Many small businesses today are creating a Facebook presence. Depending on your business and your social media goals, Facebook can be a smart platform that can allow your business to reach potential and existing customers. It is important that you separate personal and business on Facebook.
- Before You Start: You are considering creating an official (business) Facebook page, or you have mixed together your business and personal on Facebook.
- Learning Level: 1 | Social Media Basics
- Article Last Updated: Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Facebook Business Tool
Facebook offers three tools, each with a different set of features and intended use.
- Profile. In casual language, most people refer to their personal Facebook presence as their “Facebook page” but actually, Facebook calls it a profile. This is where you connect with your high school friends. Connections are made when both people agree that they are friends.
- Page. This is the tool Facebook intended for non-personal use for businesses, public figures, authors, and others. Facebook calls this an “official” page. Connections are made when one person decides to like your page (and the business or person it represents). Facebook used to call the people who like your page a fan, but stopped using that term in 2010. Now, Facebook refers to them as people who like your page. Many businesses still call them fans.
- Group. This tool that allows people to link up based on a common interest or cause. Connections are made when one person decides to become a supporter of the group. You might join a group focused on a sports team or a political cause and interact with other people who support it.
Facebook requires that you use a page for your business. The page features are designed to suit the needs of a business, a professional, or public figure. This is the tool you should use for your business presence.
Separate Business And Personal on Facebook
Many people have mixed together their business and personal Facebook use. Their Facebook friends consist of both real life friends, relatives, and customers. As a result, their Facebook profile is a mix of personal and business communication, photos, status updates, and links. This creates a confusing business presence that can be frustrating for you and your audience.
Here are four reasons why you should separate business and personal on Facebook.
- Make a distinction between your business and your personal life. This is especially challenging for small business owners who devote their time and passion to building a business. You need a place where you can chat with friends and let your hair down when you are not working.
- Feel free to talk with your friends without worrying that your customers will overhear you. Nothing you say on social media is truly private. You should never use your personal Facebook presence to talk about your customers or your business.
- Your customers don’t care about your weekend events, the wedding you attended, or your vacation plans. They want to know about events related to your business. If you make them wade through your personal communication to find business information, they are likely to stay away.
- Your friends don’t care about your business promotions or your customer service issues. They want a place to chat with you about your common life experiences without having to read all about your business.
By mixing business and personal, you don’t serve either community well. Determine your personal and business goals for Facebook, and let your goals show you how to interact with each community. By separating your communication, you give each community the information it wants, allowing both communities to grow organically.
Your turn: Did you start out mixing together business and personal on Facebook? What problems did this cause for you? Share your experience and insights.
Related Articles:
- Should My Business Be On Facebook?
- Changing Your Facebook Presence To A Fan Page
- Facebook As A Social Media Hub
- Whose Facebook Wall Is It?
- Create A Facebook Page For Your Business (Part 1)
- Create A Facebook Page For Your Business (Part 2)
- Facebook Privacy: What Is Public Information?
- Get A Custom Facebook Web Address (Username)
- Facebook Places and Your Business
- Customers With Benefits
Article categories: Articles • Facebook • Level 1
Article tags: Facebook • Facebook Fans • Facebook Friends • Facebook Group • Facebook Page • Facebook Profile • Facebook Supporters • Fans • Status Update
Charlene Kingston is the small business person behind the Social Media DIY Workshop.
8 Responses to “A Facebook Page Means Business”
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I'm Charlene Kingston.
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So should we have two different profiles? One for business and one for personal? Or should we have a personal profile, and then a “Page” for the business?
Thanks for the question, Jen. You should use a profile for your personal Facebook presence, and create a business page (official page) for your business presence. You will see people who are not doing that, but they are in violation of Facebook’s terms of service. To follow the rules, and to avoid having your account suspended, put your business on a page.
I have my own “profile” and I am the admin for a business page. Evertime I post on the business page my profile pic shows up. How do I change this? VERY informative column
Thanks, Martha. Normally, Facebook uses your business page details (name and photo) when you post on a page where you are the admin. I’ve never seen the situation you describe. I would need more information to help you, but I can suggest these things for you to try. Log out and back into Facebook to see if that fixes the confusion. If that doesn’t fix it, edit your business page and review your page admins. You might try adding a new admin, someone you trust, to test making a post. Just make sure to delete that person as an admin after you test.
Charlene,
Thank you for this post and for updating it! Facebook changes so often, and it’s wonderful to see that someone is able to keep up.
I’m not new to FB as a personal user or even Web design, but I am new to business pages on FB. Am I correct in understanding that when customers access my business profile that they will not be able to see anything on my personal profile? There’s nothing on there that I couldn’t post on a billboard, but who knows what a customer mind find objectionable? (Glasses, a sweater, a movie I liked, etc.)
Also, I started to create a business profile, but I’m not sure which kind it should be. I’m a writer, editor, and graphic designer, but I live in a rural area. So, a lot of my customers are pretty far away. Does that mean I’m a company and not a local business? Or, am I a public figure? That seems to fix better with the drop down boxes, but I don’t think my one book makes me famous.
Finally, when I go to the Account drop down and select Use Facebook as Page, if I click Switch, I’ll just be administering the page and not actually converting my personal profile. Correct?
Sorry for so many questions, but I want to be right in whatever I do.
Thanks again for your article and the entire blog.
Stanford
Hi Stanford,
I’m happy to help you sort this out. First, you are correct that people who land on your business page have no access to your personal profile. On your page, there is a list of page admins that appears in the upper left. (Check my page http://www.facebook.com/SocialMediaDIY to see an example.) Anyone who clicks on your picture can see your name and anything you make available to “everyone” in your privacy settings.
I added a “Featured Admins” area on mine, which is totally optional. If you want this, you can find in when you edit the page.
It’s a little tricky picking the correct business type when you start out. I think local business is more for people who have a storefront and expect walk-in business. I think you can do either a company or local business, which ever seems best to you. Check my article on creating your Facebook page for more details. (http://socialmediadiyworkshop.com/2010/03/create-a-facebook-page-for-your-business-1/)
You can change the business category later, but not the business type.
You understand Use Facebook As Page correctly. It lets your business page like other pages (not profiles) and comment or post as your page (instead of your profile). It’s a very cool new feature that adds a lot of value to business owners. I shared an article about this feature as a newsletter-only article a few weeks back.
Let me know if you have any other questions!
Hi Charlene,
Great information. I have a personal profile and a FB “page” for my business, I want to invite customers to like my page, but they are not currently “friends” of mine on the personal profile side. I don’t want them to be personal “friends” as the goal is to keep personal and business separate. How do I accomplish this?
Thanks,
Robin
You are set up now for success, Robin. You want people to like your business page. As long as you don’t accept friend requests from customers, the two will remain separate. If customers ask to become friends (and that will happen), write a couple of sentences that explain that you have a business page and give them the link. I’ve got some ideas for how to share your business page to get more people to like it (http://socialmediadiyworkshop.com/2010/01/8-ways-to-get-new-facebook-fans/).