How to Receive Email Notification for Your Facebook Business Page

Last Updated on February 9, 2011 by Wong Ching Ya

I have hoped everyday that Facebook will grant us the convenience to receive email notifications for our business pages updates. Unfortunately, it seems like facebook has no intention to incorporate this feature yet:

Bummer, pardon me for not being tolerate when it comes to business page notifications. There has not been a clear reason given why Facebook is hiding (or saving) this feature. Could there be a surprise for us in near future? Your guess is as good as mine.

It is not logical yet we have no choice, but to depend on external services and a few tricks to temporarily monitor our page activities. I have tested a few methods and now using 2-3 of them for my facebook page. They are not perfect, some have delays and no way to compare with Facebook’s very own notification system that we’re enjoying in our personal profile, but if you’re desperately needed an alternative, maybe some of the info here can help:

 

Email Notification for New Posts & Comments

1. Page Notifier – Facebook Application

 

Page Notifier alerts page admin new wall posts and threaded comments from fans. I have been testing this service for a day or two now and thrilled to say follow-up comments can be tracked easily and promptly. I get to respond and followup on questions immediately, thanks to the trial version provided (96 scans/day):

Here is how the email notification looks like whenever there’s a new post or comment on the Wall:

What I love about Page Notifier:<

Page admins are notified with follow-up comments regardless how old was the wall post. You can add multiple pages to Page Notifier as long you can get a hold of their page IDs.

Opps… BUT you should know:

I think this applies to all types of notifier – your facebook page must be public viewable (no age or country restrictions) otherwise this app cannot access your page to retrieve the updates. Also, after the trial your account will be downgraded to Free Version that allows one-time-scan per 24 hours unless you’re willing to purchase for more frequent scans and emails. To get 15 minutes/scan you need to pay up to $14.95/month. Yes, I wish this service is F.O.C too.

 

Email Notification for New Postings

2. Fan Page Notifier – Web Service

 

Similar to Page Notifier, you will be informed whenever there’s a new wall post from fans. Good thing about it is that not only you get to follow up on your own managed pages but your liked-pages too. It is optional to set either one or both notifications (admins and fans) as shown below:

What I love about Fan Page Notifier:

I have been using Fan Page Notifier for about a month now. For the entire August it has been right on time with new wall posts (scan frequently). No fee required so you can enjoy this service freely.

By monitoring liked pages, Fan Page Notifier actually works well as an alternative to a recent Facebook updating issue in News Feed, besides using facebook lists.

Opps… BUT you should know:

Fan Page Notifier does not collect follow-up responses in a post (only New wall posts) so you need to check back regularly, or utilize ‘like‘ option (Method #3) for a better page interaction. In early September, I had missed a few updates but after I re-subscribe, everything works fine again. Considering it’s a free service, I can tolerate a few ‘misses’ as long it’s not overly done.

 

Email Notification for ‘Liked’ Items

3. ‘Like’ Option – A Manual Way

 

Many of you already know how ‘like’ option can track follow up comments. Usually it works perfectly for manual posting in a facebook page. You can ‘unlike’ a post to stop receiving upcoming comments (unless you have commented then there’s no way to unsubscribe). Make sure you have checked through your notifications especially for ‘comments after you’ in a Note, Video, Link and wall comments for it to work.

The downside of this method is you need to ‘like’ all your status updates manually. Not really convenient for scheduled updates and auto-published Blog RSS Feed via facebook applications.

 

A Summary of Page Notifications (at selected time)

4. NutshellMail – Facebook Application

 

NutshellMail is a managing tool for various social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and MySpace. By adding it to your facebook page, your fans can subscribe to your page updates when they go to Newsletter tab -> Click here to continue:

As a page admin, you can subscribe to Nutshellmail for a summary of page notifications. Customize the email delivery (time), sections and your managed pages:

Nutshellmail may not be an instant notifier when it comes to page activities, but I see it as a checking-list. I can set the delivery at regular intervals, make sure I have responded to all page comments as required.

 

Email Notification for Discussion Board

This method utilizes Google Reader and Feed Notifier to track new responses in Facebook discussion board – it is explained in earlier post so feel free to give it a read. Process can be a little cumbersome but thanks to these external services, page admins can now deal with an active discussion board.

 

Why Email Notification Is Important for Page Admins?

It may be wishful thinking that I hope Facebook would see this, but as page admins, we need page notification :

• to be responsive when dealing with fans requests.
• to filter spammy and inappropriate content from wall posts.
• instead of checking back the page once every few minutes, notification can be a real time-saver (avoid time-suck).
• to deal with conflict asap to protect business branding & fans interests
• to respond to offers and job opportunities immediately
• to improve fans interactions and relationship-building

I could go on but I’ll save the rest for the commenters. It is our hope to enjoy this facility one day without relying on third party applications (reliability and ZERO monthly charges).

 

Now Is Your Turn…

How do you monitor your page activity for now? Are you willing to pay for receiving email notifications? Share your thoughts.