What is Facebook?
Facebook is the fastest growing social network with 100 Million + users, and no sign of slowing down. Facebook is a social utility designed to connect you with the people you know, and help you share information with them including photos, videos, and text. Facebook is considered by many to be purely social, but people are using it for business, and it works. This post will look at the good and bad of Facebook and help you understand how to use this valuable social network.
Personal Profiles
A personal profile is your most powerful tool on Facebook. When you create a personal profile, you can add friends, post photos and video, and add applications that make Facebook more fun or useful. Your personal profile also allows you to share sites and information with people in your network. To help people find you on Facebook be sure to put all relevant information about you in your profile. Add your education, your work history, your personal elevator pitch, activities, music, films, tv shows, web sites, etc. Build it out!
At 36 years old I am building my Facebook network very quickly. Partly due to my business, but also in part because my age cohort is now coming onto Facebook in droves. There is no better way to connect with people from the past than Facebook. Classmates.com is a joke. Facebook is free, fun, and a great way to stay in touch and reconnect. How does that impact business? Stay tuned…
Company Profiles or Pages
Companies don’t create profiles like people, they create Pages. A company page is the place to brand your presence on Facebook. Use your company logo, photos from company events, post details about your company, and share information. People them become fans of your company page. If you have a company or brand that people actually care about, pages are a perfect way to build community around your brand, and keep people in the loop with your company haps. An example of a great company page is Victoria Secret Pink.
Groups
Groups are a wonderful way to gather people and share a common experience. LA2M has a group page, where people can connect and share marketing information. We also run our events through our Group page. Groups are more an extension of your personal Facebook profile. They show who created them, and they allow you to make officers and administrators of the group to help spread the word. Groups can be good for business as well – depends on how you use them.
How are Pages different from Groups?
Here is the answer from Facebook:
Pages can only be created to represent a real public figure, artist, brand or organization, and may only be created by an official representative of that entity. Groups can be created by any user and about any topic, as a space for users to share their opinions and interest in that subject. Pages can be customized with rich media and interactive applications to engage Page visitors. Applications can’t be added to groups.
Pages are designed to allow Page admins to maintain a personal/professional distinction on Facebook, while groups are a part of your personal Facebook experience. If you’re a group admin, your name will appear on that group, while Pages will never display their admins’ names. Additionally, when you take actions on your group, such as posting on your group’s wall, these actions will appear to come from you as an individual. However, if you post or take other actions on a Page you own, it will appear to come from the Page.
As long as a group is under 5000 members, group admins can send messages to the group members that will appear in their inboxes. If the group exceeds 5000, admins can’t send messages to all members. Page admins can send updates to fans through the Page, and these updates will appear in the “Updates” section of fans’ inboxes. There is no limit on how many fans you may send an update to, or how many total fans a Page can have. It’s also possible to restrict access to a group, so that new members have to be approved, but access to a Page can only be restricted by certain ages and locations.
Facebook for Business? Or Personal?
I say for business – and personal. What do I mean by that? Well, Facebook will always be a personal tool – but people are in business too, and you can conduct business on Facebook. Visit our 10 Things you can do to grow your business on Facebook post for more information. And you can join the discussion at Lunch Ann Arbor Marketing Group on Linkedin or Facebook. We use both!
Tags: Business Social Networking · digital marketing · Facebook · ingenex · LA2M · Linkedin · Social Harbor3 Comments
3 responses so far ↓
Good summary. The blogosphere would have you believe that everybody is on Facebook these days, but there are still millions of people that haven’t yet tried it and may be overwhelmed or intimidated by the huge community. It’s very easy to get started, and this post sums it up nicely.
I would also add some warnings, especially for people that intend to use a tool like Facebook (or LinkedIn, or any other social networking site) for business AND personal use. Reputations and jobs can instantly be wiped away by posting content to a profile that could be considered inappropriate by either group.
For example, your boss may not appreciate seeing your drunken party pictures from college, and your college buddies may resent being spammed with all your work-related postings. Where possible, set your privacy settings to only allow certain people to view content that shouldn’t be made public.
My mantra is, “If you wouldn’t want your grandmother, your boss, or the front page of the New York Times to see what you’ve been up to, DON’T PUT IT ONLINE”. Anywhere. Including emails, social profiles, blogs, etc. This lesson in reputation management brought to you by future generations of employable kids.
Andrew, good point. We talked about this at LA2M today and the idea of being very aware what you put on Facebook. Talk to you soon!
[...] recent posts on Ten Ways to Use Facebook and a Facebook overview for [...]