The Facebook Debate: Pages vs Profiles
In this week’s episode of the IMTW Podcast, Paul Colligan and I discussed Ed Dale’s blog post regarding Facebook’s update to their TOS (terms of service).
This is the episode where I called Facebook UNsocial.
To catch you up, here are the posts from Ed & Paul on the topic:
- Ed Dale: Facebook Lowering The BOOM on “5000 friends”
- Paul Colligan: About The Facebook Changes
Of specific interest is #2 in the new TOS as highlighed by Ed Dale in this image:
Ed said, “This is the real tragedy of these so called Facebook experts – by getting people to build their profile – they have built a sand castle that will be swept out with the tide of the new TOS…”
Hmm. Personally, I think that 2nd point in the TOS needs a little clarification. In case the image is not clear on your end, it reads:
You will not use your personal profile for your own commercial gain (such as selling your status update to an advertiser).
I assume this comes on the heels of proposed FTC regulations of social media, as well as services like: pay-per-post, pay-per-tweet and maybe even pay-per-spam-your-friends-on-facebook.
The recommendation is to set up a Facebook PAGE for any commercial purposes, and keep Facebook Profiles as they were intended – to exchange updates with friends and family. If I understand Paul & Ed correctly, they intend to keep their personal profiles restricted to their “real life” friends and family. In fact, Paul is in the process of following Ed’s footsteps in removing all business connections and business peers from his profile, and encouraging them to “fan” his page instead.
I say to each his own. Facebook is a social networking site, and one where I have made a lot of new friends. It’s a place on the web where I have an opportunity to be a bit more personal and friendly with my business peers and my high school friends alike. My profile is as it should be – it’s all about me. My profile is a mash-up of all of the things I am: mother, friend, business owner, goofball, traveler, etc.
You may recall that I set up a Facebook Page back in March, following one of their better updates. Up to that point I hadn’t been real interested in Facebook, but since those updates I’ve actually logged in several times a week – and even enjoy it! Though I still don’t really care for public restrooms but that’s another post on another blog…
My Facebook Page allows to you “become a fan” of ClickNewz, by the way – not of me personally. I’m not really into the idea of running a “Lynn Terry Fan Club”. 
The page is a nice option for people who would prefer to get business-only updates, and skip any random chitter chatter from me about how my day is going or the latest cute picture of my kids.
I’m not a huge Facebook user, by the way. At the time of this post I have 1,070 friends on Facebook, and 163 fans to the ClickNewz page.
First of all, I’m NOT going to go through the trouble of un-friending every single NRL (not-real-life) friend on Facebook. That would leave me with about… 3 friends. Not to mention it’s a lot of work, and seems pretty unnecessary to me.
Then there’s the issue of new friend requests. Let’s say you set up a personal profile, and then set up a Facebook Page for your business or brand. Every time someone finds you on Facebook and sends you a friend request, you either have to ignore it or deny it – and then ask them to “fan you” instead. That just seems… UNsocial. Rude even.
My question is: just how does Facebook define “commercial gain”?
Does commercial gain include indirect gain, as well as direct gain. A link to your latest blog post, for example – indirect. An affiliate link to a product you’re promoting – direct. And are they going to police every single profile, or allow the community to police profiles with a “report user” feature?
And what if my friend Nicole Dean posts a message on my wall, asking for the sign-up link to the next NAMS Workshop. Do I ignore her? How about if post on my friend Kathleen Gage’s wall, to discuss her upcoming teleseminar. Like I said, point #2 needs more clarification.
I don’t do a lot of “marketing” on Facebook. I post a link now and then, mainly just relevant updates and interesting points for discussion. As I said above, I’m not going to jump through hoops over this. And I’m not going to force my “friends” to “fan” me. Those who want to will, and that’s great.
And even if I’m forced into UNsocial UNnetworking at Facebook… to be honest, it’s not going to make or break my business.
And hey – I still have my friends! 
