Yes! There is a difference between a Facebook profile and a Facebook Fan Page.
Facebook profiles are for people.
Fan Pages are for businesses.
I cringe every time I see someone set up a profile in their business name. Here’s why:
People vs. business
Profiles are intended for people, not businesses. It’s actually against the Facebook terms to use a profile for a business. If the Facebook gods find your profile set up like this, it’s possible they may delete the entire profile. So much for all your hard work getting friends!
SEO
Your Facebook Fan Page can be a part of your Search Engine Optimization strategy. Why is that, you ask? It’s because Fan pages are indexed by search engines. Profiles are not.
If you’re like most business owners, you want as many people as possible to find you online. If you set up a profile in your business name, you’re not maximizing your exposure. Sure, your Facebook friends will be able to see your page, but new people won’t find you all that easily.
Fans vs. Friends
Fan Pages can have an unlimited number of fans. Profiles can only have 5,000 friends. If you’re trying to build your business, why limit yourself? It only makes sense to choose the option that allows you to have more people get on your bandwagon.
One profile – many Fan Pages
You can have multiple fan pages, but only one personal profile. This is important for people who want to promote different businesses or groups. I have my personal profile and fan pages for PetsitUSA, The Pet Food List, and Austin Pet First Aid, which are businesses I own. I also have one for Wishbones for Pets – a pet sitter charity I operate with the founder Janet Depathy, of Under My Wings.
Keep in mind that you can still connect with people on a business level through your personal profile. I use my profile to keep in touch with family and friends, but I also connect with quite a few people due to business reasons. Since people like to know the person behind the business, this is a good way to interact with them. It’s also one way for me to create my personal brand. Note: Before using your profile in this way, get clear on the type of content you want to post on your profile. (More on that in an upcoming blog post.)
Set up a Facebook Fan Page or go to Facebook.com to set up your Profile.
{ 43 comments… read them below or add one }
Great post Therese. I’ve already emailed a link to some of my clients. Thank you for clarifying this for everyone.
Hi Therese, I found your post via Google. It is exactly the information I was looking for. I tweeted it. Thank you.
Leyla
I do a lot of teaching “online marketing” and social media info to travel agents across N America and am constantly preaching this… Thanks so much. I’ve re-tweeted this and plan to post it on my blog! Thanks Theresa…
Adam
This is EXACTLY what I needed. Thank you so much; I’ve retweeted!
I’m glad it helped!
Therese… Some say that keeping your personal facebook separate from your business page is advisable. Do you agree or disagree? I suppose it depends on the type of business it is and how one decides to promote it.
Would love to hear your thoughts on this…
Hi Mike, I’m so sorry I missed your question earlier. Anyway, I think the major drawback with Pages is that when someone creates a business page through their personal profile, that person is the owner for all eternity (as things are now anyway). Facebook does not allow ownership of a page to be transferred from on person to another (hopefully they’ll change that at some point).
It is possible to set a business account that’s not set up through a personal profile but this type of account has somewhat limited functionality. Even so, if you need to set up a page for a company where there’s the chance the person managing it may not be with the company forever, a business account only may be the way to go. That way it’s not attached to any one person’s profile.
I’ve created all of my Fan Pages through my personal profile. I’ve found, for me personally, that the line between personal and business is somewhat blurred on Facebook. I have many business contacts who are friends through my personal profile, but I also have many people who are fans (I suppose likers is more appropriate now!) of my business pages. And of course, there are many people who are friends and fans. I actually prefer to use Facebook this way. It allows me to interact on a more personal way with some people, via personal profile, or to keep things on more of a business level via my Pages.
Facebook business pages have some drawbacks. People prefer Fans over Likes. The content can’t be backed up. Records retention is not available. If the primary admin leaves the site in a huff, the facebook business page is at risk. It can only be deleted. It can’t be transfered. There are no email notifications from business pages. A business page uses the personal email address. Changing it to a business email address then changes the personal email address also. Most businesses will want to separate out business from personal activities. Having an employee create a business page and also getting farmville requests on their facebook account at work is not good.
SEO optimization path is better through a regular web site that links to facebook. The company will have better control. The only advantage here is the potential audience and the ease to reach them. A serious company will compete in the ad space for eyeballs. For everyone else, the SEO work is better done elsewhere.
Where specifically on Facebook terms does it specify a business can’t use a profile for business?
