From The Crow’s Nest

Let your goals separate your Facebook community into personal and business.

Many small businesses today are creating a Facebook presence. Depending on your business and your social media goals, Facebook can be a smart platform that can allow your business to reach potential and existing customers. But many small businesses are struggling to decide which Facebook tool they should use. Other businesses want to switch from one tool to another. What’s the best Facebook tool for your business, and how do you change your mind after you have started?

Facebook Business Options

Facebook offers three types of tools, each with a different set of features and intended use.

• Profile. In casual language, most people refer to their personal Facebook presence as their “Facebook page” but actually, Facebook calls it a profile. This is where you connect with your high school friends. Connections are made when both people agree that they are friends.
• Page. Some people call this a “fan page” to separate it from their personal profile, which they mistakenly call their “Facebook page.” This is the tool Facebook intended for non-personal use for businesses, public figures, authors, and others. Connections are made when one person decides to become a fan of the page (and the business or person it represents).
• Group. This is a tool that allows people to link up based on a common interest or cause.  Connections are made when one person decides to become a supporter of the group. You might join a group focused on a television show, a sports team, or a movie and interact with other people who support it.

Facebook doesn’t prevent you from using any of these tools for your business. However, the features of the page are designed to suit the needs of a business, a professional, or public figure. The page features are constantly changing, and in my opinion, becoming better.

[Added July 17, 2009] A friend of mine (@ClowerPower) just sent me an email that includes a link into the Facebook help system. In the help, they say that they don’t allow businesses or public figures to create profiles (expand the third bullet). However, their terms of service don’t spell out this restriction. Yet. Start off on the right foot, and create a page for your business or professional presence.

Using A Facebook Profile For Your Business

Many people have mixed together their business and personal Facebook use. Their Facebook friends consist of both real life friends, relatives, and customers. Their Facebook profile is a mix of personal and business communication, photos, status updates, and links.

In general, I don’t think this is a good idea. But I also believe that there are no rules about social media carved in stone. What works for your business is what you should do. It’s good to get ideas from others and to find smart examples to follow. But in the end, you must always go back to your business goals for your social media use. The only right or wrong with social media, in my opinion, is whether or not an action supports your business goals.

Here are the three biggest reasons why I don’t think you should mix your business and personal in your Facebook profile.

• Make a distinction between your business and your personal life. This is especially challenging for small business owners who devote their time and passion to building a business. You need a place where you can chat with friends and let your hair down when you are not working.
• Your customers don’t care about your weekend events, the wedding you attended, or your vacation plans. They want to know about events related to your business. If you make them wade through your personal communication to find business information, they are likely to stay away.
• Your friends don’t care about your business promotions or your customer service issues. They want a place to chat with you about your common life experiences without having to read all about your business.

By mixing business and personal, you don’t serve either community well. Determine your personal and business goals for Facebook, and let your goals show you how to interact with each community. By separating your communication, you give each community the information it wants, allowing both communities to grow organically.

Separating Business and Personal on Facebook

If you started out using a profile or group for your business, are you stuck? No. You can set up a page for your business (or for yourself as a business professional or public figure) and transition people to the new account. Here’s the general process.

1. Create a business page. Take some time to fill out the new page with a lot of content. No one will want to become a fan of an empty page. Start posting things to your new page even before you tell anyone it exists. In fact, Facebook will let you build out your page before you even publish it.
2. Send a message to the people you want to move to your new page. Explain that you have a new Facebook page that you have designed to meet the needs of your customers. Give them some examples of what types of information you provide there, whether it is coupons, discounts, new or other business promotions. Ask them to fan your new page and give them the link to make it easy.
3. Keep writing welcome messages as your status update on the new page. Thank people for becoming a fan of your new page. Engage them on the new page. Let them see that you are there and ready to talk with them. Reward them by posting really good stuff.
4. Assess the migration to your new page.  Many people will immediately become a fan of your new page. Others will take longer and require more invitations. After a few weeks, you may want to send out another message to remind people about the transition. At this point, you might also want to offer a special deal for every fan of your new page. This will be the incentive some people need to make the switch.
5. Unfriend the business contacts on your profile. After people migrate to your new page, disconnect them from your personal page. Before you do this, you might consider sending them a note explaining that you appreciate their business and are happy to be connected with them on your business page. You don’t want to offend them, but you want to protect your personal space from business connections.
6. Engage your fans on your new page. Let them know that they are important you, but as a business contact and not a personal contact.

I’ve helped several businesses and freelancers make this transition, and it can be tough. You want to draw the line between business and personal, but some of the people really fall into a gray area. Only you can decide how to handle the people in the gap. You can allow people to be in both categories (business and personal) if you want. There are no rules, only what you decide you want.

The good news is that you can take your time to sort this out. After you get most of your customers off your profile and on your page, you can decide how to negotiate with the stragglers.

At the same time, it is important that you do not allow any new customers to become friends. After you make the decision to split your world, you must be firm and consistent.

Your turn: Have you transitioned people on Facebook? Or are you considering this? Share your insights and questions with the community and we can explore the territory together.

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