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2 Facebook tips for authors

I’ve noticed that a lot of people — authors and non-authors alike — don’t seem to know that they can edit their posts on Facebook or delete their comments or those of others on their timeline.

You’ve all seen it — and you’ve probably done it yourself: You make a mistake in a comment, read it after it goes “live,” and then post a correction right underneath it that says, “I meant to write . . . .”

Truth is, you don’t have to post a correction because you can make a correction in your original comment by editing it.

Watch this video to learn two important Facebook tips:

Loose transcript of the video

I’m going to show you how to do two things on Facebook that you might not know you can do. Learning how to do these two things will help you present a more polished and professional look on Facebook when you’re there as an author.

We’re going to use my own personal Facebook page as an example. I’m going to show you how to:

  1. Edit or delete your own comments on your own timeline or on someone else’s.
  2. Delete the comments of other people on your timeline on your Facebook post.

Both are important because you might make a comment with a spelling mistake you want to correct. You think once it’s out there, it’s published and doesn’t look as good as you’d like it to. You can edit that comment.

Or sometimes you might make a comment that you later regret. You can go back and delete that comment. Editing and deleting gives you more control over what you post on Facebook.

Likewise, the ability to delete other people’s comments on your Facebook page gives you a little more control over the image you present for your page.

I’ll show you with this test post by adding a comment and show you how this works.

You will see that if you take your mouse or cursor and move it to the upper right of that comment, you get a little pencil that lets you edit or delete. I’m going to click on that, “edit a comment.” If you decide to delete it, go back over to the little pencil, and click delete.

You can do that on your page or the page or timeline of other people, but you can only do it on things you write – your own comments.

Now I’ll show you how to delete comments that other people make on your timeline. I’ll go to a post where someone replied – Jay’s comment. To delete it, move your mouse or cursor to upper right, where you’ll see an “X.” Click on it. That lets you remove that comment.

You can undo that delete if you want. Go back to the left side of the comment, click “unhide,” and the comment is restored.

You can delete comments you aren’t comfortable with or aren’t in keeping with the image you want to project or you can polish your own comments by editing or deleting.

See how easy it is?

What’s your best Facebook user tip that most people don’t seem to know about?

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6 Comments

  1. This is a great point — I just rewrote a post on Facebook because of a typo. Voila, all fixed. One thing I would suggest, though, is if you’re deleting because you said something without thinking and regret it, you may need to do more than delete — you may need to apologize. Yesterday Dr. Phil got raked over the coals for something he tweeted and then deleted. People thought he should apologize AND delete, not just delete. So, something to think about.

    1. Thanks, Jennifer, and that’s a good point. An apology isn’t always needed, though. It depends on the nature of the comment, etc.

      Sandy

  2. Hi Sandy,

    Thanks for the great tip! Question? I tried doing that on my author page, but it doesn’t give me the option to edit only delete. Is there a trick I’m not seeing, or is it found in another place? Thanks!

    1. Good point, Elke. These tips are for personal pages, not fan/business pages. With those, you can only delete, but that’s still a good option. If you’ve made a typo or don’t like how you’ve phrased something, just delete it and start all over.

      Thanks!

      Sandy

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