Hi CR,
It’s on this page:
http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=904
How are Pages different from personal profiles?
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.
Therese . . . My company currently has a FB fan page, but it is linked to the personal account of the employee who created it. I am one of two admins for the account. The company also has a YouTube channel. When I click the Share button on one of our YouTube videos and then click on Facebook, it brings up my personal profile! How can this be changed?
Also, can you explain to me the difference (if there is one) between a FB “fan page” and a “business page?” I need to know the advantages and disadvantages of each type of page.
Hi Karin,
When you click a share button on a website outside of Facebook, you’re actually clicking it as yourself, not as the admin of any pages that you’re an admin for. The link your sharing will be shared on your personal profile, not any of the pages you are an admin for. So, it’s going to share that link as you, not a page you’re an admin for. However, say you’re an admin of a page called Poodle People. If you want to share a You Tube video on the Poodle People page, you’d just copy the URL for the video, go to your Poodle People page and share the video by posting it in the link box. Then it’ll show up as coming from the Poodle People page rather than you.
I really wish Facebook would use a bit different terminology for Fan Pages & Business Pages. It can be confusing! The business page can look the same a Fan Page, and people can still become fans (aka click the like button). It’s not created through a personal profile though, which means you’ll have less access to the rest of Facebook. Here’s Facebook’s explanation for business accounts:
Business accounts are designed for individuals who only want to use the site to administer Pages and their ad campaigns. For this reason, business accounts do not have the same functionality as personal accounts. Business accounts have limited access to information on the site. An individual with a business account can view all the Pages and Social Ads that they have created, however they will not be able to view the profiles of users on the site or other content on the site that does not live on the Pages they administer. In addition, business accounts cannot be found in search and cannot send or receive friend requests.
Having a business account without a personal profile can be a bit limiting but some businesses prefer it that way. The main reason is because when a Fan Page is created through a personal profile, the person whose profile it’s attached to will always be the owner of that page. Page ownership cannot be transferred. This can make for a touchy situation if the employee who created that profile gets irritated and leaves the company.
If you have a very trusted employee, I definitely think the personal profile with the page is the way to go since there’s so much more flexibility. Hopefully Facebook will change the ownership issue at some point though, which would make it much easier to work with and easier to understand.
Thanks a million for your quick response Therese! Now I understand!
Great! I’m glad that helped.
Thanks Therese for the help! I’m still stuck with something and wish I could get some help on it. Maybe you’ll know. I’ve created my business page already, however, I cannot connect with anyone’s profile. I keep trying to click “like” for certain pages and it says “cannot connect to this profile” which means I’m not allowed to comment on anyone’s page. Is this normal? I thought other business could comment on other business’s page if they liked it? Well, it won’t even let me like anything. I also haven’t linked my business page with a personal profile as it suggests to do in the top right corner when it says “create your profile” – does that have something to do with it? Are you suppose to link a profile with the business page? Help! Thanks so much Therese or anyone out there listening.
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Sheri, if you have a personal profile (and are logged in) you should be able to like pages. If however, you have a business page set up as a totally separate account you won’t be able to click the like button. Only people can like other pages and comment on them – business pages cannot like other business pages.
Does that help?
Thanks so much for getting back to me Therese! Other business pages have “liked” my business page and are able to comment and post stuff on it. When I try to reply to them as my business on their page it won’t let me. Do you think it’ll help if I link my personal page to the business page? So there is no way in my business to “like” other business? I have no clue how these other business have done that. Also, every time I log into my business profile at the top right it constantly says “create your profile” – does this mean like my personal one? I’ve already created my business one. Instead of “liking” business pages now what I’ve done is “added them to my page favorites” and from there when I “view all” of my page favorites I have the “like” option but now when I click that it says “you cannot connect to this profile” – Yeah I’m totally stuck and confused and feel like I created my business page incorrectly. I can’t even find a help forum on it or a phone number to call them.
Sherri, I suspect the business pages you’re talking about are actually personal profiles set up for businesses. This is somewhat risky as it’s against Facebook’s terms, and if they find out they could delete the profile. If you want to email me privately though I can take a look.
Hi Therese,
Thanks so much for your post and your clear answers. I’ve been looking online for weeks for some of these and so far you’re the only person that seems to be able to answer them clearly. So, of course, I have a question for you…
Our company has created a business page. We’d like to have a custom/vanity URL for the page which seems to require a personal profile be setup and linked to the business page. We have the same concerns as several other people here about linking it to an individual profile of a person that may no longer be associated with the company at some point. I’m wondering, do you know how large companies like Gap and Coke setup their pages? Surely they can’t tie their Facebook page to a single user within their enormous organizations. Companies like that have turnover rates that would never allow for linking to an individual.
