Facebook Unmasked: A fan page or profile for your business?

As businesses move to the web for marketing exposure and facebook becomes the dominant source to reach our targeted audience I have found business owners tend to sometimes overlook one small detail when they tell me there company is on facebook - they setup user profile for their business vs creating a fan page. Now the catch to this is you need a profile to create a fan page but you don't want them to be one in the same.

A facebook profile is meant for your personal life. While celebrities, products, brands, places, and services should develop a fan page.

One of the main advantages to a fan page I tell people is to separate their work life from their personal life though I am sure many of your fans love to hear about your grumpy Monday or read your excitement over sporting events this is not relevant to your brand and your fans get so much information daily they appreciate just the facts.

Another key benefit to creating a fan page is it allows you to streamline your marketing efforts. Many times I hear that it's a real pain to send updates and messages to the thousand plus friends a business has amassed one by one.

Some other key reasons to create a fan page for your business:

• Fan Pages can have an unlimited number of fans, while profiles are limited to only 5,000 friends.
• When you want to send an update to fans its one click compared to updating friends with a profile where you have to click each name.
• Fan pages can be integrated into your website and all marketing campaigns with some API's and design assistance.
• One of my favorite reasons ... a fan page contains community insights - these demographics (age, gender, location), show you how well posts do and what type of posts do the best.
• Custom pages can be created for fan pages:
  • Add a email sign ups or contest pages.
  • Add a graphic to persuade them to like your page like a mini ad.
    • Plus... you have the cool feature to show fans one thing and non-fans another to entice them to like the page. (coupons, photos, etc).
• Fan pages allow you to create events and update everyone effortlessly.
• You can add multiple administrators to a fan page to share in the posting work vs sharing your login access with others to update your profile (which is also a no no for facebook.)
• Fans can share your content and help spread the viral word.
• Plus more more more.

All these great features but one that is actually the most important to keep in mind is as we stated before profiles are intended for people and if facebook every catches you doing other wise - watch out! According to the Facebook Terms is is grounds for them to delete your account with out notice. Now all that time you have spent making thousands of ‘friends’ can be taken away in once click by a Facebook Admin and all that time building a brand would have been wasted.

The benefits of fan page far exceed the negatives and from a time savings standpoint it is important to consider the standardization across the web for marketing your company to fans on facebook as others do. If you have not considered this marketing avenue yet check out a few brands on line to see how they engage and build fan bases:

• Nike Football
• Sonic of CT
• Cheshire Patch
• and of course JP3SOLUTIONS

So if you think you are ready - go to https://www.facebook.com/pages and get started and if you need some help you know who to contact!