How to Manage Visitor Posts on Your Company Facebook Page
NOTE added 5/9/2020:
It appears that Facebook has changed the procedure for going to a page’s activity log. Now when you follow the instructions provided by Facebook, you are taken to your personal activity log rather than the page’s activity log. This is causing hours of frustration for users. I have submitted questions on Facebook and researched but I haven’t yet solved this issue. If you do, please share and I will update for everyone else who is having this issue.
Make Visitor Posts a part of your social media strategy
When people go to your company Facebook page, they have the option of putting up a post. It will show up on the right column under “visitor posts.”
Great! People can easily interact with your company and add to the content on your page. Except that you might not realize that the posts are there and they might not be something you want on your page.
This is an often overlooked feature on Facebook company pages. It’s easy to miss because it’s off to the side and not always visible. It’s easy to manage, but only if you know where to find how to control what’s happening. The steps are outlined below. But first, you want to think through how you want to handle these Visitor Posts.
It should be noted that a “Visitor Post” is different than when someone tags your company in a post they put on their page. In that case, the person writes on the post on their own wall and puts the “@” symbol ahead of your company name. You will get a notice in your feed and can like or share that post, but it doesn’t appear in the “Visitor Post” feed.
Visitor Posts appear on the right on your page. Hint: If you don’t see them, click on “Posts” in the left column and they should appear.
Visitor posts appear on the right column. HINT: If you don’t see them, try clicking on Posts in the far left column.
What’s your policy?
How do you want to handle posts? It’s a good idea to set a policy so that you and anyone working on the page will know how to respond. The question is how much time do you have to manage posts and what’s the likelihood of someone putting up something you don’t want?
Here are a few things to consider:
- Generally, you want visitor interactions. You want people to like and comment on your posts. And, having visitors put posts on your page is an indication that people are paying attention to you and are interested in what you’re doing. Yay, that’s the goal.
- The easier it is for people to post, the more likely they are to do so.
- You have the option of letting people post directly without review. This works if you expect that people will write nice things and you don’t want to spend time monitoring. (Not that it takes a lot of time, but you know the other demands.)
- Alternatively, you can set things up so that you review every post and decide if you want to allow it on the page. This is a great idea if you think there’s a chance of people writing negative things or creating controversy that is not appropriate for your page.
- If you are concerned about what someone might post and you have no extra time to monitor things, you can disable Visitor Posts.
- Regardless of what you decide, you can change your policy and procedure at any time. Suppose you decide to allow posts to go up immediately. Keep an eye on them and if you’re getting things you don’t want, you can start monitoring. Alternatively, if you’ve been monitoring and things seem to be going okay, maybe set it to auto-approve and focus on other things.
Note – if love a visitor post so much that you want it in your main news feed rather than just off to the side, you can click on the post and share it to your page.
Here are the instructions for setting up your visitor posts regardless of how you want to handle them:
Go to settings.
Click on Visitor Posts. You will have the option to allow visitors to the Page to publish posts, review posts, or disable posts entirely. If you’ve disabled posts, you are done. You are mostly done if you’ve allowed posts. You just need to keep an eye on them when they come on the page. Make sure they’re in line with what you want on the page. Keep in mind that if you don’t like one, you can delete it from the page.
If you are going to review posts. You will need to take a few additional steps. You will get a notification when a visitor post comes in that you need to go to the Activity Log. This is under settings, at the bottom of the left column.
From the Activity Log page, click on “Other’s Posts to Your Page” in the left column.
When the posts come up, go to the top right corner and select to approve.
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42 Comments
Hi, Thanks for the helpful step by step explanation. I unfortunately have problems to allow visitor posts on my business page. I got a notification of two visitor’s posts and I can see them etc. But when I follow the steps “Settings” – “Activity Log” it automatically transfers me to my private activity log and away from the business side. I tried it with another facebook account that is an admin of the same business page – same problem occurs here. Any ideas / thoughts on that? Would highly appreciate it!
May 5, 2020
It looks like there has been a change in the Facebook ecosystem. I will update when I get more info.
May 7, 2020
Hi, Jennifer, i do social media management for some pages. my client ad me as admin but again and again it changed to moderator automatically. kindly help . I am unable yo post on page.
please give your feeback on emindmedia.club@gmail.com.
i would highly aprreciate it
Regards
Min
January 14, 2022
Hopefully, this has been worked out for you by now. It seems Facebook has restored the company activity log.