*cheers*
Facebook has always been a place where I simply network and hang out. My real work is done at my blog, my website, through my newsletter, etc. “Lynn Terry the Internet Marketer” only represents a percentage of what I do online anyway.
And I can’t say that Facebook has contributed much to my bottom line this year. But yeah – you get out what you put in, and I haven’t really invested in “Facebook Marketing”.
As far as that goes, this news is just one more point towards the reasons you should be investing in your own properties & domains…
Facebook Pages vs Profiles
The last 4 months have given me an opportunity to play around with the options and features, and get a feel for the differences between a Profile and a Page.
There are a couple of major CONS to Pages:
You don’t get update notifications when someone comments on or posts on your wall. Nothing. You actually have to remember to log in to your page and check it yourself – and hope someone didn’t post something that’s buried on another page. Personally, I think that’s ridiculous. Send me a notification already!
Also, your Page doesn’t append to your Profile in any way. There is no obvious link or note for your friends to see that you have a cool Facebook Page they might want to “fan”. If I’m wrong about this, call me stupid and please point me to how to set it up.
I can’t even get to my OWN Facebook Page without digging through layers!
Of course, there are PROS to Facebook Pages too, features that the Profiles don’t offer. The primary upside being that you can email all of your “fans”. To be honest, I have never emailed my Facebook Fans. I would prefer true Fans actually subscribe here at ClickNewz as I doubt I’ll ever send out an email via Facebook.
Probably because I hate getting them myself – it really clutters up my Facebook Inbox when I’m trying to respond to messages from my friends.
The other cool feature of Facebook Pages is that they offer you stats:
(I told you I don’t have many Fans! – lol)
The stats are cool, but they aren’t a huge revelation to me. It’s actually a very small sampling of what my overall reach is online across the board. About half and half male/female, ages 25-55.
So there you have it. If Facebook bans me for talking business, or networking with my business friends, you can always find me here at ClickNewz 
Best,
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Brilliant!
I think of this as Facebook growing pains. They were the techie kids in college who created a really cool app that spread virally across the net. They slowly expanded it beyond the college culture and low and behold commerce snuck in.
Once they realized they could make some money with it, they started working on ways to expand the capabilities. Still going through growing pains though.
I agree with you Lynn that Facebook involves all of me. My family, my church, my job, my business, my philosophy. I do have a fan page for my business but am still working through how to make it work.
Facebook will go through many more changes. Anyone who depends on just one aspect of their business will always end up in trouble.
Always good to see your perspective on things
Hope you are enjoying the recent rains in TN 
I know I have.
Follow me @scottlovingood on Twitter.
Thank you Scott – the weather has been beautiful here lately!
Follow me @lynnterry on Twitter.
I do recommend encouraging current “friends” on your personal profile to become “fans”. Main reason, for each person that “fans” your page, each one of there “friends” get a nifty little notice that they have done so.
Every one wants to do what their “friends” are doing on social networks.
Myspace’s “activity” stream sort of creates the same effect, all though I do find facebook to be a bit more responsive lately.
It would be nice if Facebook allowed a simply way to display your Page on your profile, which would allow your friends to easily find it and fan it if they chose. But without any way to make it obvious, you’d have to constantly spam your update stream with those “encouragements” – which I’m not willing to do.
Follow me @lynnterry on Twitter.
I agree with you! I hate that the Facebook Pages do not send you notices. Yes, you do have to log in to your page and scroll down your wall every so often to see what comments people have left for you or about you/company/product/service. I find that absolutely ridiculous!
Blessings,
Wendy
Ditto Wendy – they need to fix this ASAP!
Follow me @lynnterry on Twitter.
This is a very useful post. I thought I set up our page incorrectly and I’ve been fumbling around to figure out how to utilize ways to attract fans. I have been connecting more with family on facebook than in person lately, so I see the value of keeping the profile personal, and keeping the page separate for our local business. It will be good to learn more about how to use this in a targeted way. Best, Mary
Follow me @mrschimneyguy on Twitter.
