Today teeny-tiny websites had the pleasure of providing a last-minute panel speaker at the National Preservation Conference 2010 in Austin, Texas, presented by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
 
By Monday we’ll have notes here: http://puny.it/presconf2010
 
We were asked to participate in “Preservation 2.0: Using Social Media to Save Places” because of our association with the tremendously successful Save the Cactus Cafe campaign for which we managed social media communications, including the Save the Cactus Cafe fan page on Facebook.

Everyone is familiar with a person’s Facebook “personal profile” page, but a lot of people don’t realize that you can’t create a Facebook profile for your organization’s or business’s name. To do so is a violation of Facebook’s terms of service. Personal profiles are for people and they must show the person’s real name. A business or organization can only be on a “page”.
What’s more, you should never “friend” a business unless you want to give that business the same access to your Facebook account that you give to your friends. Otherwise, that business will see everything that all of your friends see, including all those “private” posts that you mark “For Friends Only.”  On the other hand, when you “like” a business page, the business doesn’t get any additional information about you that’s not already available to everyone with a Facebook account.
Here’s the link to create a Facebook page for your organization or business:

• http://www.facebook.com/pages/manage/
  (Select the “+ Create Page” button.)

Unfortunately, it’s a common practice for un-savvy businesses to create a personal profile instead of a page. When you see a business do it, please point them to this information page. If you suspect they’re taking unfair advantage of others’ ignorance about privacy, you should also select the “Report/Block this Person” link at the bottom left of the page. The profile is a “Fake Profile” and Facebook will act on your report if enough others also report it.