As you have probably grasped by now, Facebook has some pretty strict rules when it comes to businesses using it’s services. One of the fundamental things of setting up your business on Facebook is which platform to use – by this I mean, a page, group or profile.
I’ve previously discussed the differences between Facebook groups and Facebook pages, however something that I see quite a lot is businesses using a personal profile to promote their business. A Facebook personal profile is an account that you can add friends to – Facebook does not allow businesses to have these. Pages are managed via a personal profile, and are what a business should generally be using.
Here are a few comments that I have heard when explaining this to businesses in the past:
I don’t want my personal profile to be visibly connected to my business page! That’s why I set up a second Facebook profile.
1) No. Facebook’s rules specifically state that you can only have one profile account for yourself, personally.
2) When you set up a page via your personal profile, it is not automatically linked. No one visiting your page will be able to see the personal profile that manages the page unless you specifically choose to do this (in Page Info >> Featured)
I can’t invite friends (and people I don’t know!) to like my page, I can add them as friends though!
This is partly true. You can invite your friends to like your page – Build Audience >> Invite Friends, and Facebook has recently brought back to “recommend this page to your friends” option too, so you can ask your “likers” to invite their friends to your business page as well.
Setting up your business on Facebook is, and always has been, harder than using something like Twitter. This is due to the fact that you can’t just go and “follow” as many people as you like in the hope that they will follow you back. There are however a LOT of networking Facebook pages, which I would recommend you find, like, and start promoting your business on!
A couple of my favourites are I Run a Small Business and Send in The Troops but there are loads out there – specific Handmade “forums”, and also specific to industries, such as weddings etc. (If you are working for/with a charity, then The Crafty Fundraisers Forum is a great page to start with for networking!)
I know how to use a profile – pages are so complicated!
Yes and no. Pages are very different to profiles, however once you’ve got started with them, you’ll find that they are MUCH easier to use for a business!
You can read Facebook’s terms and conditions here – the part about personal profiles is point 4. You can also read about how profiles are different to pages here.
If you want help setting up your Facebook page, and any other social media profile for your business, please get in touch via email: becki@webok.co.uk or call us on 023 9259 3487.
Is there is something you would like to know about a social media site?
Email me & I’ll do my best to write a blog post about it
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