The only thing I can think is that they setup a “dummy account” with a fake name but a real email address and let multiple people administer the FB page by using that account. But, that’s just a guess. I’m wondering if you have an absolute answer to this.
My other question is this: if we setup a personal profile (real or fake) that’s linked to our business page for the sake of the vanity URL, when we go to another businesses page a ‘Like’ it, will it show up that our business liked the page or that the personal profile tied to the business page liked their page? Same applies to comments, etc? We’d like to start ‘liking’ other businesses in our area but we want it to look like it’s coming from our business, not some individual who works for our business.
Thanks again for taking the time to answer everyones’ questions.
I don’t know what the big corporations are doing for their pages, however I do see a bit of a solution. You could do what you said, and set up a dummy person (although that’s technically against the Facebook TOS). Next, have the people you want to manage the page become fans. Then, set them as admins for the page. That way if they do a rotton job of it, or leave the company you can revoke their admin status.
When you set someone as an admin for that page, whenever they post on the page, the post will show up as a post by that page. For example, say you have a page called Friday Blogging that you want me to post on. I would sign into my personal profile and click the Like button on Friday Blogging. You can then set me as an admin. Now, whenever I post a message to page it’s going to look like Friday Blogging posted it – not Therese.
By setting someone up as an admin they do NOT have to sign into the dummy page you mentioned. By giving an employee access to the entire account, if he/she got upset enough that person could totally wreak havoc with that page – say nasty stuff about the company, lock you out, or even delete the page.
As for liking – only people can like pages. Businesses cannot like another business page. They can, however add them as a favorite and they’ll show up in the left sidebar on your business page.
so, if i want to make a page that’s completely anonymous how do i do that??? won’t i show up as the admin?
Are you talking about a business page or a personal profile? It’s against the Facebook terms to use anything other than your real name for a personal profile. If, however, you’re talking about a business page, or even a community page, that’s a bit different. With these types of pages, your personal information won’t be on them unless you put it there.
When you set up a business page, or community page whenever you post on that page, your posts will show up as being posted by that page – not you.
Unless you’re an established business, with a large client base (like Gucci) don’t listen to anything this Therese lady is saying. She doesn’t have a clue to what she’s talking about and isn’t running product driven businesses on Facebook- they’re more like facebook blogs for people to talk about their cats. Let her continue cringing, and I’ll tell you why:
The problem with a business page on Facebook is that it’s very difficult to add friends. You can only ‘suggest’ to someone from your personal account (who is already a friend) to become a Fan and that’s it. You can ask friends to promote it as well, but good luck getting more then a handful of people to become Fans. Meaning if you start a soap company, and you have 30 or 40 fans to start, it could take you 2 years to get to 300 fans. Now you walk into Bloomingdales to sell your soap line, and the buyers see you on the Web via facebook, and they see your 47 friends, half of them from Europe, and they pass on you.
Facebook business pages is the quickest way to announce to the world that your lame, and no one knows your product, and you have no clients. Its the quickest way to embarrass yourself in the business world- and since it’s attached to your personal page, even your friends will know you’re a joke. Better just to start a website, where people won’t know about the traffic, because they can’t see your fan list.
And people don’t like becoming Fans of business pages– it’s too much information to share with other people. I like Khiel’s products, I have no interest in becoming a fan. It’s nobody’s business that I like Khiels, and I don’t care to share that information with other people. People make judgements about you based on your Fan pages. The less information people know about me, the better. I’ll do it as a favor for some friends, but not others. I of course would have no objection to becoming friends with a personal / business page.
Therese is right about one thing- Facebook prohibits people from using a personal Facebook page to promote a business. You ‘suppose’ to only have one personal account. And Facebook has a multibillion dollar valuation because people ignore this rule and have multiple accounts. Facebook doesn’t tightly enforce these rules. Meaning if you started Elena Handbags as a personal page, no one is going to say anything. Unless you’re annoying people, Facebook doesn’t shut down pages.
Business pages do have limits– people can only be a fan of 50 pages, meaning you may have fans out there that have no space for you.