The FTC regulations have always applied online (including blogs and Social Media). The pending changes are strictly to the guide which helps explain the law. The law itself isn’t actually changing at all.
There are a few of ways to promote your page. You can post your page to your personal profile by clicking the “Share” link at the very bottom of the left-hand sidebar, you can add a “fan box widget” to your site by clicking the link under your page’s image in the left-hand sidebar, or you can use the “suggest to friends” feature found just a couple of lines below the fan box link. That will pop open a window allowing you to choose friends to send an invitation to visit your page.
There is nothing wrong with networking with your personal profile, after all “Networking” is an option to display in your profile as one of the things you are looking for on Facebook. The restrictions which Facebook has added relating to commercial gain with one’s personal profile is most likely aimed at sponsored updates and the like.
I wrote up a brief post about the FTC regulations relating to online ads/endorsements/testimonials on my blog recently. It has some relevant links to the FTC regulations and how they apply online. Click my name for a direct link to the article if you wish to read it.
Hope this was helpful. Take care!
Thank you Burnman – I’ll definitely give that article a read.
I have seen the options to promote your page, but none of those actually add a link to your page from your Profile – which is ideal.
The purpose of a Page on Facebook is to meet new people and draw them INTO ClickNewz – so I don’t see the point of leading readers OUT of ClickNewz to ‘fan a page’ when they’d get better updates by subscribing here. It’s backwards… and it’s slanted in Facebook’s favor – not in the user’s favor.
Follow me @lynnterry on Twitter.
Thanks for clarifying this issue with your perspective; it makes a lot of sense to me, especially since I was never really sure how the two worked (or didn’t work) together.
I remember setting up a Page when it was first announced, but honestly never could figure out how to get to it (until recently). And while I’ve had a Profile for a while, it’s only been within the past two months that I’ve taken the time to login and post occasionally. FB may be all the rage, but it’s still not as user friendly (in my opinion) as other social sites I belong to.
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Unfortunately, the two – pages and profiles – DON’T really work together very well. I do hope they’ll make changes to that in the next update.
Follow me @lynnterry on Twitter.
This is actually new to me. A lot of marketers use Facebook profiles to promote their business. I think, even though the rule is indicated in TOS, Facebook is not that strict about it. After all, they allow Fan pages to do promotion. If they ban people for the “commercial purposes,” then why make Fan pages in the first place?
Maybe business should stick with the Fan pages if they really do use FB for their commercial gain, just to be sure.
Right Louise – that was actually the point of this post. We’re discussing how many marketers are dumping all of their business friends from their personal profiles and encouraging them to “fan” their Facebook PAGE instead.
Follow me @lynnterry on Twitter.
I certainly see no reason to dump anyone off of “personal profiles”, specially when promoting a blog. A blog is suppose to has the personal connection with readers. Now, ensuring that you do make some distinct separation between the blog and yourself as the author is important. Reason being, you would want to be able to separate yourself from the blog easily in case some one was interested in purchasing your blog. In all reality to me, everything is for sale.. for the right price of course. So, always have yourself set up to make this as easy as possible.
But, as you stated before, the trick is getting your “friends” to “fan” your page.
To each their own I suppose. My blog is NOT for sale, and never will be
Follow me @lynnterry on Twitter.
Hi Lynn, great post. I listened to your commentary on this subject with Paul Colligan on IMTW. My take – Facebook shouldn’t be a place where you are giving a hard sell — but then again there are few places on the web where the hard sell works. I think Facebook is making a mistake here as they are competing with networks like Twitter that encourage commercial discussions.
Currently I have been updating my facebook profile with my latest blog posts — these are mainly “how to” and informational posts intended to help my target market. I think it would be a shame if they penalized me for it.
