk of the town was the “communities”: how they grow, who belongs there, how to be a part or to be expelled, etc. Now the talk has shifted to “networking” and “following”. The most amazing thing is that all this is happening in real time, you can’t stop and think: should I or should I not? It does to an extent look like either being with, or out. And because you tweet quicker than you can blog, the feeling, naturally, is that of the end of the world (of blogging).

My view – regarding the “blogging is dead” statement – is very simple. Blogging as a platform has much evolved, and will continue so. Blogging as a medium has also evolved, and the word “microblogging”, in the end, does owe a part of itself to “blogging”. Indeed, there are more people who want to blog, not least because there are people who profess the beauty of blogging (and I am one of them, undoubtedly). So, what is dying then? The purpose, surely. And here is the rub, and it is actually printed on the front page of WordPress.com: you are urged to start a blog “to express yourself”. This is true even for a business blog, for in the end a business that ventures into blogging is expressing something, be it their policy, product, or expertise. Well, what happens if someone expresses their “self” better than you? Or if the whole process of “self-expression” is too much of a labour? The beginning of a blog may be a technical question, but the blog’s sustainability rests entirely in one’s personal resources. And by that I don’t mean money or even the time you have to spare on your blogging efforts. What you know, what you remember, and how you use this, are the cornerstones of a successful blogging venture. Or, indeed, almost any venture, which is why I like quoting George Orwell’s four reasons for writing: they are totally applicable to blogging. As far as Notebooks – Los Cuadernos de Julia goes, there are over 300 posts, lots of great projects highlighted and covered, and if you follow down the sidebar you’ll find the categories of the blog. It is clear even to me that there is too much to write about yet.

More to follow after the debate.