While Facebook limits you to 5000 friends on your personal page, that’s a lot of people and a lot of exposure. After you get to 4000 friends, then start a Fan page and request those 4000 people to become fans of ur business. That’s a problem you want to have– being so popular that you have to switch to a fan page. It will take you 3 or 4 months to get a few thousand friends of your business if you work hard- industry people, buyers, clients, etc…. it will take 3 to 4 years maybe longer to get that many fans of a business page.
Now if you’re home playing with your cats, and you want to start a page to find other people that have an interest in low cost cat nip- start a fan page, and you and Therese can post notes on each other’s pages. You want to sell product, and get known then start a personal account in the name of your business and get going. Between that and jaywalking, I don’t think you’ll be punished for it in the next life.
and by the way, for a few dollars, you can use sites like SocialSafe to back up your list of friends on your personal page that you’re using as a business. So if facebook ever did shut you down (for using a personal page to promote your business), you would have the list of 4000 friends / fans you could easily get back with a new page.
Interesting (yet very bitter sounding) post, George.
Fan pages have been proven to help people get business and for small businesses they can be an excellent piece of the overall marketing plan. I totally disagree that simply having a fan page is a good way to embarrass yourself in the business world. If this is the case, companies like Coca-Cola, Home Depot, Nike, and a heck of a lot of others are embarrassing themselves by having a Facebook page.
The great thing about Facebook pages is that they’re open to businesses of all sizes. I’m under no delusions that my website will ever be in the same league as the companies I mentioned above.. I will tell you though, that the multiple pages I have on Facebook have generated business (aka money). Facebook is one of many tools out there that can be valuable tools too grow a business.
As far as having a website instead of a Facebook is concerned, I’m an advocate of having both. Having a presence on as many high ranking social media sites out there as possible, help a business build their online presence and credibility. Facebook fan pages help in this regard as they are indexed in the search engines, which helps build SEO and SMO for your website. Personal profiles are not indexed in search engines.
Also, I’m not sure if it was a typo or not, but people can become fans (like) up to 500 fan pages, not 50.
Help! I created a facebook page for my business. It seemed to require me to add a personal profile. I added the pages and labeled it for my business and uploaded all the info. Now, I can only have friends on my personal page. If I invite them from the business pages it shows as my name – they don’t even know who I am sometimes. They can like my business pages but not be a friend. I didn’t want my personal on there and can’t figure out how to fix this. If they search my company name they can’t become a friend since they don’t know my personal name. It’s a mess. Did I do this wrong in the beginning?
Ok, just so I understand. . . you have a personal profile and a business page. When you go to your business page and click the suggest to friends, the suggestion comes from you rather than your business page. Correct? If so, you didn’t do anything wrong – that’s the way Facebook is set up. Whenever you invite someone to a page it’s YOU who invites them, not the page. Whenever you post something on your business page, your post shows up as coming from that business page. Any other interaction you have with people regarding that page will be from you. Think of it as you being the spokesperson for that page.
Also, just because someone is a fan of your page, that doesn’t mean they will automatically be a friend. Think of your business page as your store. Most of the people who come to your store don’t know where you live (your personal profile) but there may be a few people (your friends) who you do invite into your home. Pages and profiles are similar in that regard.
Thanks for the help!
Re: @george fanta I totally disagree. Wow, was that a comment or a blog post? Anyway, I think Facebook business pages are great for small businesses IF they use them. If they just let them sit and don’t promote themselves, then yes, they are lame.
Great post Therese. Keep ‘em coming!
I agree and think facebook pages are perfect for small businesses, as I too have experienced an increase in sales from the page alone. Thanks for the help Therese. I am still stuck on one thing though – it still won’t let me “like” anybodys page. Is that right? If you have a business page you can only add pages to your favorites you cannot like them? It says I cannot connect to profiles when I hit the “like” button. I know the only way to comment on other’s pages is if I “like” them but it won’t let me. Are you allowed to like other pages under your business page?
Thanks!
Quick question-
I have created a page..but I need to make it so that someone else can manage it in the future. I dont have fans yet so now is the time…So Im going to delete it and use another business email for it.
IT seems to me there is a lot of talk about the limitations it (the PAGE) has once separated from a personal profile. Is this not remedied somewhat once you add Admins to the page?
I’m only being hypothetical at this point…but it seems it would…and im hoping at least…
You can change the email address associated with your account. If you’re just changing the email address because you don’t want your admin to use another email, you don’t need to. When you set someone up as an admin, he/she will login to their own personal account and will have rights to the page that way. They do not need to log into your account to get to the business page.