So do I. And I agree with you on the hard sell point – I don’t use Facebook for any real marketing. Mainly networking & updates. But the TOS needs to be clarified. Especially if it’s scaring people into dumping all their friends and forcing them to “become a fan of you” instead of “adding you as a friend”. It’s a strange move in my opinion, and I’m not following suit…
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I assume you could get the comments from the pages by having an application mail it to you.
If you ever get any details on that, let me know.
Follow me @lynnterry on Twitter.
Interesting article. You’re way ahead of me on the Facebook Fanpage thing, Lynn. I really appreciate your going into such depth about it here on your site.
Regarding Facebook’s TOS, Ed Dale may be operating as an alarmist. I’m sure that these TOS haven’t changed since the day I joined Facebook back in 2004, when it was pretty brand new.
I actually do wish that FB had a spam filter by certain words and phrases. I have become less enamored with Facebook, over time. Frequently, after befriending someone there, I’m inundated with “join my business” or “buy this affiliate product that is helping me rake in easy cash” and it sounds so hype-ish. The application invites are starting to drive me a little bit crazy too. Most of that has to do with Facebook’s loopy user interface which frequently causes my mind to boggle.
I’ve always been accused of being a literal person but I don’t see anything in the TOS that prohibits someone from updating their status with a link to their own business. It merely says that the status update cannot be sold to an advertiser.
I’ve recently been fascinated by the sale of Twitter accounts with built up friends for phoenomenal amounts of money. Talk about Internet Real Estate values! I’ve wondered if the person’s Twutter URL is actually owned by the Twitter account holder or Twitter itself?
When I first got started with social networking, I was encouraged to join Yuwie, Myspace and Direct Matches. My social networking “mentor” barely gave honorable mention to sites like Linked in and Facebook where I already had social networking profiles, indicating they were for people with corporate jobs.
Since I had a FB account already, I re-purposed for business. LinkedIn has proven to be a great resource for networking and business building, at least for me. Although I still check MySpace on occasion, I never log into Yuwie anymore and my Direct Matches inbox was full within 24 hours of creating a profile with spammy offers so I closed the account.
Once upon a time, someone told me that YouTube was the most popular search engine on the internet. YouTube didn’t qualify as a search engine, in my mind, so I decided to evaluate that using Google trends. That research resulted in a post on my own blog about Social Networks that discussed the differences, as I perceive them, and how to go about using social networks for business.
“alarmist”
Off to check out your article. I have thoughts posted on YouTube as a search engine here as well: http://www.clicknewz.com/1751/youtube-as-second-largest-search-engine/
I log in to Facebook with blinders on. I don’t do apps, and I don’t join groups or events because these result in TONS of useless messages and I use it more as a means to stay in touch with certain people.
Thanks for the comment – enjoyed your thoughts!
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Good post Lynn. I enjoyed it.
I have a profile for me, Patty Gale, where I am connected to my family, friends, colleagues and where I ask new people to connect to. This is where my personal blog feeds into for notes.
Today, for example, was Emily’s first day back at school and one of the moms from school came up to us and said, “Wow, you guys are really doing some amazing things with your business.”
Granted, she’s not our audience, and I haven’t seen her all summer. However she may know people who are interested in what we are doing. You never know who is watching and paying attention.
I also have a fan page for my business. At first, I was using it to just post content. However, if it’s all about engaging our readers, then we must be interactive with them if we would like them to participate. A fan page sitting there doing nothing but accumulating fans is silly.
We started posing more questions and discussions and it’s really starting to create some great interactions and interest.
I totally agree about the Facebook profile / fan page link issue. There are a couple of FB apps, one called “Extended Info” another called “My Stuff” and another (of which the name escapes me at the moment), in which you can add html.
So, what I did was add the html to hyperlink our fan page logo with the link directly to the fan page and it displays in the sidebox on my profile.
This way, when I connect with someone new, they’ll have direct access to the fan page if they want to join us for business. I occasionally post a profile status update like, “Hey, come join us over at our fan page”, but nothing more than that, no direct promotion.
