A lot of people use their Personal Profile for their business instead of a Facebook Page. Although there appear to be some advantages to this, it is actually not a good thing to do for a variety of reasons.
First of all, let’s clarify what is meant by each of these terms:
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| Most B2C businesses need a Facebook Page. |
Personal Profile – Profiles represent individuals and must be held under an individual name. This is your “home base” for Facebook – the entity that has Friends, LIKEs things, etc.
Facebook Page – allow an organization, business, celebrity, or band to maintain a professional presence on Facebook.
1. Facebook clearly says you should NOT ask a person to be a FRIEND if you don’t know him/her. Let’s say you like the business but you don’t know the owner. Therefore, you would be very unlikely to “support” this business. While you might not be comfortable sending a FRIEND request, you might be very comfortable LIKE-ing the Page.
2. Facebook frequently makes it difficult to even send a FRIEND request. They block such requests for a variety of reasons.
3. You can easily send an UPDATE to all fans (LIKEers) with just a couple of buttons. You can not do anything like this with a Personal Profile. (Note: As of fall 2011, Facebook has removed this feature in an effort to encourage Pages to advertise more.)
4. You can run an AD which drives people to your Facebook PAGE – not so for a Personal Profile.
5. You have an INSIGHTS function that allows tracking of page visitors and other helpful statistics.
6. You can assign an ADMINISTRATOR to help you manage your page without giving access to your personal inbox, photos, data, etc.
7. Your Personal Profile is limited to 5000 friends. There is no limit to a PAGE LIKEs (fans).
8. You have SEO (Search Engine Optimization) benefits that aren’t available on your Personal Profile.
9. Privacy Settings – unless the owner of the page turns off the privacy settings, a viewer can’t even see what the business is about.
10. Facebook Pages are ACCESSIBLE by all. Your page can be viewed by someone who is not even on Facebook. This is a big PLUS. This allows you to use Facebook as your primary web page if you don’t want to maintain a separate blog or web site.
It is really best to keep personal and business separate for the same reasons that most people have a store, office or another place that they meet clients. Even most home-based businesses that have client visitors have a separate area for such meetings. Home is home. Business is business.
I’d like to give my Geeky Gal Pals Donna Gilliland, Dawn Gartin, and Charlyn Shelton much of the credit here for helping me think through these issues more clearly.
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| While I might be interested in this business, I am not going to Add them as a Friend if I don’t personally know the owner. |
© Copyright 2011 Gina Carr International.
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Gina Carr is an Entrepreneur, Speaker and Marketing Consultant who works with entrepreneurs and authors to leverage social media marketing for publicity, profits and success. Combining her street-smarts learned as a publisher and small business owner with her book-smarts learned at the Harvard Business School (MBA 1990) and Georgia Tech (BIE 1984), Gina helps business owners turn great ideas into profitable money-making machines. Known around the world as The Tribe Builder, Gina helps passionate people build powerful tribes of raving fans for their business or non-profit organization. Get connected with Gina at www.tribebuildingtips.com and www.ginacarr.com..
Disclaimer: This post may include affiliate links for products and services I endorse and promote. These are always products and services that I have personally used and highly recommend.
Gina Carr works with business leaders who want to get more great reviews and fewer bad ones. A serial entrepreneur and business growth expert, she has an MBA from the Harvard Business School and an engineering degree from Georgia Tech. Gina is the co-author of the McGraw-Hill book, Klout Matters - How to Engage Customers, Increase Digital Influence, and Raise Your Klout Score for Success. Schedule a free strategy session today to learn easy ways for you to get more great reviews ... and, more great customers! www.ginacarr.com/strategy-session.
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