MightyMerchant Ecommerce Blog: Knowledge for the Ecommerce business owner.

I have noticed a lot of people creating Facebook profiles for their business rather than Facebook pages. This article explains the difference between Facebook Profiles, Groups, and Pages, and why you should opt for a Facebook Page for your business.

Profiles
To do anything on Facebook you first need a Facebook Profile. Profiles are meant for individuals. They represent a person. Profiles are meant to represent you, not your business. Other Facebook users interact with you by adding you as a friend. Depending on your privacy settings, your friends can now view your wall posts, photos, and the other actions you take on Facebook. You can also view the same things on your friends’ Profiles. The actions your friends take will appear in your News Feed.

Pages
Pages are meant to represent an organization, business, celebrity, or band. You can create a Page if you are an official representative of your business. Facebook users interact with a Page by clicking the “Like” button. Fans of the Page can interact with the business in much the same way that they interact with friends of their profile. The difference is that interaction with your fans ONLY takes place on your business Page. You can not view your fans’ profiles. This is an advantage. Facebook users are more likely to “Like” your Page than to add your business as a friend and give a stranger access to their profile. Also, if you saw your fans updates, your News Feed would become cluttered with information irrelevant to your business goals. Likewise, your fans do not have access to your personal profile. This keeps your personal life and your business life separate.

Groups
Groups can be started by anyone and help to connect people with a common interest. Group pages do not have the same level of functionality as a Page. All interaction with the Group occurs on the Group page. Groups are not optimized for businesses and you should never choose to create a group for your business.

Top Reasons to create a Facebook PAGE for your Business

1. Facebook intended Pages to be used for businesses. This means they have many features built in specifically to help businesses succeed on Facebook. (e.g. Facebook Ads, multiple page administrators, and Page Insights.)
2. It is against Facebook’s Terms of Service for a Profile to represent a business. That’s right. Facebook can technically close down an account that does not represent an individual. If this happened you would lose all your connections and you would have to start from scratch.
3. Facebook Users like to “Like” Users are far more likely to click “Like” than they are to add a business as a friend. Clicking to “Like” a business is a Facebook standard recognized by users and makes your business appear more official. The business page to fan relationship keeps you out of your fans’ personal lives and that’s the way they like it.
4. Facebook Ads are only available for Pages. Ads allow you to advertise your business and get more fans.
5. Facebook Insights are only available for Pages. Page Insights highlight the successful posts on your page as well as the types of people reading your posts. Graphs display the number of interactions on your page as well as the demographics of your fan base.
6. Static FBML is only available for Pages. Static FBML (Facebook Mark-up Language) allows you to create custom tabs to give your profile a unique look and increased functionality. It’s like a mini website on your Page. To see our FBML example click here.

To create a Page for your business, you will first need to click here to sign up for Facebook by creating a personal profile. If you already have a personal profile, click here to get started creating an official PAGE for your business. You will be pleased with the power of Pages and how they are optimized for your business. Stay tuned for more posts on how to use Pages.

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