The majority of our audience is on Facebook, so it’s been a great way for us to reach them, connect with them to build the relationship and then ‘market’ to them via our fan page and our main website.
Our fans are building and we are also combining offline marketing into this mix as well.
Keeping it personal, yet professional is key on your profile page, unless of course, you are on Facebook for pure social reasons.
At the same time, I do not want to become a slave to Facebook, either, so I’ve really disciplined myself with the amount of time I spend on there.
Lynn, I told my husband about the egg timer story you mentioned a number of years ago and he thought that was a great idea, so we started doing something similar. Not specifically with an egg timer, but with allowing ourselves only a specific slotted time each day to spend networking on FB.
Hi Patty,
Really enjoyed your thoughts on this.
Thanks for the heads-up on the apps to add your page to your profile – I wasn’t aware of those! Off to check that out and see if I can get mine connected…
Follow me @lynnterry on Twitter.
You’re welcome, Lynn!
The whole link (or lack thereof) btwn profiles and pages has confused me too. I have both, but they don’t work together. I think the nuance that was pointed out here, that difference between a friend and a fan, is so important. To dump your friends into your fans is a cocky, insensitive thing to do. Not to mention that it makes you look like some demi-god and your “friends” now your loyal followers. Look what a social app can do to confuse our relationships!
LOL – love your points, Lydia!
Follow me @lynnterry on Twitter.
Hi Lynn,
I just recently started following you on Twitter and I must say that I find your posts very productive and informative and extremely helpful.
Unlike the rest who simply throw their product links in my face, I find your approach of making a difference for others rather attractive and it is the same philosophy that I adapt.
My take on this is to create a fan page that will promote you as a person who genuinely cares to add value to other people. When people feel that they are being taken care of, then they will naturally start taking interest in what you are promoting – be it your own products or affiliate products. Establishing rapport is the single most important thing in the marketing domain, be it internet marketing or otherwise and it is my personal opinion that those that identify themselves by their products always have a short lived success.
So I would create a fan page to promote myself as an individual difference maker and have people move from the personal profile to the fan page. This way, the people in your personal profile that don’t want anything to do with marketing don’t have to be bombarded with your Facebook feeds that deal with the area of marketing.
My two cents
Thank you for being a difference maker, you are one of just a handful that are genuinely worth following.
Thank you, Ketan
I’m still not in love with the idea of creating a “Lynn Terry Fan Club” on Facebook, and rather like having a page set up for ClickNewz Fans instead. I think I’ll stick with that – and of course being my friendly personable self on the page there the same as I am on my profile
Follow me @lynnterry on Twitter.
facebook really helps huh maybe i should create a facebook and twitter page
Lynn – just gotta say, I reeeeeeeeallly love your approach. I too reckon “each to his/her own.” There are no hard and fast rules as to how anyone markets their business… or uses social media.
I do think, however, that something has become misconstrued along the way. After reading (and leaving my $0.02 too!) on both Ed and Paul’s posts, I’m a wee bit puzzled by the approach of dumping friends in favor of fans only.
Frankly, I wish Facebook would increase the 5000 limit – I heard from Robert Scoble way early this year that Facebook planned to up the limit in 2009. Fingers crossed.
Thing is, I do far more *real* networking among my friends by liking/commenting on their activity in my News Feed (conveniently arranged into logical Friend Lists), posting on their wall, observing what they’re up to (e.g. collecting micro-nuggets of data to store in my massive mental rolodex via ambient awareness). With a tiny list of friends, none of this lifestream would be coming to me… well, except via Twitter but that’s a different experience.
Facebook friendships are reciprocal – personal profiles are a closed system. We have to mutually agree to be friends so we are paying attention to each other (or at least have the option to!). Whereas on Fan Pages and on Twitter, it’s an open system – relationships are non-reciprocal: you can fan/follow whomever you want but they don’t have to fan/follow you back.
