If you are new to managing a Facebook fan page for your business, or if it’s been a while since you’ve reviewed the options accessed through the Admin Panel, this post is a great (double) check to be sure you are aware of and know how to access the lesser-known features available for your fan page.

12 Hidden Features of your Facebook Fan Page

In no particular order:

– Adjust the portion of your image that appears as your Profile Picture When hovering over your profile photo, click “Edit Profile Picture”, then “Edit Thumbnail”. From there, you can drag and drop your photo to adjust which portion is visible as your profile picture.

– Add your URL into the About section. This is the only place – short of including your URL in your cover photo – where you can make your website address visible from your fan page. Visit “Edit Page” –> “Update Page Info”. Then edit the Short Description area.

Please note: If you have a Place (meaning, the address of your brick & mortar business has been added to your Fan Page), your address, hours and phone number appear here instead of your Short Description text. It may be advantageous for some businesses to remove their address in favor of showing this section instead.

– Add multiple URLs to your Website field With all the text fields Facebook gives you in order to include information about your business, its mission, its products, etc., within the About and Basic Info areas of your Fan Page, you might have space available to list out the profile URLs of your other social media accounts. But if you’ve filled up all those areas with other content about your business, adding additional URLs to the existing Website field is possible.

Simply use a comma between website URLs, and when your changes are published, they’ll appear in list form.

– Hide your Ratings Business ratings is something Facebook has been testing recently. They currently exist for Fan Pages that have a physical address listed. You’ll see them beneath the Fan Page name, and to the right of the Profile Picture.

To hide this Ratings section, visit “Edit Page” –> “Update Page Info” –> click to Edit your Address. Then, uncheck the box that reads, “Show this map on your page.”

Please note: You do have to give up the default Bing map that appears as an App under your cover photo. However, if your Ratings are not favorable, it may be worth the trade-off.

– Change your Facebook Fan Page URL You may have chosen your vanity URL when you initially created your Facebook Fan Page, and now something has shifted in your business that makes modifying your URL preferable. Facebook says it allows for 1 change. You can try to make a change by visiting “Edit Page” –> “Update Page Info”, then selecting “Facebook Web Address”. Or by visiting: https://www.facebook.com/username .

– Change your Facebook Fan Page name Facebook allows you to request a change, however the ability to change is not guaranteed. Users seem to have a mixed response on their success with this feature as well as changing their URL. If you’ve used Facebook for any length of time, you’ve likely encountered some inconsistencies in features and functionalities. This is one perfect example of that.

You can find this by visiting “Edit Page” –>”Update Page Info”. It’s located at the top of the page.

– Turn on Comment Replies Having Comment Replies enabled really is so much more helpful and clear as to what response goes to which comment left. Visit “Edit Page” –> “Edit Settings”, then scroll almost to the bottom to find the Replies section.

– Choose whether or not your Page is suggested to others Have you ever noticed that when you click to LIKE a fan page in the News Feed or on the Fan Page itself, a few other similar fan pages will be immediately suggested to you? Some business owners feel this feature promotes competitors to your new fan, and want to turn this off.

Visit “Edit Page” –> “Edit Settings”, then scroll down to “Similar Page Suggestions”.

Please note: If you do disable this feature, you will prevent your fan page from being suggested to other Facebook users when they like a business who is similar to yours.

– Merge multiple Facebook Fan Pages This feature comes in handy if there are “old” fan pages started by a previous employee, or pages that were created for individual locations but now are managed as 1 master corporate page instead. When you complete a Fan Page merge, you’ll first select the main page you want the “extra” page rolled into.

To locate this feature, visit “Edit Page” –> “Edit Settings”, then scroll almost to the bottom of the page.

– Delete your Facebook Fan Page This is the option directly beneath “Merge Pages”.

- Invite your email contacts to become your Fans We recently wrote a post on where to find this feature, and how to do it.

– Add a custom image to your Facebook App – Let’s say you want to add a newsletter signup app to your fan page. You can use the default image provided by Constant Contact, MailChimp, or whatever service you use. Or, you can edit your newsletter app in order to upload your own, branded image. Visit “Edit Page” –> “Edit Settings”, then click on the “More” tab. From the drop-down menu that appears, choose Apps.

Click to “Edit Settings” in your newsletter app, then choose to upload your own image. This is also the place to go to change the words that appear beneath your app.

Simple changes can have a much larger impact on your Facebook fan page, and how it represents you, your business and what you have to offer.

What other features should be added to this list?