A few days ago, I had a Tofurious fan email me asking how to use social media to get more business – namely Facebook. From my understanding, he was relying on a facebook fan (business) page and not a personal page.
Me: Why a fan page?
Him: Because everyone told me to do it.
I’m in no way a Facebook guru, but here are my thoughts.
Facebook Personal Page Perks
1. Forced Notifications
When someone comments, you will get alerts. This way you can reply and create dialogue with friends, clients, colleagues.
Fan Page: You do not get notifications. You have to comb through all of your posts to realize updates.
2. Dialogue
Going back to reason #1 – after becoming friends with a new user, you can comment, and they can comment back, and you can reply, and they can reply back. You will get updates whenever this happens.
Creating conversation is probably the most important aspect in creating fans, turning prospects into clients, etc.
Fan Page: Since you won’t get notifications, you can’t carry out conversations in full sync.
3. News Feed
Going back to reason #2 – after becoming friends with new users, you can see what they’re up to. You may
- comment on their images
- share stories
- click the “like” button :)
- create dialogue (#2)
Fan Page: You do not get news feeds from your fans, thus minimizing dialogue.
4. Album Tagging
After a wedding or event, upload the images and tag the wedding party. Eventually, the guests and friends will tag themselves. Befriend them! Might as well continue the conversations post event.
Plus, they’re all probably about the same age and are likely to be engaged :)
Fan Page: I know that you can do the same, but you don’t get notifications, thus…
Facebook Fan Page Perks
There are two things that Fan Pages can do that Personal Pages cannot.
- Fan Pages are indexed by search engines. To be honest, I think my blog can do a marginally better job at SEO.
- Fan Pages have no fans limit whereas Personal Pages are limited to 5,000 friends.
Speaking of the latter, what is the likelihood of getting over 5,000 wedding clients in the first place? If you’re Lady Gaga or Jessica Claire, I understand why a Fan Page is necessary. But for peeps like me, 5,000 is plenty.
What I want you to do now…
- If you enjoyed this post, share it with your friends via Retweet or Facebook buttons below.
- Comment below if you agree or disagree. Remember, I’m no guru, so I’m always learning.
- Go befriend me! Or follow the fan page. I promise I won’t duplicate posts.
Happy Friday,
Lawrence Chan
P.S. WPPI Road Trip is coming up! You get a free ticket to WPPI next year by attending this.
P.P.S. I have this solar-powered bobble head on my desk that does nothing but nod. I like to ask it questions like “am I going to win the lotto today?” or “I look pretty good in this shirt, huh?” He’s my yes man! We all need one of those.
P.P.P.S. So before you do something, ask why. Don’t just do it because everyone else said to. In fact, question what I say too.
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i agreed with you. I have a fan page because every1 else has one i guess. when I post pics & the blog, i get much more comments and feedback from my personal page then on the fan page.
Great article, as always. Now I’m wondering how to effectively migrate my ‘fans’ who aren’t my ‘friends’? Thanks for any tips/tricks!
Hi Lawrence,
I like your reasoning! Just wanted to let you know that there are workarounds for all of the reasons you mention… you CAN make a Fan Page behave in those ways, but it requires some tweaking.
Have to agree though… out of the box, the Personal Page just ‘works’.
;)
-Nick-
Good points here, but you can get updates from fan pages if you “like” your post. Also if you want to keep biz and personal seperate, you can create a seperate friend list and block certain updates from specified lists. I keep a list called clients and by default all posts cannot be seen by the client unless I tell it to on the post!!
*** Richard Peters – Yeah, acquiring 4,000 friends is easy, but those are mostly peers (not clients).
Step #1 – Understanding your target audience!
*** Curtis Moore – REALLY GOOD POINT!
By tagging yourself in all of your Fan Page images do notify you, but it doesn’t allow you to add clients into your feed and create dialogue. Your conversations are limited to your images only.
*** Joel Meisels – You are a celebrity :D Yeah, I totally agree. You lose touch with everyone else.
*** Nick Coleman – You can do almost everything (Curtis mentioned it earlier) about tagging yourself in your Fan Page images, but it still does not allow you to be in your clients’ feeds and them in yours.
*** Joe Sanfilippo – Just tell them to call you!
For those asking whether you can use a personal page for business –
** Is there anything wrong with becoming friends with your brides?
When Facebook interviewed me for a case study about using them to promote my business, they clearly stated that using a personal profile was a violation of their Terms of Service and would result in them deleting my profile.
I “friend” all my clients, which allows me to tag them in photos I post on my Fan Pages. This way, I’m still connected to them personally, but I can still connect them to my business pages. Consider it double coverage :)
I like your thinking, Dustin! Double coverage heck yes!
Good post. I was intrigued by the title when it flew into my inbox. Good post to read with morning coffee. :)
I’m a huge advocate of facebook fan pages. The whole notifications not being on fan pages doesn’t bother me. I actually enjoy going to my page each morning and checking out who has commented on what and from there, I create the conversations by commenting back on every single post. I think dialogue is the true power of social media.. NOT how many friends you have.
I love using my personal page for “personal” reasons and try to keep it more about life over there and fan page is more about business and posting content. I do relay some business onto personal page but for the most part.. it’s all about separating the two.
Being a friend with client through personal page does allow for me to tag them on business page, which is a great thing.
Also, if you’re a showit user and you want to load your website into facebook, this can be done with a fan page.. Fan page also has the FBML tab which is amazing when it comes to marketing to a user when they land on your page for the very first time.. and you can link a facebook ad directly to your fanpage. I think pages have so many more options for business than personal.. BUT, your post was an interesting take on it.
I’ve enjoyed studying facebook. :)
I like Curtis and Dustin’s points. I have just created a seperate fan page because my business is run as a company. But many of my clients are going to be from my friends list and vice versa.
One thing that drives me crazy about some “friends” is that they use their personal page to spam me with business stuff I don’t really want or need. I’m a fan of “opt-in” – if I want to know about your biz, I will go to your group or fan page to see the latest updates! Constantly sending emails every week about your event or latest promotion is annoying.
This way only those who are really interested in weddings imagery will check out the fan page…and I can always befriend , or tag them in images directly so they get to know me more personally and only see what’s relevant to them!
where did you get that awesome bobblehead? i want one!! ;o)
Not sure a friend bought it. I suspect in a Japanese toy store, there should be plenty.
I’m not sure if people are only tip-toeing around this by saying “I think business and personal should just remain separate” but… I’m a crude, vile bastard. I mean… I can let my friends and family in on the secret, but having clients as friends or fans as friends of my personal account would just be weird, I think. How do I make fun of Sarah Palin if a bunch of my friends are tea-partying clients, y’know?