Two common questions from small business owners when it comes to Facebook are: 1) is there a way I can separate my personal information from my professional and 2) what is the best way bring attention to my business and engage others?
You can cover both by having a Facebook “Fan Page.”
A Fan Page is just a public profile that allows you to share information about your services or products with other Facebook users.
What are the biggest benefits of having a Fan Page?
Driving Traffic. Most of the information on Facebook requires a login for you to access it. However, Pages are public and therefore visible to the search engines. This means people are able to find your business listed, and it is likely to be ranked highly because Facebook itself is. Because of this, you should use relevant keywords in your Page title as well. For example, the title of Facebook expert Mari Smith’s Page is Mari Smith – Relationship and Buzz Marketing Specialist.
Of course, once people visit your Page, they will also have a way to click through to your main website which you will have listed.
Promoting Discussion. Pages are excellent for communicating with potential clients and customers. You now have an opportunity to watch, listen and provide answers and solutions when needed. People will notice when you take time to help others and add to the discussions. Send updates periodically and focus on building relationships and being a part of the conversation.
Spreading Awareness. By using the wall for discussions, adding pictures, importing your blog posts, providing links and more, you are making it very convenient to connect with you. This will help turn people into fans as well as encourage others to come visit your Page and interact with you. When others become fans it will show in their mini-feed as well as on their profile. When your fans interact with your Page, this activity is visible to their friends via the News Feed. This is great for word-of-mouth and for exposing your business to an ever-increasing circle of Facebook users.
Some Tips:
*To access your Page from your personal profile, click on “Applications” at the bottom left and click “Ads and Pages.”
*You will need to click on the link that says “publish this page” in order for your page to become public. This is nice–you can have your Page set up and complete before you start to promote it.
*By clicking “Edit Page” you can add applications such as reviews, events, discussion boards and more.
*People can become “fans” of your Page. Click the link that says “suggest to friends” under your picture to encourage this. Also, if you click on “Share” on the left side under “create a page” then you can post a message about your Page to your personal profile or send a message to your friends.
If you have a business, have you created a Page yet? What questions do you have about them?
(Also, if you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for my free social media e-course.)
Thank you for your wonderful information. I believe that this will radically increase the traffic of my Facebook. Before I never try to click the fan page link because I am not really interested to it and because of your help I should definitely try these Fan Pages.
Hi Maria, glad you enjoyed. I always try to encourage everyone to get a Fan Page up if they are in business. Too many good reasons to do it!
I just started a fan page for my online jewelry shop. I am very excited about engaging others with it. Now when I post on other fan page walls, how can I show up as my fan page instead of my personal profile page or does anyone who looks at the post automatically find my fan page?
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Katrin-Lerman-Jewelry/88817128258?ref=ts
Christine,
Your wisdom is so refreshing! I’ve just shared the article with my Linked In groups ~ Thank you!!!
In working on boosting the fans on my FaceBook Page, I’ve listed that as my web address
)
Looking forward to the teleclass tomorrow night!
Warmly,
april
@Katrin–Hi, thanks for stopping by! Unfortunately, you can’t post as your Fan Page elsewhere, only as your personal profile. Your Page looks great by the way. If you would like others to find out about your profile, make sure you use “Suggest to Friends” under your picture and click “Share” underneath your links on the left.
@April–Thanks so much, I really appreciate that!
Thank you so much for posting, it clarifies for me the fact that “pages” are better then “Groups”
this will give me some work to do and I don’t know if you can inform your fans that you moved the group to the page – I think I so an outline for messaging the entire group!
Thank you again,
Carolina D
I don’t have anything that says Ads and Pages in my Applications, so I am unable to do this. But, it sounds like a great idea!
BTW, can you tell me what to do in order to add Ads and Pages to my Applications? Thanks!
@Carolina–You’re welcome–I would still keep your group if it is active and have a Page as well.
@Norma–Yes, first you go to the bottom menu towards the right where it says “Advertising.” Once you click there you will see an orange flag next to “Pages”–click there and then “create a page.”
@Christine, you didn’t really go into depth on the first premise of your article: 1) is there a way I can separate my personal information from my professional. Can you elaborate on that a little? I created a page for my company and I am encouraging our employees to join (or become fans). Some of our employees might have concerns about having clients (in the financial services industry, no less) follow their profiles back to their personal pages. Can you explain how each person can segment their profile for professional use? Thanks for the great article!
@Ben–Thanks for stopping by my blog! Regarding your question, the only way that the clients would be able to access the personal profiles of your Page’s fans (your employees) would be if they were friends already OR the employee has their privacy settings set that their profile is public (which I do not advise).
So, unless that employee is friends with the client through their PERSONAL profile, OR their profile is public, the client would not be able to access the employee’s personal profile. To make sure one’s profile is not public, you would go to the top right of your profile and then settings–>privacy settings–>profile and select “only friends.” Hope that helps.