Regardless of how you personally feel about Facebook, it remains the number one social media site people visit daily, and by a large margin over Instagram and Twitter. If you have a business, are an artist, non-profit, radio show, etc etc, you should be promoting on the site. This means having a business page, and actually using it.
Here are some reasons you need to use a business page (I’m using the word business for ease of writing but it applies to all of the above):
- You want all your friends and connections to know about your business, but you don’t want to be spammy about it. With a business page you can invite friends to like your page. They in turn (as well as you) can share posts and help cross-promote.
- Are you tired of only your mom and 3 friends seeing your posts? With a business page you get insights and analytics to help figure out how to grow your audience. You can see how many are seeing and engaging with posts, better times to post, and other demographics to help reach people beyond those who already know what you’re doing.
- You can create ads and boost posts in order to reach new people who might be interested in your business. See #2.
- You can schedule posts in advance. With a business page you can prepare and schedule posts to go out at different times a day, so you never miss posting something important you want to tell your followers about.
- It looks professional. Want your business to be taken seriously? Use Facebook correctly. When I get a friend request and it’s clearly a business name, I know they don’t know how to properly use Facebook for business (Pages can’t send friend invites). If you are using a personal page as your business, here is the link to migrate your personal account to a business page. Need to create one from scratch? This is how you create a Facebook Page.
- Other Pages can tag you. If you are a personal account and another business Page wants to tag you for promotional purposes, they won’t be able to. I run into this problem with musicians who only use their personal account for music. I’m not able to tag them on the radio station Page. No one is going to try and find you if it isn’t easily accessible with a tag.
- Using a personal page for business is against the ToS for Facebook. Facebook states you can only have one account and it must be used for personal purposes. The last thing you need is your account being deactivated because someone didn’t appreciate receiving a personal message every time you’re having a sale or event.
Does this mean you cannot use your personal page to promote business? No. I share things from my radio show on my personal page. I occasionally share things from my business page too, but I am selective about what I share. Sharing every single item you post on your business page could also have a negative effect.
If this seems like work and effort, you’re right. Managing a business page is work, just like running a business is work. It takes planning and effort. Arguments about privacy aside, Facebook is actually set up to protect personal accounts, which is why you need to be smart about how you promote your business on the site. Your business is worth it, right?