As to the recent addition to Facebook’s TOS, I believe your interpretation re the FTC rules is spot on. Facebook are simply CYA at this juncture. Also, I recently saw news of some scammer type literally selling Facebook friends (same dealio with selling Twitter followers).
See, I find it fascinating that Facebook actually went a step further to qualify what they mean by the recent TOS addition “…such as selling your status update to an advertiser.” Frankly, given how closely Facebook monitor Twitter’s activity, I’m guessing this example comes from observing likes of Magpie Advertising.
Anyway, all is well in Facebookland. I’m changing nothing about my strategy; it’s served me well since early 2007. Thanks for putting up such a great post and providing much food for thought! You ROCK!
Cheers,
@marismith
P.S. The #1 reason to have a Facebook Fan Page? For TOP search engine ranking – Pages are the *only* feature inside Facebook to be fully indexed by Google and Facebook currently has an Alexa ranking of 3!! Hmmmmmmm!!
Brilliant point, and well said Mari!
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Hey Lynn,
I’m finally back from vacation (5 weeks – my longest ever!) and of course I need to get caught up on the ClickNewz Nuggets you’ve provided.
I wanted to offer a tip for you on linking from your profile to your fan page, and from anywhere else for that matter.
First, you should get a unique URL for both (assuming you have over 100 fans, which you do). I have Facebook.com/BobJenkins for my profile, and Facebook.com/BobTheTeacher for my fan page. Set up your “vanity” URL at http://www.facebook.com/username/
Next step is to use the little box on your profile, under your photo, where you currently have your age, mom to two cool kids….author of ClickNewz, you could replace that with your new facebook URL. You can also have multiple websites listed in your Contact Info (although no way to hyperlink a call to action link, which would be a great improvement).
See ya!
Bob Jenkins
Follow me @bobtheteacher on Twitter.
Welcome back, Bob!
Done – and done:
http://www.facebook.com/clicknewz
I already had http://www.facebook.com/lynnterry but for some reason I was thinking I needed 500 fans for the URL change on the page. Appreciate you clearing that up for me!
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Pssst – good news, Facebook recently moved the minimum number of required fans to get a username back down from 100 to just 25!! Good to know for any peeps pushing hard to get that 100.
Haha! That’s too funny. All this time, I thought the Facebook fan page requirement was still 100.
What a fabulous conversation! I also was mortified at the thought of dropping all my friends and telling them to become fans. I still believe that the know, like and trust factor accounts for something, but I suppose you have all convinced me of the value of a fan page as well.
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Ditto Gina – I can’t imagine ditching my “friends”
There’s a place for both profiles AND pages. I’ll be glad when they make it easier to connect the two, and provide updates for pages!
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Lynn,
Now that you have your fan page URL as Clicknewz it shows up as #5 on Google search for clicknewz and it has a double indented listing. When searching Lynn Terry, your profile page is not in the page one or two results. In my opinion the main reason for a Facebook Fan page is for the search engine juice and also a way for people on facebook to find out about your business or blog.
Facebook pages also seem to be a favorite for Facebook search.
Search Cl and my fan page shows up, Search Cli and your fan page shows up. I think that is pretty cool.
I have a tighter friending policy for my profile page since sometimes when I accepted a friend request, I would then get a promotion on my wall, invites in facebook mail and chat requests to recruit clients.
I am not ready to unfriend all my Facebook friends that I do not know in real life and have a few new friends that have provided valuable information to me regarding their speciality when I asked their opinion.
Enjoyed reading your perspective and all the comments.
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That’s not new though – and it’s the original facebook URL, not the new /clicknewz URL. There are just a lot less pages/results for “clicknewz” than for “lynn terry”
I’ll have to do some research on the SEO aspect. I hear that thrown around a lot but I’ve yet to test it myself – or see any proof.
Follow me @lynnterry on Twitter.
Lynn, I think you have found a good solution. I have been backed up on IMTW episode until this weekend. I went through the portion where you and Paul were discussing this. I have always had a problem with “hey, come be my fan!” Think about it. That just has a really arrogant sound attached to it. However, by having a ClickNewz fan page – rather than Lynn Terry – I think you circumvent a lot of that.
