*** UPDATE SINCE 11/09 ***
Since the Facebook iPhone App has been released, I’ve written a new article on how to update / manage Facebook Fan Pages from your iPhone – it’s now super easy to do!
READ THE NEW UPDATED ARTICLE HERE
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Old article below:
I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately from people who can’t seem to get to their Facebook Fan pages from the iPhone.
Let me first tell you that once the new Facebook 3.0 iPhone App comes out (which should be any day now), it will be the easiest way to get to your Facebook Fan Page from the iPhone. Click the link above to read more about the Facebook 3.0 app, and also read some great write ups about it on TechCrunch here and here.
But until the Facebook 3.0 iPhone App is approved by Apple and released, follow these steps below:
1) Open your Safari browser on the iPhone
2) Now go to your Facebook Fan Page on your desktop / laptop computer and open your Facebook Fan Page. I’ve found that one of the fastest ways to get to my Fan Page is to click on “Profile” in the upper left hand corner of the screen once you login to Facebook, then after clicking “Profile”, find your “Info” tab and click that, then scroll down and you should see a list of all the pages you either administer or have joined. Be aware that only 5 Fan Pages show here, so you might need to click “see all” which is a link you’ll see if you have more than 5 Facebook Fan Pages. Alternatively, once you get to your Facebook Fan Page on your desktop / laptop, you can set the page as a bookmark in your browser.
3) Now we need to open your Facebook Fan Page on your iPhone, so you can either copy, paste, and email yourself the URL to your Fan Page and then go to your iPhone, open that email and click the link. Or, go to your iPhone’s Safari web browser that you opened and type in the whole URL of your Facebook Fan Page. If you type it in, just be patient and make sure you get all the letters and numbers so your Page opens properly. I recommend just emailing yourself the URL of your Fan Page and then opening that on your iPhone.
4) Now that we have your Facebook Fan Page open on your iPhone, look at the bottom of the screen and find the plus sign “+”. Click that plus sign and you’ll be given 3 options (4 if you count “cancel”). You should see “Add Bookmark”, “Add to Home Screen”, “Mail Link to this Page”.
Selecting “Add Bookmark” will add a link to your iPhone’s bookmark list. Your bookmarks are found by, when you have your Safari browser open, look on the bottom of your screen and you’ll see an icon that looks like a book – that’s your bookmarks. And if you select “Add Bookmark”, this is where you will find your Facebook Fan Page for easy retrieval. Just make sure when you select “Add Bookmark”, you give it a name that’s easy for you to recognize.
Selecting “Add to Home Screen”. This is the method I use, and the one I recommend. When you select “Add to Home Screen”, you are adding your Facebook Fan Page as a new square app bottom on your iPhone’s dashboard – the dashboard is where all those square buttons (apps) are on the homescreen of your iPhone.
So “Add to Home Screen” will add your Facebook Fan Page to your home screen as a square button.
When you select “Add to Home Screen”, you’ll be given an option to rename your button – just use one word here because you are limited on space on the home screen for your buttons, and then just click “save”.
You will now have a square app button on your home screen that when you tap it, will open your Facebook Fan Page.
** Side Note: I’ve mentioned before that updating your Facebook Fan Page from your iPhone seems to have some kinks / limitations. For example, when I update my Fan Page from my iPhone, the update makes it to the Fan Page just fine, but the message does not broadcast out to all of the fans of my page – which is what you need it to do and what it does do when you update your Fan Page from your desktop or laptop. So hopefully this issue will be resolved as well when the Facebook 3.0 iPhone App is released – as I’m sure it will be…
Facebook 3.0 iPhone App
You need to stay tuned here on my blog because like I mentioned initially, once the new Facebook 3.0 iPhone App comes out, it will then be the easiest way to get to your Fan Page.
This is because the home screen of the Facebook 3.0 iPhone App will have both a “Profile” button and a “Fan Page” button (see image below). Once you set your preferred Facebook Fan Page to the app, then you’ll just open the app and click that buttton.
Finally, if you have any questions about this process, just add it to the comments below and I’ll be more than happy to answer as many as I can!
Here’s a screen shot of the new Facebook 3.0 iPhone App:
