Firstly, please know that I am not a facebook expert, nor am I an authority on how to use facebook. I am a facebook user like most of you. I’m not a “sign onto face book everyday” type of user. I usually check things out when people send me messages or I’m reminded to wish someone a happy birthday or to see pictures of relatives I do not see everyday.
I’ve been very curious about facebook because everything I read about social media says I should be on facebook for my business. I’ve always struggled with this because I prefer to separate my personal life from my business affairs.
Facebook has made some changes this year that really helped me to understand how to separate business from personal and it has to do with the difference between a profile and a page.
What is a facebook profile?
A facebook profile is really meant for an individual. It is designed for people to connect with other people as opposed to people connecting with businesses, organizations or communities. With a profile, there is more privacy because only friends can see certain aspects of your profile. To add a friend to your network, you must send a request and they must accept.
What is a facebook page?
A facebook page is designed more for promotional and business use. Facebook pages can be used by individual like an author, celebrity, musician, etc. Facebook pages are also for businesses, organization, product, band, association, etc.
Pages are fully viewable to the general public. You do not have to be logged into facebook to view a page.
“Become and Fan” vs “Like”
At one time, if you had a fan page or business page, you accumulated “Fans” who volunteered to become a fan of your page or product or business. Facebook has now removed the reference to being a ‘fan’ and now you will see the ‘like’ button everywhere. Anyone can like a page or an blog or a site. You can put the like button anywhere. Some bloggers are adding the ‘like ’button’ under all of their blog posts and if people like the post, they can ‘like’ it.
You have to have a profile in order to create a page. You may only administer a Facebook Page if you are an authorized representative of the subject of the Page.
Financial Advisors need to get on facebook
Facebook is the second most visited site in the world next to Google. If you do not have a website, you can easily create a web presence by simply creating a Facebook page for your business.
Creating a Facebook page is so easy to do. I have created three pages:
If you do have a website but it is static in nature (In other words, you do not change the content), you can also create a facebook page to create more communication and interaction with your clients and prospects.
Facebook is one of the new forms of online communication and having a facebook page can help you create and manage relationships.
Facebook has done wonders for my blog but also for allowing me to connect with the fans who are all checking in daily to my page. This is a great post because I see so many bloggers who create a personal profile but that’s not good enough. If you want to build a page and drive traffic to your site you need a Facebook Page not simply a personal page but you do need both to open a Facebook page like you mention. Cheers Mr.CBB