There has been a lot of talk recently about personal profiles versus public or business profiles. We have noticed a lot discussions popping up about converting personal profiles that people set up for a business to a business page. The buzz was presumably started by the fact that Facebook has been going through and shutting down personal profiles that are being used for business. Some of you are undoubtedly wondering why Facebook is shutting down accounts. Well, guess what, using a personal profile for a business is against the Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Since profiles are for meant individual people, they aren’t suited to meet your business needs. Pages offer more robust features for organizations, businesses, brands, and public figures. If you don’t convert your profile to a Page, you risk permanently losing access to the profile and all of your content.”
Facebook does have the right to enforce them and they are making some noise about it too.
Below is a critical point, number 4 under section 4, the most important.
4. Registration and Account Security
4. You will not use your personal profile for your own commercial gain. (In other words a business using a personal page to promote themselves is in risk of being deleted.)
So how do I know if I have a Business or Personal page?
Does your Facebook page say “Add as Friend” or “Like”?
Likes = Business, Add as friend = personal
Here are a few reasons why you need to switch or create from the start a business page.
A personal profile page is designed for individuals. This page allows you to engage and connect with family, friends, and coworkers as you choose. You can add as much personal information as you wish. Personal profile pages also have many privacy setting options, allowing you to control who has access to see certain things on your personal profile page. Someone who knows how to use Facebook and sees that a business page is really a personal page may not “add you as a friend” because it subjects them to a security breach. We all know about Facebook security, when a TRUE business page is LIKED, the page admin cannot see your personal information. If you FRIEND a page that is acting as a business you just gave them ALL your personal info that you have listed in your profile, ALL OF IT, Email address, Phone, HOME ADDRESS, if it is in your profile, you just gave them access to it.
AND… Personal profiles are capped at 5,000 friends!
What business only wants 5000 people to know about it!
Having a personal page to do business limits your abilities to enhance your page. You cannot add apps that will help market your business. You cannot add custom coded features such as a Landing Page, Multipage layouts etc. These custom pages are found not only on our Facebook page but on the pages of many Fortune 500 and well built Facebook pages. Remember it’s your business that you are marketing. You don’t have a poorly built and constructed website, why would you have an illegally designed Facebook page? And anyone who wants to be found in search engine results will be if you have a business page, personal pages are not, it’s called SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
Here is another reason to go convert or make it right the first time. Once someone “Likes” your page, their Facebook friends will be notified, creating additional interest that may result in others Liking your page (I termed this Collateral Exposure). Each time your business updates the page, your fans are notified and the information shows up on their news feed. Why is that important? Average Facebook user has 130 friends…do the math.
Need help converting your company’s page we can do it? Contact us for a quote. For more info visit us on our Facebook Business Page
Great article! I've been wondering about this myself and had just finished posting an article I'd read when I saw this post on Facebook. Thanks for confirming my inner feelings! :)
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