What everybody ought to know about using a personal page for promoting their business on Facebook
Are you still using your personal Facebook page for promoting your business? If you are, stop right now!
Facebook may remove it
I see so many of these so just have to share some words of warning about using your personal page for business use. Facebook frowns upon using a personal profile for business use and I have known a few people who have had their pages removed for doing this. They had built up a significant following but had their business name on the page rather than just their own name which got flagged up to the powers that be at Facebook ivory towers. I only know of one lady who had a polite warning and told to change it but I know of two others whose pages just disappeared! All their Facebook contacts gone and nothing they could do about it.
Keep your personal and business life separate
Aside from this, you really want to try and keep your personal and business persona’s separate. You may have just started up a small business which you promoted to your inner circle of family and friends but as your business grows you will want to widen this audience. Do you really want strangers seeing photos of you on a night out? Is this giving a professional image to your business? And even if you don’t have the tendency to go out on a Saturday night and roll around the floor drunk, are you comfortable with potential clients seeing your innermost personal conversations with friends and family? And again, even if you don’t post much personal information on your page, you have no control over what your darling friends may post on your wall that has the danger of causing embarrassment.
You will lose potential followers
Another significant problem with using a personal page is that people who don’t know you can’t ‘follow’ or ‘like’ you as a business. They have to add you as a friend which then in turn allows you to see all of their personal information on their Facebook page. People who don’t know you are unlikely to be comfortable doing this and you will miss out on an opportunity to connect with people outside of your circle of friends.
If you are using a personal page to market your business on Facebook, go change it now and invite your friends across to like it. Even easier than that, Facebook has made it easier to migrate your personal page to a business page if you wish and they have an easy to follow guide here.
And once you have your new Facebook page set up, pop over to The Small Business Kit and share it for others to see.
*If you would like to know more in depth detail about Facebook marketing and how to make it work for your business visit The Small Business Kit and become a member today, all for less than your weekly vanilla latte!
