If you are thinking of representing your business on Facebook, do you know if a page, profile or group is your best approach? What are the benefits of each, and which will help you achieve your social media goals?
Page, Profile or Group? Different approaches to Facebook
A profile is your own personal account on Facebook, and you need to have one of these to be in the game at all; according to Facebook’s terms and conditions, you are limited to one of these, and it shouldn’t be used for any commercial purposes. Violate the site’s terms and conditions, and Facebook can, without notice, close your account.
Profiles are best used to connect with friends and family, to share personal information and updates within an identifiable group of connections, and from which you can control exactly who gets to see what, and how much you want to share. You can allow subscribers to a profile, where people who aren’t accepted as friends can see public updates to your profile, and these seem to be popular with figures in the public eye, but generally you have to be accepted as a friend to view the majority of updates – dependent on how you set your privacy settings.
Pages are what Facebook intended you to use for your business activity on the site, and as such they have many targeted and customisable features that will help you understand and expand your audience, from landing pages to custom applications, and many things in-between; but in order to make your page compelling and worth returning to, you need to put in the time to engage and increase your page ‘likers’. Anyone can like the page and see your content without you having to approve them, cutting down on admin and increasing the opportunities for visibility.
With pages, you can tailor your messages to your growing audience, making sure to spend the time to engage readers and provide content that is relevant and of use to them; your messages can be sales-focused, provide special offers or information restricted only to people who like your Facebook page. And Facebook provide increasingly comprehensive analytics about how your posts are performing and your audience reacting which allow you to tailor your page further.
Groups fall somewhere between a page and a profile, allowing you to create a community around a common interest where you can interact with a group of committed people that you can keep engaged. Without all the overtly business-focused bells and whistles of a business page, you can still remain connected with people in either a closed or open group, which allows you become an expert and guide while at the same time encouraging your community to share and interact with each other.
Has this helped you to work out which way Facebook can help you progress your business? Would a page, profile or group work for you? Get in touch if you would like to know more about how I can help you develop your business online; I would love to hear how you approach this and what is working for you.
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