May 26, 2020
I am having this exact same problem.
June 12, 2020
I can’t find a way for people’s comments to appear on our Page’s timeline (even though it states in settings that it’s set up to do that). So, I just go into Inbox and click on Comments & More: Facebook underneath. That shows me the comment…then I share the comment to my page’s timeline as an Admin to the page.
Also, another thing I had difficulty with was finding my page’s Activity Log. So, if there’s anyone else out there trying to figure this out – uou can find it by using the “Pages Manager” app. Just Settings, Activity Log and sign into the personal account associated with the business page.
Hope this helps 🙂
July 22, 2020
Why i can’t see visitor post on my Activity log, which i got the notification that someone post on my page
May 7, 2020
This is a good question. It seems that “Activity Log” is now displaying personal page activities rather than activities on the business page. Can you see the visitor posts on your page?
May 7, 2020
Hi Jennifer
Do you know if this is being looked at yet? It’s fairly problematic for business at the minute!
Thanks
May 10, 2020
It looks like things have been restored. Have you been able to get to your activity log?
May 26, 2020
It seems that the company “activity log” is once again showing up on the company setting page as it should be.
May 26, 2020
I am having the same issue for a page I manage. I have asked folks to post special memories, but I want to review them before sharing them. I cannot seem to access the activity log for my page which is a real problem!
May 8, 2020
This sounds extremely frustrating. Have you been able to work it out? Facebook seems to have restored the activity log to the right place.
May 26, 2020
Hello, having the same problem. Can’t access my page’s activity log. Visitor posts are only showing on the admin panel but regular users can’t see those. Spent the whole night figuring out, no luck. Please help.
May 9, 2020
Have you been able to do do what you need? Facebook seems to have fixed the problem. The page activity feed is showing up under the page settings.
May 26, 2020
This is still broken! I launched a page looking for posts about corona virus stories and the posts wont show on my page! ahhhhh – so frustrating!
May 9, 2020
Have you been able to get to your activity log? As of this morning (5/26) it seems to be working.
May 26, 2020
Same issue with being directed to the personal Facebook page and not pages activity log. Like the updated stated. Two pending customer post and cannot post them…
May 10, 2020
I figured it! In a really backward way! I went to where you set up visitor post approvals in settings. There by the “Review posts by other people before they are published to the Page” is a tiny question mark. If you hover over the question mark it showed a clickable activity log. I clicked that and now all of the approval posts will be under “Others’ Posts to Your Timeline” I know that wasn’t originally there because when I clicked on that when I came across that page they were not there.
FB Page-Settings-Activity Log-“Others’ Posts to Your Timeline” and there are the post to be approved
May 22, 2020
You made sense, The first reply on this page to do so, Thank You Thank You Thank You. I can finally allow vistors posts to be on my page once I have approved them.Thank You
July 3, 2020
Hi, is there any way visitors posts can go directly onto my newsfeed page and not to the side. My visitors posting can’t see them? Thanks you.
May 23, 2020
If you want your visitor’s posts to appear on the newsfeed, the best way is to share them on your newsfeed. To do this, go to the original post by clicking on the time on the visitor post under the name of the poster. On the original post, you will have the option to share. Make sure you are sharing to your page and not your personal newsfeed.
May 26, 2020
Guys! It’s under “Community” 🙂
May 26, 2020
No, it is not under community. All of our page settings are correct. It appears as if all of our Visitor Posts have been archived and there is no method to approve Visitor Posts. They do appear on our newsfeed, but no posts appear under Visitor Posts.
July 7, 2020
Thank you Adrian!! Finally a result for us 🙂
September 22, 2020
I run a community Facebook page, not a business page or a group. Since the latest Apple software update, every post to the page is duplicated to the visitor page. This is only visible to those using iPad and iPhone. Doesn’t show using Safari browser Or laptop’s Windows 10 browsers. Doesn’t matter If I share or post new, if I use laptop or Apple devices. Very frustrating. If I delete from visitors page, the post on the main page s deleted too. Help!
June 19, 2020
My page visitors aren’t able to view the visitor’s posts. I have made it public, changed the setting to everyone can post as well.
