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| By Justin Smith | 8 Comments » |
Facebook has just turned on a feature enabling public profile owners to update their status on their Pages from a mobile phone via SMS. It’s a feature that’s been standard for personal profiles for some time, but has been missing from Facebook public profiles until now.
Mobile updates can be particularly engaging ways for public figures and celebrities to engage fans. For example, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban does so regularly via Twitter, and fans love it. Just a few minutes after tonight’s dramatic win over the Rockets, he posted:
Cuban uses Selective Twitter Status to syndicate updates to his Facebook public profile, but now public profile owners can update via mobile directly.
In order to activate the SMS status update service, public profile owners can simply click “Edit Page” under their profile picture, and edit the settings for the “Mobile” application. After entering the phone number you want to use for posting updates, Facebook will send an confirmation code via SMS. Once you’ve confirmed your number, you’re good to go.
However, only mobile accounts with certain carriers in the US, Canada, UK, India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Maldives are supported at this time.
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April 15th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
Can there be multiple owners to a Facebook page who can update status??
April 16th, 2009 at 12:01 am
Good question – yes, you can authorize multiple phone numbers to update your public profile’s status.
April 16th, 2009 at 5:48 am
[...] SMS has already been active for personal profiles in Facebook, it is only now that Facebook is activating this feature for public pages – such businesses, brands and celebrity Facebook profiles. Unfortunately, SMS update works only [...]
April 16th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
I have mobile status updates enabled for both my personal profile AND my Facebook Page (or multiple Pages I am an admin of).
When I send a text to FBOOK, which ones(s) will it publish to?
April 21st, 2009 at 11:10 am
@Court – that’s exactly my problem. I noticed this service when it was first available, but couldn’t use it because I already use Facebook mobile to update my personal status. I’m glad I caught myself – I’d be mortified if my personal status update went to the Humane Society fan page!
If anyone finds a way around this please share!
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:23 pm
@Court & @Carie – I had the same problem. Set up my ‘band’ page for text updates, and my personal page was disconnected. Thankfully, I sent a generic test to see where the update went. It would be nice if this feature allowed me to choose where the update would be delivered.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:30 pm
One additional thought, since the Facebook mobile web doesn’t have an interface for ‘pages’ updates, I’ve decided to keep text updates for my ‘band page’ and use the mobile web to update my ‘personal’ page.
November 29th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
As of now, it seems that registering for SMS updates on a public page will de-register it from your personal profile (if already registered on the personal profile) and vice versa.