Facebook: Moving from Personal to Professional

[Greg]

My Facebook account includes family, friends and a few IM colleagues (Hi Lynn!). When I created my Facebook account I had no intent on using it for social networking or marketing.

If you have a Facebook account for personal (family) use, how do you transition to using it for professional (marketing). Is it as simple as creating a separate account?

-Greg

[angienewton]

Greg,
Actually you have to have a personal FB account to get a business page. All you need to do is add a page and name it. Then once you get 25 people to like it, you can get your URL.

For example, my personal profile is http://www.facebook.com/angienewton and one of my business pages is http://www.facebook.com/losingitandlovingit (you can have multiple business pages on FB). You can find the link to create a page at the bottom of your main profile.

[Greg]

Excellent.

Thanks Angie. You have been "Liked". :)

[Lynn Terry]

Same here Greg. My personal profile is facebook.com/lynnterry but my professional Facebook Page is at http://www.facebook.com/lynnterrybiz

[Greg]

Yep Lynn, I see I have you under "My Pages". I need to spend more time on FB. There is too much here I haven't discovered.

[jedha]

Greg,

How did you go with creating your facebook page? You don't have to have a personal profile to do this, you used to but that has changed. If you are logged out of your profile you can go directly to http://www.facebook.com/pages/ and sign up. If you create a page from your profile just make sure you switch users when you want to use your business page.

Good luck!

[Greg]

Looks like I already created a page, although it's not published yet. I probably did this after Lynn alerted me (us) to the Facebook page functionality. Right then, on to more learning...

[lindastacy]

For me, the process of setting up my business page was the easy part. The hard part is figuring out how to re-connect with the "business" people I was friends with my profile.

When I first started my page I asked my profile friends to like my business page if it was of interest to them, and many did. I also transferred many of my "likes" over to my business page. But the one thing I can't do is initiate a connection from my page with "business" people who still do business under a profile. So for example Greg, until you get your page set up, even if I find your profile on Facebook there's no way for me to make a connection under my page id - I can't send a friend request through my page, and as a page, I can't "like" a personal profile.

I can understand why it's set up that way. There's way to much potential for abuse if business pages could send connection requests to personal profiles. This is another good argument for using pages instead of profiles for business. If you have a page, I can initiate business contact with you by liking it.

[BrandonB]

I'm currently investigating FB as a communications & networking medium for the UW Library. I currently maintain a single profile and try to keep it as professional as possible but there are obviously personal elements to it..

[Charlotte]

My issue is that my Facebook account is full of personal updates (family and kids) that I would not want to necessarily share with a wider friend network. Can I use a page for this wider audience or do I need to combine both and post less peronal information on my personal account?

[angienewton]

Charlotte, you definitely want to start a business page on Facebook. You don't have to tell those on your personal profile list if you don't want to but I would. Just say something like, you want to respect their time on your personal profile so you started a business page and would like to invite them there if they have an interest in ________.

[Anita Shaw]

I started a page for the romance author me, Neenah Davis-Wilson. I've done nothing with it, because I'm afraid a bunch of personal posts will show up on my author page once I invite all my friends and family. I'd like to set up pages for the books themselves.

Still trying to figure out things . . .

[Greg]

I'm thinking this topic might make a good blog post for somebody. :)

[wisden]

Facebook is professional for many and personal for many, though its not yet as professional as Linkedin.

[angienewton]

You can't really mess it up I don't think. I would go ahead an grab your username now since you no longer have to wait for 25 likes to get the name you want to get. You will sign in to your personal profile to set up a page but it won't be linked to your personal profile that others can see unless you specifically link to it. Make sense?

When you first set up a fan page, I would recommend jumping right in and keeping the page active. Post to it every day and interact with your readers. They may not even come out and talk right away and it may seem like you are just talking to yourself but it will grow.

Hope this helps!

[Charlotte]

You can't really mess it up I don't think. I would go ahead an grab your username now since you no longer have to wait for 25 likes to get the name you want to get. You will sign in to your personal profile to set up a page but it won't be linked to your personal profile that others can see unless you specifically link to it. Make sense?



It till says on my page that I need 25 Likes; is there some way now of getting round this?

[wisden]

I use Facebook to keep in touch with people who I know or have met in person.