July 5, 2020
I’m glad to see I am not the only one who had a hard time figuring this out! But now that I was FINALLY (literally took several hours) able to approve a visitor post, it is only showing up on the desktop version of Facebook. On the mobile version, when I click visitor posts, it shows the stuff I’ve posted as administrator! Insane.
July 17, 2020
Hi all. It’s September and I’m still having the same issue you’ve mentioned in the comments. It’s only showing on the admin side, even the original poster can’t see it. I’ve followed all of the suggestions above and am still having the same issue. Has anyone been able to figure it out?
September 7, 2020
I finally figured out how to approve visitor posts so that they show up in the “Community” feed on my page, but only within the classic UI on desktop, not the new one or in the mobile app yet. For context, my page’s settings for “Visitor Posts” is set to allow, but also has the box checked to review posts before they’re published.
1. While viewing a page, you admin, click on Settings (top right of secondary nav bar)
2. Click on “Activity Log” (bottom of left column)
3. Click on “Others’ Post to Your Timeline” (middle of left sidebar under “Filters”), this will display all of the visitor posts in a feed on the right
4. For each post you want to “approve”, click the pencil icon and change it to “Allowed on Page”
Your visitor posts will now appear in the right-side column of your main posts as well as when users click on the “Community” tab of your page.
September 23, 2020
thank you. I can see the visitors post in the community. But how effective is that as no one will go check the community and it is not on anyone’s feed or on the timeline or in the timeline pictures
February 3, 2021
Hello,
I’m running a contest on my work’s Facebook page. I’m asking my customers to upload a video (in the comment section of my last post) sharing what they are thankful for this holiday season. No one can upload a video. They can only type a message. I’ve tried to figure out why they are not allowed and I’m lost. Any help would be appreciated.
Thank you.
December 23, 2020
After an hour of frustration, I’ve hacked my way around this issue: when I was taken to my personal activity log rather than the page’s activity log, I just typed the page’s name in the url instead of my name, and it worked. I’ve managed to approve the visitor’s post. Hope it can help someone!
March 5, 2021
I have spent two days on this, as well. All of my settings allow people to post photos and videos on my FB page, pending my approval. A friend posted a message on my page tonight. I went to Activity Log, then Other’s Posts to Your Timeline, then I saw her pending post, and clicked the little icon to the right and APPROVED it. My friend immediately received a message on HER FB page saying “your post was approved!” BUT it does NOT show up on my PAGE!! I even changed the settings so that people can post WITHOUT my approval, but the posts are still not showing up. I set up my page so that many people can share photos. Instead, I have to SHARE them from my notifications page. Does this have something to do with the browser I’m using…or my Mac OS? Also, do I have to set this up differently on my mobile devices? Please help me. People keep asking why they can’t post and it’s embarrassing!
March 18, 2021
Hello. I can’t figure out how to allow others to share post on my business page. They have followed and liked my company but they can’t post. What am I missing?
June 12, 2021
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July 8, 2021
Took me a while but:
Under “Manage page” on left hand side (I was using a laptop)
Page settings
Activity log
Under “ filters”
“Others posts to your timeline “
August 23, 2021
I managed to get to the Activity Log and see the visitor’s posts. Unfortunately, when I click the Edit button and change the setting from “Hidden from Page (default)” to “Approve to Page”, the post isn’t posted. Upon refreshing the activity log page, I can see the post is still set to “Hidden from Page (default)” in the activity log.
The feature does not seem to be apply the setting. Posts are staying hidden.
October 30, 2021
IT’S UNDER THE COMMUNITY TAB FOLKS.
December 10, 2021
I still dont see any visitor post to approve in Activity Log. Any workaround? Not in “Others’ posts to your timeline” or “Activity Log”. I clicked the “?” link too.
December 12, 2021
I have been having this same issue of not being able to approve visitor posts! I am beyond frustrated and have been reading blog after blog and contacted Facebook Support but haven’t heard back. Did anyone find the solution for this? When I go to Activity Log and ‘Others’ posts to your timeline’ nothing is there. When I click the notification that someone has commented on the business timeline it takes me to the inbox. UGH
January 12, 2022
I have found the post option by following the directions in this article for laptop/desktop. But has anyone found a way to do this on a mobile devise? I am android, but other moderators are on Iphone. None of us can figure this out.
July 8, 2022