I am of the camp that it is better to do your marketing with a Facebook page, rather than a profile. I do love Facebook. But, I use it primarily as a social tool to keep track of legitimate relationships – not as a marketing vehicle. But, if I were to use it as such, I would be more inclined to use a page to market.
I think it burns me a little bit when I hear marketers talk about Facebook as if it is a tool, exclusively, to sell and promote themselves. Because, for 99.99999% of the population, that is just not the case. So, you miss the mark competely when that becomes your sole objective. I actually get “turned off” when people try to use their profiles (and my newsfeed) for overtly marketing purposes. It’s a big negative for me. And, those people don’t stay my friends for long. If someone is going to do that, it needs to be on a Page. That’s my 2 cents on the subject. Enjoyed the discussion on this on IMTW. Good one, as always.
Thank you – and good point, Phil. I think it depends on your objective and your target market. The main problem with using a Page only is the lack of updates. I am really hoping Facebook will address that ASAP. It’s very UNsocial not to get notification of new notes & replies, and leaves you looking like you’re ignoring your “fans”…
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Hi Lyynn!
I’ve been on a bit of an information vacation, but I’m back. I just wanted to put my two cents in on this conversation. I have also decided that my profile will be for personal stuff and my fan page will be where I post my business information. I’ve met a lot of interesting people on FB who aren’t my “in real life” friends and I’m not quite ready to dump then and ask them to be fans. I think that’s kind of rude. Now when I get to that 5000 mark I’ll have to ask people to join my fan page because that will be the only choice, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.
Great post!
@deannatroupe
Follow me @deannatroupe on Twitter.
I think the problem is… that bridge is really hard to cross if you wait until you get to it. I’m hoping by the time I reach the 5k mark they will lift the restriction
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Seems I have to be creative in selecting what I’d call a fan page if I want to create one. It wouldn’t accept “Mitch Mitchell,” probably thinking it was for Jimi Hendrix former drummer. lol
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This is a superb discussion of this subject. I subscribe to the IMTW podcast and heard you and Paul go over this. I read (and left a comment on) Ed’s site.
To see all of the different viewpoints here Lynn, has been VERY helpful.
First of all, I think the world of Ed Dale. His (free) 30 Day Challenge is an incredible exchange in abundance with the online marketing world. But I think his advice on this subject is a bit off the mark.
THE example Facebook gives in their Terms of Service — “selling your update status” — is clearly a commercial activity.
Another obvious example would be building up a profile only to sell that “identity” to someone. There are other examples of this kind of clear-cut commercial activity that FB would definitely want to discourage. But I don’t think FB is out to get those of us who have a few business-related links on our profile page and from time to time refer to what we do in an update status.
For many of us, Ed’s advice is just not workable. He has a legion of “followers” and “friends,” many of whom will come and join his fan page. That works when you have that kind of sheer volume, but not so much for the rest of us.
And Lynn, your point about “be my fan” is very spot on. It’s just not the most in-PR way to communicate to people.
And Lynn pointed out the key issue here: We are who we are. If you’re an author, a health care professional, an Internet Marketer…you’re going to share that part of your life on your profile page. You may wish to provide links that bring people to your sites and blogs. From time to time, you’ll say things in your update status that are about what you DO.
I see Facebook evolving into a very positive blend of the personal and the professional. Sometimes a bit too personal; sometimes a bit too professional. But we’re all familiar with the highly effective “remove friend” tool.
I believe we are very capable of policing our own social media communities. Yes, it would be good if FB came out and made this Terms of Service point much clearer. In the meantime, I really like the sanity that this comment thread is giving this subject.
Follow me @standubin on Twitter.
Thank you Stan!
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Great debate. I have also seen many blogs topic regarding facebook page and facebook profile. I still say that facebook page is business oriented while profile is your personal