Facebook Pages for Business: Are you doing it wrong?
I’ve noticed several inconsistencies in the way businesses are using Facebook and I think a lot of it comes from not really understanding the different types of Facebook accounts/pages and how they work. If you get caught doing the wrong thing, Facebook can delete all of your accounts and that would mean the loss of a lot of hard work & followers. So, it pays to do a little research before you jump in.
Types of Facebook Pages
- Personal Account
This is the account that any *person* can have when they go to Facebook and sign up. I’m emphasizing *person* because it’s very important to understand that these are for individuals and not groups/businesses. - Page
This is the official representation of a business on Facebook . You must be an authorized representative of the business in order to create one of these. - Group
This has some important differences from The Page, but the main thing is that you need not be an official representative of a business/group to create one of these.
Well, That’s about as clear as mud…
Yeah, I know. It’s confusing. The best way that I know to explain it is to tell a story about a familiar character.
Jethro Bodine moves with his uncle’s family from the Ozarks to Beverly Hills. In this strange & wonderful new land, Jethro makes a lot of new friends, but he finds himself missing the friends and family that he left back home. One of his new California friends (Miss Jane) suggests to Jethro that he join Facebook to keep in touch with them. This sounds like a great idea, so he signs up for a Facebook Personal Account. Unfortunately, no one from back home has indoor plumbing much less a computer with an internet connection, so Jethro’s friend list mainly consists of his really weird Hollywood friends and all of the animals that his cousin Ellie May has created accounts for.
Eventually, Jethro’s Uncle Jed gets tired of seeing him sitting around watching TV while eating cereal out of a mixing bowl and tells him that he needs to go out and get a career. He tries a lot of different jobs (bookkeeper, brain surgeon, street car conductor…), but settles on the role of Hollywood Producer. None of the big studios will hire him, so he starts his own production company and names it JBP Studios. Uncle Jed gives him a little cash for marketing, so Jethro creates a Facebook Page for his studio & put the money in ads on Facebook. He also tells his weird Hollywood friends about the page and they all become fans. Their friends see that they’ve become fans and they join up as well. Pretty soon Jethro has the most fans of any business on Facebook before he’s even released a single movie.
After many months of hard work, JBP Studios releases their first movie titled, The Double-Naught Spy and despite the massive push on Twitter, it’s a tremendous failure. It has such abysmal numbers on the first weekend that the distribution company decides to immediately pull it in hopes that the general public will not hear the horrendous reviews and buy it on DVD because the cover looks cool. However, no one buys the DVDs and the movie is forgotten until several years later when a programming director for TNT uses it to fill gaps in programming for five nights in a row.
Then, something odd happens.
A young man in Akron, Ohio sees The Double-Naught Spy on the last night of the TNT run, and is immediately inspired by it. He finds a copy of the DVD in the discount bin at Wal-Mart and begins organizing viewing parties for all of his friends. One of them starts a Facebook Group called Fans of the Double-Naught Spy and word of the movie goes international. Soon, it becomes a cult classic and Jethro returns to the Ozarks as a hero. Parades are held, keys to the city are presented, and Jethro retires on the income from the licensing rights for Double-Naught action figures, lunch boxes & t-shirts.
Summary
If you managed to make it this far, then bravo for you. Here’s what you need to remember:
1. Facebook Personal Account – Individual People
2. Facebook Page – Official Business
3. Facebook Group – Unofficial Representation
4. Never under estimate the power of TNT reruns.