Adding admins to a page that’s not connected to a personal profile will not change the limitations that pages have. It’ll just add an admin.
Thanks for your reply,
I guess Im not clear on why it would be beneficial to create the buisiness page from your personal account. See I actually did this by accident…I was trying to register a new page for a business..but I did not realize I was logged in not it appears it’s connected to my account..not really a big deal I guess but…
I have come across posts that say your “likes” and activity will reflect on the PAGE and I dont want that..and Im also concerned I wont be working for this non-p[rfit for years and years…or at least not maintaining a facebook page for years…so i thought maybe I should delete it..creat page using the nonprofit email account…add my profile as admin..
and invite some friends to become fans…
The steps are tedious but it if it means I can transfer the account page over to someone who takes over my position in the future than perhaps it would be for the better..and also does your personal Profile activity really reflect on your “Page” and vice versa?
hmmmmmmmm
In your case, since you may not be working for the organization forever, you could set up a totally separate business account and set the page up without it being connected to a personal profile.
“does your personal Profile activity really reflect on your “Page” and vice versa?”
No. Your business page and personal profile are separate.
I get the difference between personal and business pages. But no one seems to answer this question:
What if you ARE the business?
In other words, a solo musician runs his business under his own name. But his personal profile would still be his name, thus confusing people searching for him.
You can set up a business page in your name. The very first part of the page setup asks you what type of business you are setting up – local, brand, or artist/public figure. Just click artist/public figure and go from there. If you have a personal profile in the same name, you can always lock that down so that nobody finds it, and then use the business page to interact with people.
Be sure to check this post out – ownership of pages can now be transferred to another admin:
http://www.socialmediahound.com/2010/06/15/facebook-page-ownership-can-now-be-changed/
Hi Therese. This is really great information. Thank you for your thorough replies to everyone’s comments.
I have several Business pages that are not yet associated with a personal profile, but I’m trying to decide whether or not I need to give in and create profiles for each page.
is it true that Business pages without a personal profile don’t appear in the Facebook search results?
If so, it seems to me that everyone who has a business page should turn it into a profile right away. If your business page can’t get found via the native Facebook search, then what’s the point? Am I right?
The other issue that makes this very confusing is that I’ve heard that only Business pages are indexed by search engines like Google (profiles are not indexed). If this is true, it seems like a no win situation.
If I keep my Business pages the way they are (no profiles), then they get found by Google, but not in the Facebook search? But If I create a profile for each page, I get found in Facebook, but not in Google?
is my reasoning correct? Or am I missing something?
Hi Nik,
Business pages that don’t have personal profiles attached do show up in searches, both on Facebook and in search engines. But, if you login to a business profile that doesn’t have a personal profile attached you won’t be able to use the search on Facebook.
Profiles are not indexed by search engines, so if you want your business to be found, a profile is not the way to go. It’s also against the Facebook TOS to set a profile up in a business name. If you do, you run the risk of them deleting if they catch it.
I hope that helps.
Great article. I have seen people set-up a business page for their business and when they try to manage their page, it shows up as commenting from their personal profile.
Is there a way around this? How can business owners manage their pages outside of their personal profiles?
Hi Sarah, they probably haven’t clicked the “Like” button for their own page. If you become a fan (aka Like) your own page, then all of your posts will be from your business page (assuming that page was created through your personal profile).
I’m surprised at how many people forget to like their own page!
I’ve seen questions skirting around this issue with business pages, but I can’t find the answer…
My boss set up a personal profile way before deciding to create business pages for the two companies she owns. The business pages were created from her personal profile. I want to keep the mgmt separate (I am the social media person for the company)- ie my posting on the business pages are geared toward our clientele…. that has worked out well except for one situation. I would like to be able to “fan” other business pages AS the BUSINESS (not as “ME”-in this case, my boss) but when I fan another business page all the activity (my postings on their page) comes from the personal profile. We don’t have 25 fans yet, and I understand some options (like choosing our username) will kick in at 25 fans. Will this also change when I get the 25 fans?
Facebook does not allow business pages to fan other business pages. The only thing you can do similar to this is to add another business pages to your business page’s favorite pages.
Whenever you post something on a business page you are not an admin for, it will be YOU (personal profile) that is posting to that business page, This will not change when you get 25 fans.