There are two primary ways you can have a presence on Facebook as a user: You can have a personal profile (what the vast majority of Facebook users have) or a fan page, which is more of a business- and personality-oriented page. We’ll explore the difference and help you make the most of Facebook.
Personal Profile
As you might expect, the personal profile on Facebook is primarily for personal interactions. In fact, Facebook frowns on creating personal profiles for businesses, nonprofits and brands (that’s what Fan Pages and Groups are for).
But there are clearly benefits to setting up and using a personal profile on Facebook for your business. One of the primary benefits is networking. Making your business known to your family, friends and colleagues is a no-brainer. Of course you’ll need to be careful: Most people don’t see Facebook as a business networking site (that’s what LinkedIn is for) and will be turned off by aggressive networking. But you should definitely list your business under ‘Work Experience’ and should feel free to mention your business and relevant opportunities in your status updates, notes, photos, videos, etc. You don’t want to overdo it, but if your business is part of who you are, it makes sense to share it on a personal level.
Fan Pages
Facebook offers fan pages for a “celebrity, band or business”—basically any entity that’s not a single person (businesses, nonprofits, websites, bands, sports teams, etc.) as well as personalities that are larger than life. How do you know if you’re larger than life? If you’ll have more than 5,000 friends (or “fans”) then you’ll want a fan page (personal profiles are capped at 5,000 friends).
This is really where most businesses will want to pour their time and effort. Fan pages are set up very much like personal profiles except the basic information is different—and varies depending on what category you select (restaurants can list hours, parking and nearby public transportation; websites cannot). As an added benefit, fan pages have a few extra communication tools, including the ability to update all your fans with targeted messages.
Now you know the difference between personal profiles and fan pages and you know where to invest your time for your business. Next time we’ll cover how to make a fan page work for your business.
