t2.ie Blog

Why You Shouldn’t Use a Facebook Profile for Business

Facebook Profile

This is my personal profile. This is where I keep in contact with friends and families, I post photos of my adventures/misadventures, nights out and my nieces and nephews. I have set up my privacy settings so only friends can see my photos, status updates, wall posts etc.

Many businesses  have ill advisedly set up facebook profile pages. Profiles are designed to represent individuals. If a business has a facebook profile page the general facebooking public  have to add you as a friend in order to connect with the business.  As a facebook user if I add you as a friend you can see all my photos, status updates etc.  No matter how much the general public  like / support your business they don’t necessarily want your  facebook profile page administrator perusing photos of them after a few pints on a Saturday night. In this scenario becoming a friend is an obstacle between the business and the facebook public.

Facebook Page

Facebook pages on the other hand are ideal for business. Here’s what facebook themselves say about it

According to facebook

“Profiles represent individuals and must be held under an individual name, while Pages allow an organization, business, celebrity, or band to maintain a professional presence on Facebook. You may only create Facebook Pages to represent real organizations of which you are an authorized representative. People who choose to connect to your Page won’t be able to see that you are the Page admin or have any access to your personal account.”

Download facebooks guide to Pages here .

To create a facebook page for your business click here . On a Page you can’t see your connections personal details or photos but you actively interact with them through the wall posts, discussions etc. Mashable explain the value of pages well, “Facebook Pages can be thought of in much the same way as normal profiles on the site – brand or celebrity Pages have the ability to have friends, they can add pictures, and they have walls that fans can post on. Pages communicate by “updates” which show on the update tab or a person’s wall if they’re a fan and have allowed the page to show updates. Pages can have applications as well.. ”

Facebook “Become a Fan” replaced with “Like”

Up until today anybody who wanted to support your brand on facebook “became a fan”.  Facebook have now replaced the “become a fan” button with a “like button”

Here’s the reason why, ” Starting today people will be able to connect with your Page by clicking “Like” rather than “Become a Fan.” We hope this action will feel much more lightweight, and that it will increase the number of connections made across the site”

Here’s hoping it works. I don’t think it will go down too well with facebook users though. There is already a “Like” functionality on the site which is generally just used for showing friends you like their activity.  Facebook users, although always adapt to changes, tend to have a good grumble about them. Will they notice this one?

On an aside, if you want to connect with, support, like, become a friend, follow or poke t2 you will find us here on facebook.