How To Update Your Facebook Fan Page Via Email

Did you know you can update your Facebook fan page via email?

This can be particularly handy if,

• you are browsing through Twitter on your mobile phone, and see a great tweet (linking to a post) that you would like to share with your fans
• you are at work and something pops into your mind that you want to share on your Facebook page
• you come across an awesome article while surfing the net
• you receive an email from someone that you want to post to your Facebook page’s wall
• you don’t have time to log in to your Facebook page
• you don’t have access to Facebook

It is super easy to update your Facebook page’s wall via email, and keep all your fans updated and informed.

Posterous is the service that allows you to do this.

If you are unfamiliar with Posterous, it is basically a hosted micro-blogging platform that allows you to make updates to your own Posterous blog, simply by emailing in content.

I have covered this previously in my post Posterous Guide to Dead Simple Blogging.

Posterous allows you to update your blog by emailing content such as,

• links to videos – and have the video automatically displayed
• photos (as attachments) – and have the photos automatically displayed
• music files (as attachments) – and have the music automatically embedded
• links to Google Maps – and have the maps automatically embedded

Posterous also has an autoposting feature that allows you to post (via email) to your other social networks including Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Picasa, WordPress.com, etc.

You can post to one, several or all of your social networks.

One post to Posterous goes everywhere else on the web.

For example, you can email your pics to your Posterous blog, and if you have added your Flickr account, they will appear there as well.

The good thing is Posterous now supports posting to Facebook pages.

Setup

First up you need to create an account with Posterous..  please refer to my post Posterous Guide to Dead Simple Blogging for more information.

Once you have logged in, click on Autopost.. then click on <Add a Service>,

Then click on <Facebook Page>,

You now need to connect your Facebook account with Posterous.

Click on the <Facebook Connect> button,

Now click on <Connect> to allow authorization,

Select your Facebook page from the drop-down menu then click on <Add Facebook Page>,

Click on <Allow> to allow constant authorization,

Click on <Allow Publishing>,

Done!

You have just setup posting to your Facebook page using Posterous.

You can check that this has been added by clicking on Autopost.. your Facebook page will now be visible,

Autopost Email Address

Now scroll down the page a little and take note of the email address to autopost to Facebook –> [email protected]

I would highly recommend adding this email address as a contact in,

• your preferred email client (Gmail, Hotmail, etc.)
• your mobile phone’s email client

Otherwise you are defeating the purpose of being able to post to your Facebook page via email.. as you might forget this email address!

Update Your Facebook Page via Email

Now to test this out.

Find some content you want to post to your Facebook page and then compose a new email message.. ensuring that you are sending to  the correct email address – [email protected],

Now hit <Send>..

You have now updated your Posterous blog,

AND your Facebook Fan Page,

You will notice that your Facebook profile has NOT been updated,

The reason your Facebook profile was not updated is because it hasn’t been added as a service in Posterous.

If you want to be able to post to both your Facebook Page and Facebook Profile via email.. just add Facebook as a service (following the same instructions above).

Alternatively, you could post to just your profile and not your page.

So there you have it.. posting content via email to your Facebook Page!