with the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal alleging that I had deprived her of her rights to be a member of a public group. I had to approach the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) about the threats that I was receiving from her and I also consulted with a lawyer. Eventually she dropped her complaint to the Human Rights Tribunal but even to this day, more than two years later, she continues to harass me on-line as well as many other members of our community. If you are interested in learning more about cyberbullies & social media here is an article I wrote on the subject a while back. How to Deal With a Cyber Bully: Power Networking Tips & Techniques.
In essence, the Terms of Reference for your Facebook Group page serves the same purpose as voting a new member into your Toastmaster’s club i.e. you vote them in so that you can vote them out [worst case scenario of course].
As an Administrator, Facebook gives you the option of posting as yourself or as the Administrator of the Group. Any messages posted as the Group Administrator will not have your name or identity connected to it.
How to Create and Set-up a Facebook “Fan” Page
There are several elements to the public view of your Facebook Page as well as the Administrative i.e. backend, what the public doesn’t see.
We start off by exploring the graphic elements of the front of our Facebook Fan Page, then we focus on the text/copy portion that is located under the About tab.
Cover Photos (banner)
Your Cover Photo provides the first impression of your Facebook Page. The old adage may still hold true … people do judge a (face)book by its cover.
If you have graphic artistic ability, or access to someone who does, by all means create a design cover that is representative of your club’s personality.
As a Toastmaster’s club, your club name and perhaps your community should be featured in your Cover Photo. Toastmasters International has guidelines that must be considered when designing your cover photo. You can learn more about branding at Toastmasters Brand Portal. One important restriction is that you are not allowed to incorporate the Toastmasters International logo as part of any other graphic.
How Not to Design a Cover Photo
I include the screen shot below as an example of a good idea that doesn’t seem to work. It is a business that has gone to a lot of trouble to create a visually attractive graphic, yet the graphic has placement of important text that gets hidden by the text that Facebook uploads i.e. the name of the Facebook Page & the categories that it is listed in. The result is a very busy first impression that wouldn’t likely be what the page owner had in mind.
How to Design a Cover Photo
I created the simple cover photo (below) for my club, Kelowna Flying Solo Toastmasters in an inexpensive graphic editing/screen capture program called Snagit.
I can cut & paste relatively easily but don’t have a huge talent in graphic artistry. This simple cover photo serves the purpose of getting the message across of who we are, our website address and our summer meeting schedule. Once Autumn rolls around we will change the text to something more promotional.
This cover photo took me five or more attempts to upload. The billboard with the club name on it had to be manoeuvred so that it would be visible behind the Profile Picture i.e. the Toastmasters International 90th graphic. As well, the dark blue text on the light blue background had to be manipulated so that it would not interfere with the visibility of the club name and category and the Contact Us, Liked & Share buttons. When studying this graphic for the purposes of writing this paragraph I have realized that there would have been value in posting the club contact’s phone number, just above the website address. Oh well!
How to Install a Cover Photo (similar to a banner on a website)
A small camera icon will be visible, in the top right corner of a Facebook Page when you are the Administrator for a particular site.
Clicking on the camera icon will prompt you to Change Cover.
Clicking on this box will give you the following options:
Clicking on Choose from Photos will allow you to choose from photos already uploaded to your Facebook Page. You would possibly do this if you were changing or updating your banner rather than a first time install.
Clicking on the Upload photo link will open a File Upload box that displays the directory listings from your computer. Simply locate and highlight the graphic you want to upload and click on Open. It will then, hopefully, upload to the banner position in the top of your Facebook Page. I say hopefully because this process can take several times to work properly.
Your Pages Cover Photo has to be within certain size parameters to display properly.
The image you upload must be at least 399px wide–one that’s at least 720px wide will work best. You can upload a photo already cropped and resized to precisely those sizes. Or you can upload a larger image, in which case you’ll be given a chance to move the image to choose the crop you’d like displayed.
•Displays at 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels tall on your Page
•For profile pictures and cover photos with your logo or text, you may get a better result by using a PNG file.
Example of Facebook Cover Page Display Sizes:
Note: There are 72 px (pixels per inch)
How to Create & Upload a Profile Picture (small photo)
The Profile Picture is the smaller, square at bottom left of the header, overlapping the Cover Photo.
You have to upload an image at least 180px by 180px. It’s displayed at 160px by 160px. (Its “natural” size is actually resized to 168px by 168px, but it’s only displayed at 160px by 160px.) The thin white border is added automatically and there’s no way to remove it.
If you use a photo that’s not square, you have some control over which part of the image to use for the crop.
