There are 4 ways to bring outside content into your Facebook Fan Page.

1. RSS or any application that pulls the RSS automatically
2. Notes – Facebooks own way to pull an RSS
3. Embedded Link – Just start typing the link into the box
4. The “Attach a LINK” button.

I believe the LINK button is the best – here’s why.

Agree or Disagree with the article or Video you are sharing?  You can state your case right at the top in the “write something…” box.  Set the stage, entice the viewer, or just simply share why you are sharing.

Once you Attach the LINK – Facebook will go to that post and then give you the choice of a Thumbnail.  You can pick any of the images it provides or none at all.  Sometimes a picture is all it takes to pull someone into wanting to learn more.

Facebook grabs the Title of the post or article.  Click on this Title and you’ll be able to rename that Title.  That title is a hyperlink to the article (we call it Anchor Text)  This is important in two ways…  First, you can rename that link to something a little more enticing to your Friends than it is now.  Second, Google loves Proper Anchor Text.  Instead of adding a link like this: http://areweconnected.com/post123 most any search engine is going to give more juice to a link that looks like this: The Best Way to Share Information on Facebook even though both links go to the same place.

Facebook also grabs the first paragraph (50 or so words) of the attached article and displays that.  Just as the Title is Anchor Text, so is this article description.  As an example, look at the first 50 words in this post.   Perhaps the first paragraph isn’t as enticing as you might like.  No problem!  Click on the text and change it.

Here’s the last reason and it’s just for all you SEO Peeps.  The links you attach in this way are all “DO Follow”.  Yes your Facebook Fan Page is indexed by all the search engines including Google and Yes your Facebook Fan Page can have a PageRank(http://www.facebook.com/MikeMuellerConsulting has a PR of 3)  And since the Links have a Do Follow if you are sharing your own articles, you are driving PageRank to your own website or blog.

That’s it.  The BEST way to share information on your wall.  Yes, I realize this takes a few moments of your time, time is money, yadda yadda yadda.  Yes, I realize there are faster easier ways out there that automate this.  To that I’ll argue you get what you pay for.  You can’t automate engagement.

NOTE: I use a wordpress plugin that does much of this for me.  Share this article on Facebook in the same way and the title will be “You can’t automate engagement” with the 50 word description “There are 4 different ways to bring outside content into your Facebook Fan Page.  Here’s the BEST and WHY.”   The same thing happens when you see this article in a Google Search Result.

 

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This post brought to you courtesy of Mike Mueller.
Feel free to ReBlog or ReTweet as you like as long as you credit the source (him).
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